The Cycle of Fashion Essay -- Fashion Style Mode Essays

The Cycle of FashionFashion is fuelled by conversion. Designers continually persuade the public that their new ideas, however shocking they may seem, are in fact everything that a stylish wardrobe requires. Next season, the same designers coax everyone to give up their allegiance to such out-modish designs and embrace instead the innovative visual trends of the latest collections. The same garments are successively dubbed outlandish, in fashion and out-dated according to the probable vagaries of prevailing fashionable sensibilities. Are we really duped by such fraud? Or are we willing participants in the rhythm method of fashion? And mayhap more significantly, what relevance does the cycle have today in Hesperian societys culture of mass consumerism?The idea that fashion in dress follows a cyclical phase structure is not new. The sociologist, Quentin Bell made such an observation over fifty years ago in his book, On Human Finery. Moreover, his observation was based on accumul ated evidence of an uninterrupted cyclical flow in dress change in Hesperian society since at least the thirteenth century.The sociologist, Ingrid Brenninkmeyer describes this flow by analyze it to the rolling of waves in the sea. As one fashion gains popularity, crests and dissipates, another stylistic wave is already remainsing behind it. Further extensions of this metaphor liken contrary stylistic features to variations in the waves themselves. For example, just as diametrical wave patterns form on the basis of their force, size or length, so also different overlapping patterns can be traced in changes of fashionable hem length, silhouette, fabric, dcolletage and colour.Mere descriptions of the fashion cycle however do little to relieve exactly why successful designers? ideas typically rise and fall in popularity. What is the motivating force behind such changes in fashion? What causes the cycle to move from one phase to the next? These questions cannot be answered simply. Perhaps trim back boredom inspires the continual search for something new. Or can novelty be related to ideas of sexual allure and attraction? Do competing market interests in the fashion industry play a role in stir the cycle? Or could changes in dress function as markers of crystallize differentiation?These factors and more have been variously proposed and analysed by researchers into the socio... ...ns clothing? To manifestation at the mens side of underwear is different. One page of the schedule (April) does depict mens undershirts from the 18th and 19th centuries.Even the English quarrel has been influenced by undergarments. Several popular expressions make reference to underwear overt woman comes from the connotations associated with uncorseted or loosely corseted women, Queen says. A similar skid is shiftless a shift was an 18th century support-providing undergarment, and Queen says the bound was meant to characterize someone without support.Many people believe tha t underwear for women has changed as it has because of feminism and changing social attitudes. To a large degree, thats true, Queen says, me hope there are other factors as well. In the past, undergarments were often intentional for their tree trunk-shaping features. But these days, thanks to the increase in exercise and athleticism among women, the body has become its own foundation and women no longer need to rely on cloth and whalebone for this purpose, she says.The choice, says Queen, is do we want to spend trinity hours a day in the gym to sculpt the body, or do we want to put on a piece of cloth?