History of Fashion Essay

modality has always been a reflection of the collective ken and unconsciousness of society. In politically conservative sequences, sort reflects the staidness of the majority, only when also the subversive elements of the minority. No less a controversial figure than ability Louis XIV of France was rumored to meet said that air was a mirror. Music, take ins, and television, all potent pop tillage mirrors in their own right of the anxieties, hopes, and dreams of any society, all collectively form a synergistic relationship with stylus, to each one informing, influencing, and cross-pollinating the others in various turns.Fashion is also a pop socialisation manifestation of the intellect and cultural trend of post methodrnism. Fashion depends on vernalness summer, fall, winter, spring are seasons that occur inexorably each year, and with them, the get hold of for new fashion lines. The inexhaustible hunger for new ideas and inspirations in fashion and other pop glossin ess arenas leads inevitably to cannibalization, plagiarism, re-contextualization, and re-imagination of ideas past and present the essence of postmodernism.If we survey the landscape of where pop culture and fashion have been, we can to some degree predict the elements which may define where it lead go, though in the postmodern universe of the 21st century, it is next to im attainable to predict what incarnations will come to pass. Fashion is the byproduct of a leisure society that has transcended many of the basic human struggles on the lower level of Maslows hierarchy of Needs.Most people in prosperous Western nations are fortunate enough to lead lives in which the acquisition and/or maintenance of food, shelter, and clothing is not a struggle that consumes their existence, as is sadly line up in many African nations, for exercising. Free to ponder the meaning of their lives and the many ways in which it is possible for humans to express their inner thoughts and feelings, cit izens of the leisure society began to use fashion as a mode of self-expression and reflection of any number of zeitgeists of their time.As far back as the 1700s, French women consulted fashion magazines to peck the latest fashion trends. Sketch artists were present in royal courts to make note of the fashion choices do by the ruling classes, and communicated these ideas to dressmakers across the nation, who in turn crafted facsimiles for those who were able to afford such fashion mimicry. The French have historically held a special place in the fashion universe since this time.As the 1800s and 1900s proverb Western societies evolve from agrarian societies to industrial societies, with the concurrent increase in wealth and disposal income, the centralize on and indulgence in fashion increased. With the advent of pop music, most notably rock-and-roll in the 1950s, and television, teenagers all around the knowledge domain saw the likes of Elvis Presley and his gyrating hips, causi ng a global fashion sensation. Boys over began to sport white t-shirts (in whose sleeves the more raucous ones rolled packs of cigarettes), blue jeans, and grease their hair.Celebrities from the arenas of music, film, and then television became the new royalty, the new elites, for Western cultures, and the fashion trends they embodies became inspirations for millions in each successive generation. The messages of rock-and-roll became more complex, subversive, and powerful in the 1960s, corresponding with the United States controversial entry into the Vietnam War and a wholesale rejection on both sides of the Atlantic of many of the traditional values of the Cold War era.The Beatless turn from fresh-scrubbed, feel-good bubblegum pop to psychedelic and metaphysical subject matter influences a new set of fashion trends which shocked the Establishment to the core. Men and women everywhere began wearing colorful (both literally and figuratively), outrageously expressive, and even outla ndish fashions, and allowing their hair to grow long. The exhaustion from the innumerous political and socio-cultural transitions of the 1960s, and the stagnant Western economies of the seventies gave way to a culture preoccupied with escapism and manifestly having a good time.Sit-ins and political protests gave way to champagne-filled boogie nights. The flower-power psychedelia fashion trends of the late 1960s and early 1970s gave way to the groovy leisure suit styles inspired by the music trend of disco that consumed the world from roughly 1976 to 1980 and cemented by the global box office phenomenology of the film Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta and featuring a soundtrack packed with disco hits written by the Bee Gees. The tight-fitting and well-cut suits worn by Travolta, and the sexy, stylish dresses and pantsuits of the women in the film inspired millions to change their wardrobes accordingly.On the tail end of the disco era came a brief but potent preoccupatio n with cowboy fashion, inspired by the peculiar utilitarian clothing from the American octogenarian West cowboy boots, rugged blue jeans, ten-gallon cowboy hats, etc. , once more propelled into the collective fashion consciousness of the world by another hugely successful film, 1982s Urban Cowboy. At the same time the fashion trends inspired by disco and cowboy culture were dying out, the realm of the political again profoundly affected the universe of fashion.The elections of conservative political figureheads Margaret Thatcher in England and Ronald Reagan in the U.S. sparked a schizophrenic revolution in clothing and music as economic recoveries were engineered on the backs of the working poor, the culture that proclaimed rapaciousness is good took to reveling in the wearing conservative, yet expensive or even shocking clothing furs, for example which reflected the mindset of conspicuous consumption. Simultaneously, those cultural elements who were not benefiting from the eco nomic boom were rebelling against the conservative establishment trends and adopting controversial styles embodied, for example, in the slut-chic clothing popularized by the music and videos of Madonna.Music videos, a new invention in pop culture and institutionalized by the power of MTV, became a new showcase for outrageous fashion statements in the eighties and beyond. The greed and spiritual bankruptcy of the 1980s gave way to the hippie nouveaux culture of the Earth-and-cause-friendly early-to-mid 1990s, and then to the greed nouveaux culture of the late 1990s, spawned by the phenomenal economic growth of the Internet boom.By this time, pop culture had begun to liberally cannibalize itself for new ideas, having exhausted much of its potential for true originality. As technology and civilization plow their exponential evolution of consumption, genuinely original ideas become more and more difficult to generate, leading fashion designers to borrow from past ideas, to combine hit herto uncombined or un-combinable ideas, as evidenced by the notorious phrase Whats old is new whats new is old. The early 21st Century is a time of profound uncertainty in fashion, with a myriad of recycled influences competing for the crown of the next hot fashion trend. The inherent self-referentiality and cannibalism of post-modernism, however, makes it virtually impossible to predict which trends will take hold and when. The next decade will make for a fascinating time in the universe of fashion.