Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person. The more technical term, costume, has become so linked in the public eye with the term "fashion" that the more general term "costume" has in popular use mostly been relegated to special senses like
fancy dress or
masquerade wear, while the term "fashion" means clothing generally, and the study of it. For a broad
cross-cultural look at clothing and its place in society, refer to the entries for clothing, costume and fabrics. The remainder of this article deals with clothing fashions in the
Western world.
Early Western travelers, whether to
Persia,
Turkey or
China frequently remark on the absence of changes in fashion there, and observers from these other cultures comment on the unseemly pace of Western fashion, which many felt suggested an instability and lack of order in Western culture. The Japanese
Shogun's secretary boasted (not completely accurately) to a Spanish visitor in 1609 that
Japanese clothing had not changed in over a thousand years.
However in
Ming China, for example, there is considerable evidence for rapidly changing fashions in
Chinese clothing.
Changes in costume often took place at times of economic or social change (such as in
ancient Rome and the medieval
Caliphate), but then a long period without major changes followed. This occurred in
Moorish Spain from the 8th century, when the famous musician
Ziryab introduced sophisticated clothing styles based on seasonal and daily timings from his native
Baghdad and his own inspiration to
Córdoba, Spain.
Similar changes in fashion occurred in the Middle East from the 11th century, following the arrival of the
Turks who introduced clothing styles from
Central Asia and the
Far East.
The beginnings of the habit in Europe of continual and increasingly rapid change in clothing styles can be fairly reliably dated to the middle of the
14th century, to which historians including
James Laver and
Fernand Braudel date the start of Western fashion in clothing. The most dramatic manifestation was a sudden drastic shortening and tightening of the male over-garment, from
calf-length to barely covering the
buttocks, sometimes accompanied with stuffing on the chest to look bigger. This created the distinctive Western male outline of a tailored top worn over leggings or trousers.
The pace of change accelerated considerably in the following century, and women and men's fashion, especially in the dressing and adorning of the hair, became equally complex and changing.
Art historians are therefore able to use fashion in dating images with increasing confidence and precision, often within five years in the case of 15th century images. Initially changes in fashion led to a fragmentation of what had previously been very similar styles of dressing across the upper classes of Europe, and the development of distinctive national styles. These remained very different until a counter-movement in the 17th to 18th centuries imposed similar styles once again, mostly originating from
Ancien Régime France.
Though the rich usually led fashion, the increasing affluence of
early modern Europe led to the
bourgeoisie and even
peasants following trends at a distance sometimes uncomfortably close for the elites - a factor Braudel regards as one of the main motors of changing fashion.
Ten 16th century portraits of
German or
Italian gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats, and at this period national differences were at their most pronounced, as
Albrecht Dürer recorded in his actual or composite contrast of
Nuremberg and
Venetian fashions at the close of the 15th century (
illustration, right). The "Spanish style" of the end of the century began the move back to synchronicity among upper-class Europeans, and after a struggle in the mid 17th century, French styles decisively took over leadership, a process completed in the 18th century.
Though colors and patterns of textiles changed from year to year,
the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the pattern to which a lady's dress was cut changed more slowly. Men's fashions largely derived from
military models, and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the "Steinkirk"
cravat or
necktie.
The pace of change picked up in the 1780s with the increased publication of French engravings that showed the latest Paris styles; though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France as patterns since the 16th century, and
Abraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion from the 1620s. By 1800, all
Western Europeans were dressing alike (or thought they were): local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and then a badge of the conservative peasant.
Although tailors and dressmakers were no doubt responsible for many innovations before, and the
textile industry certainly led many trends, the
history of fashion design is normally taken to date from 1858, when the English-born
Charles Frederick Worth opened the first true
haute couture house in Paris. Since then the professional designer has become a progressively more dominant figure, despite the origins of many fashions in street fashion. For women the
flapper styles of the 1920s marked the most major alteration in styles for several centuries, with a drastic shortening of skirt lengths, and much looser-fitting clothes; with occasional revivals of long skirts forms of the shorter length have remained dominant ever since. The four major current
fashion capitals are acknowledged to be
Milan,
New York City,
Paris, and
London.
Fashion weeks are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences, and which are all headquarters to the greatest fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion.
