Research of Fashion: Past

The preceding fashion: Once, fashion was the synonym of elitism. It is recounted (Breward 1995; Laver 1937) that fashion commenced from the middle of the fourteenth century in Europe, which paralleled the cultural movement, Known as the Renaissance. Along with the birth of merchants, the development of international trade and the economy, with the prosperity of art and science, and the riches all those things brought to the high society, fashion (as a concept) was gradually formed. However, it only circulated around the noble classes and was based on Sumptuary law. Sumptuary law protected the hierarchy of the social classes and restrained the bourgeoisie from conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1994); therefore, fashion was only a privilege of the aristocrats. In the eighteenth century, the advancement of technology had propelled the dissemination of fashion, as well as the development of new textiles. For the first time, people of all classes were permitted to wear fashionable clothes, followed by the renewal laws (Lipovetsky, 1994). Nevertheless, expensive fabrics still constrained the fashion to people who could afford it. Fashion was eventually elevated into a different range of styles and entered the era of mass production for the public by the time of the industrial revolution. Along with the growth of the bourgeoisie and industrialists, and the propaganda of the fashion media in the middle of the nineteenth century, it is claimed (Arnold, 2009, p.15) that ‘fashion became a major way to formulate identity and to make social, cultural and financial status visible’. Hence, fashion has evolved itself into the most effective tool to signify and identify social status and the further pursuit of material culture.

Into the 20^th century, the role of fashion designers became fully established, generated by the dressmakers, industrial designers, artists, couturiers and, finally, the fashion designers. Haute couture was created in 1850 by Charles Frederick Worth and most designers defined their individual style to distinguish their wearers from others. At the same time, designers were dressing the theatrical stars, aristocrats and the wealthy, such as Paul Poiret for Ballets Russes and Gabrielle Chanel for Emmanuelle Devos, to represent their identity and personality; thus, the innovation of design turned into an indispensable value in the fashion system.

The launch of ready-to-wear in 1930’s by couturiers was the beginning of homogenous fashion. Arnold (2009) points out that women were likely to wear clothes made by a fashionable name, and fashion houses had to target the wider audiences to maintain their business. During this period, fashion trends were still dominated by the couture houses and elitism. It was the rising of the youth culture in the 1960’s that injected a new breed into the fashion industry. Trend was no longer just trickling down from the upper social class; simultaneously, the subculture was bubbling up to influence the design at a different level. Fashion has ultimately democratized. Between Worth and the 60’s, fashion, in each decade, had its style and reflected the spirits of the age (zeitgeist). The significance is what the social and cultural status revealing along with the discovery of insight into fashion.


The origin of fashion: What is fashion? If we look into the fashion literature, most researchers divide fashion into different chapters. Each chapter has one theme about history, time, space, language, art, body, or consumption, for example. Its multiple facets conclude the subject; but in a broad definition, fashion is about change (Sapir, 1931; Simmel, 1971; Spencer, 1966). Jennifer Craik (1993) indicates that the never changing aspect of fashion is that it is constantly changing, and Svendsen (2006, p.22) also writes that ‘it only becomes a fashion when this change is sought for its own sake and takes place relatively frequently’. In other words, fashion is an inevitably transient subject and the existence of transition testifies its intention. It is neither negative nor positive, but only the inwardness of fashion.

What if fashion is changing and time is the task of change? It seizes the moment for only certain period and moves forward, as it always does. Barbara Vinken (2005, p.42) writes that ‘fashion is the moment that negates time as duree; it erases the trace of time, blots out history as difference by positioning itself as absolute, self-evidence and perfect as a moment becoming eternity, the promise of eternity’. Vinken indicates that fashion fades away within its own term but its moment is eventually solely left in eternity. However, fashion is not only about the moment; instead it is the connection of moments. It is a series of sequences composed of fashion and through the nature of its change (Walker, 2006). More precisely, fashion is about the process of change and its facets are manifested through the processes. 

Meanwhile, identity is the function of fashion and it emerges through the process of communication. Fashion is indicated (Lurie, 1981; Davis, 1992; Barthes, 2004) as a language. Alison Lurie (1981, p.3) writes that ‘fashion is a language of sign, a nonverbal system of communication’, and further mentions that clothing has its own vocabulary and grammar. Fred Davis (1992, p.16) also writes that ‘individuals can through symbolic means communicate with others, in the instance of dress through predominately nondiscursive visual, tactile, and olfactory symbols’. Fashion allows us to have dialogue with ourselves, between the inner soul and outer appearance, and it is the personal action and thoughts that reveal the existence of identity. That contradicts past philosophical and religious movements where identity was primarily about the soul, not the body. Identity, in terms of fashion, represents the individuality in a social circumstance, and the social phenomenon is deliberated through the studies of fashion. Henri Lefebvre talked (1996, cited in Barthes, 2005) that, ‘it (fashion) is a phenomenon. The study of fashion can be particularized by looking at clothing but it is the whole of society which is implicated’. It is to be said that fashion is about the attire, as a topic. However, it always inevitably reflects the social environment through the explanation of itself, since, it becomes a subject of the social science. Fashion, it stands for its own, but encompasses the whole.    

Last but not least, the unity of beauty is the character of fashion. Even if its beauty only thrives in the fleeting time, its serenity is in its permanence. The vanishing of beauty always rebirths itself, and what is uncertain is only the duration of time. Meanwhile, the vestige of beauty is always documented in the chronicle and, simultaneously, is integrated in the future with modernity (Lipovetsky, 1994; Welter and Lillethun, 2007). The constant change of fashion makes it continuously enchanting. Fashion, in the end, is an ambiguous subject but intrinsically intertwined.