What is Fashion

Fashion is a general term for a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, body piercing, or furniture. Fashion refers to a distinctive and often habitual trend in the style in which a person dresses or to prevailing styles in behavior. Fashion also refers to the newest creations of textile designers. The more technical term costume has become so linked to the term "fashion" that the use of the former has been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while "fashion" means clothing more generally, including the study of it. Although aspects of fashion can be feminine or masculine, some trends are androgynous.Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey, India, or China, would frequently remark on the absence of change in fashion there, and observers from these other cultures commented on the unseemly pace of Western fashion, which many felt suggested an instability and a 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, there is considerable evidence in Ming Chinaof rapidly changing fashions in Chinese clothing.[5] Changes in costume often took place at times of economic or social change, as occurred in ancient Rome and the medievalCaliphate, but then a long period without major changes would follow. In 8th century Moorish Spain the famous musician Ziryab introduced to Córdoba in Al-Andalus sophisticatedclothing-styles based on seasonal and daily fashions from his native Baghdad, modified by his own inspiration. Similar changes in fashion occurred in the 11th century in the Middle East following the arrival of the Turks who introduced clothing styles from Central Asia and the Far East.

Carmen Miranda has launched the fashion of platform shoe.

Albrecht Durer's drawing contrasts a well turned out bourgeoise from Nuremberg(left) with her counterpart from Venice. The Venetian lady's high chopines make her look taller.

In the 16th century national differences were at their most pronounced. Ten 16th century portraits of German or Italian gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats. Albrecht Dürerillustrated the differences in his actual (or composite) contrast of Nuremberg and Venetianfashions at the close of the 15th century (illustration, right). The "Spanish style" of the late 16th 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 textile colors and patterns changed from year to year,s 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 were largely derived from military models, and changes in a European male silhouette were galvanized in theaters of European war where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles such as the "Steinkirk" cravat ornecktie.

Though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France since the 16th century andAbraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion in the 1620s, the pace of change picked up in the 1780s with increased publication of French engravings illustrating the latest Paris styles. By 1800, all Western Europeans were dressing alike (or thought they were); local variation became first a sign of provincial culture and later a badge of the conservative peasant.

Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, leader of fashion.

Fashion

Beauty of Fashion

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What is FASHION