Research of Fashion: Present

Definition: Fashion is a trend, a style, and a dialogue between body and cloth (Svendsen, 2006). It is a journey of itself, to remind of the past, live the present and look forward to the future. Fashion is the chronicle that reflects the social phenomenon; meanwhile, it is like the lens which is able to identify personal expression. It exists temporality in the tangible object; as time goes by, it will turn into an intangible subject in eternity, and this is the contradictive facet of fashion. Fashion is sui generis, with its own narratives.

Mutation: Fashion, in the twenty-first century, has shifted from the centre of clothes and accessories to the edge of lifestyle. Oscar de la Renta (Svendsen, 2006, p38) once said that ‘in the old days fashion designers – seamstresses really - made and sold only dresses, today we sell a lifestyle to the whole world’. Modern culture has forged fashion into a new face, and it is undeniably attributed by the progression of human beings. Meanwhile, western civilization has shifted fashion into a way of living, which is more about experiences and obsessions. Gee Thomson (2008, p7) has indicated that ‘contemporary fashion environments might look effortless “cool” and stylish, but it’s a seductive mix of colours, sounds and smells that’s been finely tuned by an army of retail consultants and brand gurus’. Modern fashion has distorted through human behaviors, and the intention of fashion seems only for the sake of the endless cycle of production and consumption. Today, we are bombarded in a world full of images, advertising, and countless new products. Publicity and media take the responsibility to generate these images from the abstract imagination to the visual format, but only for their own benefits and monetary gain. It is a sign of the times that the majority of people accepts what is presented, rather than acknowledges this information by their thoughts. As modern consumers, we are passive. We identify and receive ourselves through the outward, and adapt to it without further deliberation. Svendsen (2006, p.119) writes that ‘we seek our identity in what surrounds us in the now, in the symbolic value (here Svendsen means through the advertisements) that are accessible to us’. In other words, consumers do not identify but select the identification, and their selections are based on the pressure of public peers. Today, identity is more framed by competitive attitudes, rather than an awareness of personality. Erich Fromm has indicated (1997, p.23) that ‘I am = what I have and what I consume’. It is about what we buy, not who we really are. Identity, in terms of fashion, is dissolution (Svendsen, 2006). Fashion, in the modern age, is undeniably a symbolic sign of freedom and the index of civilization; but it is also intrinsically changed. To be argumentative, is fashion, in the twenty-first century, the evolution for the innovative future? Or is it simply a mutation built on commercial drivers?

Acceleration of fast fashion ?

Intensive capitalization and rationalization of the apparel industry, consumer affluence along with democratization and a loosening of class boundaries and the greatly quickened flow of information via the electronic media are cited typically as factors accounting for the progressively shortened span of the fashion cycle. (Davis, 1992, p.107)

Trends constantly change but are propelled at ever faster speeds. It has shifted from one show, haute couture, with two catwalks, prêt-a-porter, to four, sometimes six shows (pre- and resorts) a year. In addition, the propagation of the media has generalized the catwalk shows into the macro environment, which is accessible for the majority. High street fashion retailers rapidly provide the latest fashion items, similar to catwalks, to increase the volume of sales. In this case, mainstream consumers will be able to wear designer products at an affordable price to fill up the realm of desire. Fashion retailers, furthermore, see it as an advantage and have developed intensively to survive in the competitive market. It is claimed that high street brands such as Zara (Black, 2008) have merchandised by the weekly turnover. However, ironically, it is killing the essence of fashion. The just-in-time system imposes unrealistic demands on the production system and longer working hours for laborers, and built-in obsolescence forges the disposable fashion and throwaway culture. The homogenous styles even strangle creation and innovation in the design process. Fast fashion, as a business strategy, is highly successful but it buries the significance of design in terms of meaningful fashion.  

The power of image?

