Fashion in short refers to the style which is currently popular. Different people have different perspectives on this. For some people, being trendy is essential, while for others keeping up with the trend is not that essential, they want to stick to their style, mostly. There’s a common thought about fashion that all of us are aware of that fashion always recycles.
Over 100 years, fashion has grown drastically and also kept old trends alive in their ways. From the 1950s to our new modern style of the 2000s fashion is a revival of the cycle of infinity. The fashion of old times also helps us to know about the history and the cultures during a particular era.
Fashion during old times:
In the 1700s people in France used to look at fashion magazines for hours to learn about new styles. This trend was widespread throughout Europe. For year’s clothes were used for dividing people into groups of expensive and inexpensive clothes. Even today in some places of society we continue this trend of categorising groups according to fashion sense.
Everybody has their fashion sense of their choice and differing from you doesn’t make them any low category. Being different in the fashion sense simply means they are being their unique selves with their comfortable fashion zones. Let the personality speak for a human being, not clothes.
Why do you think fashion change with time?
The answer is probably very simple. Just like people change over time and so does fashion. The new ones replace the old ones. Even the stars from popular culture keep searching for new angles for their popularity, so the audience doesn’t get bored. These new angles come as fashion like new clothes or hairstyles.
Evolution in fashion world since Y2K:
Today fashion is like redefining the cultures of the 1980s and 1990s. Hipster culture is back into the fashion world with cardigans and rounded glasses. During the early 2000s, old fashion was all coming back into play like Baby Tees, velour tracksuits, denim Baguette bags, etc. The decade began by bidding goodbye to formal wear and welcoming leisure fashion. In this decade people are very influenced by popular culture and also by the tv shows they watch.
People look up to their favourite characters to imitate their fashion sense. Therefore, TV show characters play a huge role in influencing fashion. In the early 2000s, people were immensely influenced by the internet. Social media platforms played a big role in the world of fashion. Television shows like American Idol had a huge fan base of fashionistas. Singers like Kelly Clarkson were looked up to by many. The Y2K decade started with a more futuristic view.
Baggy cargo and bell-bottoms for women were in ongoing fashion since the past. The 2000s also saw a return of the tracksuit trend from the 80s. Hip-hop got popular among audience like Billionaire Boys show. People couldn’t live a day without seeing their branded tee-shirts.
From 2000 to 2010 celebrity obsessions started growing more and more with pop stars like Taylor Swift, Rihana and also from fashion TV shows like Friends and Sex and the City and even Disney stars like Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus and Jonas’s brothers did a big play in alluring audience.
In popular social platforms like Instagram street styles gained huge popularity, which gave birth to a new side of shopping for street style fashion photographers and fashionistas. If you were a Gossip Girl fan, you owe one pair of low-rise Capri jeans that looked like Leighton Meester’s. Isn’t it?
The 2010s were a mixture and new and old fashion, which also portrays how fashion has changed. Just like our society and economy changes, fashion also keeps evolving. Today fashion trends are not just defined by the fashion forecasters. Trends are the products of careful calculations that take place from forecasting, manufacturing to production at different levels of the fashion industry.
In the Teen choice Award show in 2015, Blake Lively wore the ruched top and stretchy dress which is everywhere since then. The leggings which are so-called associated with “at leisure fashion” was worn with anything and everything back then. Sabyasachi Mukherjee celebrated plus-size fashion in his summer 2020 campaign, which made a wider part of the Indian society.
In a survey with the prime minister, Rebecca Reubens, the founder of Principal Designer tries to highlight the local crafts and remarks that
“Craft is important to sustainability because it is local. The income which you earn for local production stays in the local economy. Also, the craftspeople have a livelihood owing to crafts. If they don’t earn enough money through craft skills, they distress-migrate.
When industrialization happened, people started shifting to ready-made industrialised products, thus, craft people’s work decreased. When they don’t have the scope of livelihood, they migrate. Not because they want to, but because they have no other prospects.”
With the rise of artificial intelligence, it’s becoming easier for brands to reach out to consumers from any part of the world without worrying about the geographical location. In an annual survey of the $3 trillion fashion industry, consulting firm McKinsey predicted AI would increasingly influence the business of everything from design to manufacturing from now on. In this new decade, robots are also getting into play in the world of fashion marketing.
Sohiny Das, co-founder of Grain Consultancy says that “Fashion is a form of expression and storytelling, which are pillars of the arts. The biggest star of fashion in the last two decades has been social media. It has changed everything, created new icons, shaken the foundation of old establishments and pushed fashion from being ‘exclusive’ towards becoming ‘inclusive’.
It has shrunk the globe onto a palmtop device, and we can access style from any part of the world, sitting in our homes. Social media has changed the way of act, design and style. It is the lifeblood of 21st-century fashion.” Fashion is intertwined with the art and culture of society which tells us about the history of decades.
“Fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life.”
– Bill Cunningham