Modern
Westerners have a wide choice available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that person's
personality or likes. When people who have cultural
status start to wear new or different clothes a fashion trend may start. People who like or respect them may start to wear clothes of a similar style.
Fashions may vary considerably within a
society according to
age,
social class,
generation,
occupation, and
geography as well as over time. If, for example, an older person dresses according to the fashion of young people, he or she may look ridiculous in the eyes of both young and older people. The terms 'fashionista' or
fashion victim refer to someone who slavishly follows the current fashions.
One can regard the system of sporting various fashions as a fashion
language incorporating various fashion statements using a
grammar of fashion. (Compare some of the work of
Roland Barthes.)
What do Japanese people wear?
During its early history, Japan adopted Chinese culture, directly or through Korea, including styles of dress. Basic garments were a short tunic or jacket and full trousers, which continued for centuries to be the attire of peasants and servants. In the 7th century the nobility adopted the silk kimono (gown), from the Chinese p'ao or its Korean variant, for court wear. A painting of the pro-Chinese Prince Shotoku shows him in a long brocade coat (the Korean tsurumagi) worn over long trousers with a handsome belt, sword, and wallet. Court ladies wore long, high-necked gowns with long hanging sleeves over trousers. Both sexes used face powder and rouge, and blackened their teeth.
During the Heian period (8th-12th century) elaborate court dress developed, based on Chinese principles of rank indicated by color and design.
Men wore several dark kimonos, fastened on the right, with long, wide sleeves and elaborate girdles, and hakama- full, skirtlike trousers) gathered at the ankles. Kimono sleeves and hakama could be shortened by cords to allow for free movement, during uprisings, for example. Similarly, the kamishimo (stiff garments with winglike extensions), later worn by nobles and samurai over the kimono, could be shrugged off for combat. Heads were shaved almost bare and covered with black lacquered silk hats with stiff projections.
Beautiful and talented women dominated the court of the late Heian, or Fujiwara, period (9th-12th century). Scrolls illustrating Lady Mura-saki's Tales of Genji show delicate ladies in 12 or more airy layers of enormously wide, long kimonos, tied in front with a narrow obi (sash) and trailing over full scarlet hakama, with their unbound hair, often artificially lengthened by added hair, streaming down behind them. Enormous care was spent by both men and women to achieve the right color harmonies of the silks, woven under imperial supervision, according to the season or as inspired by a poem.
Eventually, as Japan became more militaristic and nationalistic, dress became somewhat simpler. During the Tokugawa period (17th-19th- century), men and women wore a floor-length kimono made of 6 strips of 18-inch cloth basted together (to be taken apart for cleaning). It had a roll collar, a "V" neck closing on the right, and hanging sleeves sewed partly up the sides to be used as pockets. Beneath the kimono was an under kimono, with a shirt and loincloth for men and petticoats for women. The kimono was held in place by a wide obi elaborately tied in back. The cotton or silk materials for these garments, as seen in woodcuts of the time, were exquisitely printed or embroidered with striking naturalistic designs. For outdoor and formal wear, a haori, a knee-length black silk coat, printed with white man (family crests), was worn over the kimono. Court ceremonial also required dark silk hakama. Footgear consisted of white cotton tabi (mitten-socks) and, for outdoor wear, sandals or clogs. Women's hair was lacquered into elaborate shapes and ornamented with combs, pins, and flowers.
Peasants wore cotton trousers or white loincloths and happi (short coats). Happi designs, usually white on indigo, identified one's occupation. Women added aprons and often kerchiefs. Both sexes wore sandals, straw raincoats, and wide straw hats. Traditional dress is often worn in villages, for ceremonies, or at home, and is preserved in No and Kabuki theater.
Laver's Law
Laver's Law says that fashions have a timeline and are considered to be:
Laver's Law |
| Indecent | 10 years before its time |
| Shameless | 5 years before its time |
| Daring | 1 year before its time |
| Smart | ---------- |
| Dowdy | 1 year after its time |
| Hideous | 10 years after its time |
| Ridiculous | 20 years after its time |
| Amusing | 30 years after its time |
| Quaint | 50 years after its time |
| Charming | 70 years after its time |
| Romantic | 100 years after its time |
| Beautiful | 150 years after its time |
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