On the top of the fashion pyramid it is about the vision (Riley, 2011). Fashion publicity creates a series of glamorous and irresistible images to shape the iconic framework within the pursuing of fashion. Caroline Evans writes:

The image frequently becomes the commodity itself, in the form of exclusive fashion shows, Internet, website, television programmes and a new kind of fashion magazine, such as Tank, Purple and Visionaire. New media and increased fashion coverage made previously elite fashion accessible to a mass audience, but only as image, never as object … For the public, it becomes possible to acquire a high degree of familiarity with such contemporary fashions, even a kind of “ownership” of them, through the power of image. (Evans, 2003, p.97)

First of all, Evans explains the existence of plagiarism and the unlimited development of the diffusion lines, as well as the success of fast fashion. Secondly, it expresses that the industry is selling the brand identity, rather than the major products. Worldwide, there are only a certain group of people who are able to afford a £5,000 dress. However, as one of the biggest productive and consumptive industries, business must go on. Bruzzi and Gibson (2000) point out the continuance of business, ‘the entire economy of the industry comes from anonymous consumers … It is the sale of prêt-a-porter, accessories, perfume and licensing that guarantees income’. In other words, fashion brands invent a dream of illusion to present the fascination; but they do not sell the dream, only the subsidiaries. A dream, after all, is to be pursued and cannot be realized. It refers to what John Berger (2008, p.140) writes in that ‘publicity speaks in the future tense and yet the achievement of this future is endlessly deferred’. In the instance of fashion, retailers utilize the strategy through human behavior to elongate their business by introducing limitless desires. The image of fashion is possibly an illusion, but no doubt, artificially spectacular.


Living within fashion? Fashioning the life?
The conspicuous theorists believe that commodities have become objects of fashion to sell, and vice versa. Pierre Cardin (Mesher, 2010), in the 1960s, was the pioneer who created a whole world to live in. He designed clothes, interiors and a chain of restaurants which allowed people wear fashion in a holistic experience. This idea was taken to the extreme in the last decade. Giorgio Armani has a line of casa, in homewear. Italian brands, Bvlgari and Missoni have both launched the hotel business. French heritage brands, such as Louis Vuitton and Hermes, are retailing in the in-store café in concession stores. Fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld, has even composed an individual album. John Styles (1998, cited in Bruzzi & Gibson, 2000) mentions ‘fashion is a paradigm of a mutated commodity form in a society’. It seems that every product is transformable under the context of fashion. It is, also, annotated how the path of fashion has drastically diverted from the delicate skills of the seamstress to the innovative design of commodities.

It is commonly accepted that today we all have more than we need and retailers are selling the commodities, instead of the necessities. Especially, under the notion of freedom, the similarity of commodities is everywhere, and design is focused on the appearance, not the immanence. Guy Debord (1994, p.43) writes that ‘the commodity’s becoming worldly coincides with the world’s being transformed into commodities’, and further writes (p.121) that ‘the free space of commodities is subject at every moment to modification and reconstruction, this is so that it may become even more identical to itself, and achieve as nearly as possible a perfectly static monotony’. This is able to explain that contemporary products are commercialized for the extraordinary exterior, not the meaning of the substance. In this circumstance, fashion merely becomes the disguise form for sales orientation and artificial veneer. Then, it processes in a bewildering way of transition.


The virtual space
The made world is offering the convenient life with global information, which already seems too good to be true. However, we are actually able to purchase clothing for same day delivery. It is also possible to watch the latest fashion show through the live broadcast, with the fashion website style.com being a good example of how easy is to have instant access to trends and products. Caroline Evans (2007, p.96) writes that ‘similarly today’s fashion, the most spectacular sign, is at the vanguard of a new model of social and commercial organization, the network’. Facebook and Twitter are new platforms for branding and promotion, and the internet is new publicity to deliver the unlimited wants and the infinite possibilities. According to the research (Weil, 2006), there are over two million fashion blogs already and ‘most of the conversation is shopping advice, liberally laced with consumer recommendations’. It is to be asserted that technology has transformed fashion into the purely vision, rather than the arousing of self-awareness. Fashion is expanding and spreading in the global spectrum. The power of the internet is effective, but also dangerous. On the one hand, the question is whether a blog or website is easily generated into a platform to celebrate the materials and function as a tool to crave the desires and needs. On the other, the question is whether its overflow has also deluged the implication of fashion, and the cognition of the self-expression has collapsed alongside......  


To be continue....