Fashion A fashion consists of a current (constantly changing) trend, favoured for frivolous rather than practical, logical, or intellectual reasons. Fields prone to fashions Fashions are social psychology phenomena common to many fields of human activity and thinking. Although that concept frequently applies to clothes and other aspects of appearance, it can apply also to: music, art, politics, philosophy and even to mathematics, the choice of programming techniques, and also economic trends, such as those studied in behavioral finance, and so on Fashion exists in the interstices of aesthetics with innovation, coupled with pleasing details and expense. Fashion and variation Fashion in clothes has allowed wearers to express emotion or solidarity with other people for millennia. Modern Westerners have a wide choice available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect their 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 significantly 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 term "fashion victim" refers to someone who slavishly follows the current fashions (implementations of fashion).. 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.) Fashion and the process of change Fashion, by definition, changes constantly. The change may proceed more rapidly than in most other fields of human activity (language, thought, etc). For some, modern fast-paced change in fashion embodies many of the negative aspects of capitalism: it results in waste and encourages people qua consumers to buy things unnecessarily. Others, especially young people, enjoy the diversity that changing fashion can apparently provide, seeing the constant change as a way to satisfy their desire to experience "new" and "interesting" things. Note too though that fashion can change to enforce uniformity, as in the case where so-called Mao suits became the national uniform of Mainland China. Materially affluent societies can offer a variety of different fashions, in clothes or accessories, to choose from. At the same time there remains an equal or larger range designated (at least currently) 'out of fashion'. (These or similar fashions may cyclically come back 'into fashion' in due course, and remain 'in fashion' again for a while.) Practically every aspect of appearance that can be changed has been changed at some time. In the past, new discoveries and lesser-known parts of the world could provide an impetus to change fashions based on the exotic: Europe in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, for example, might favour things Turkish at one time, things Chinese at another, and things Japanese at a third. The global village has reduced the options of exotic novelty in more recent times. Fashion houses and their associated fashion designers, as well as high-status consumers (including celebrities), appear to have some role in determining the rates and directions of fashion change. Fashion and status Fashion can suggest or signal status in a social group. Groups with high cultural status like to keep 'in fashion' to display their position; people who do not keep 'in fashion' within a so-called "style tribe" can risk shunning (see also peer pressure). Because keeping 'in fashion' often requires considerable amounts of money, fashion can be used to show off wealth (compare conspicuous consumption). Adherence to fashion trends can thus form an index of social affluence and an indicator of social mobility. Fashion can help attract a partner. As well as showing certain features of a person's personality that appeal to prospective mates, keeping up with fashion can advertise a person's status to such candidates. "Fashion sense" consists of the ability to tell what clothing and/or accessories look good and what doesn't. Since the entire notion of fashion depends on subjectivity, so does the question of who possesses "fashion sense". Some people style themselves as "fashion consultants" and charge clients to help the latter choose what to wear. Designers show the public what is new and in style by using people who do Fashion Modeling to display the clothing. Image consultants help people revamp or create fashion sense. Fashion can operate differently depending on gender, or it can promote homogeneity as in unisex styles. Classification of fashions Ethnically-based fashions: Chinoiserie Orientalism Primitivism Modern underground fashion: Cyberpunk fashion Punk fashion Gothic fashion Death rock fashion Black metal fashion Industrial fashion BDSM fashion / Fetish fashion Hip hop fashion See also Art movement Art styles, periods and movements Cyberprep fashion Fad Fashion police fashion designer Fashion Modeling Haute couture i-wear Marketing Planned obsolescence (business) Trench coat Safari jacket Ski jacket Steven Cojocaru Further reading The chapter on Fashion in Georg Simmel, on Individuality & Social Forms, Selected Writings, Georg Simmel, edited by Donald N. Levine, University of Chicago Press, 1971, hardcover, 393 pages, ISBN 0226757757 FAVORITE ARTICLES: History of the World    History of the United States    History of Europe    Ancient History    History    Military History    World War I    Bombing of Dresden    California    US Constitution    Frank Sinatra    Boston    Marbury v. 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