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 imaginations, however shocking they may seem, ar in fact everything that a stylish wardrobe requires. Next season, the same designers convince 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 apparent vagaries of prevailing fashionable sensibilities. Are we really duped by such duplicity? Or are we willing participants in the cycle of fashion? And perhaps more significantly, what relevance does the cycle have today in Western 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 long time ago in his book, On Human Finery. Moreover, his observation was based on acc umulated evidence of an uninterrupted cyclical flow in dress heighten in Western society since at least the thirteenth century.The sociologist, Ingrid Brenninkmeyer describes this flow by comparing it to the rolling of waves in the sea. As one fashion gains popularity, crests and dissipates, other stylistic wave is already turning behind it. Further extensions of this metaphor liken different stylistic features to variations in the waves themselves. For example, just as different wave patterns form on the basis of their extort, size or length, so also different overlapping patterns can be traced in changes of fashionable hem length, silhouette, fabric, dcolletage and colour. sheer descriptions of the fashion cycle however do little to explain 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 sheer boredom inspires the continual reckon 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 animating the cycle? Or could changes in dress function as markers of class differentiation?These factors and more have been variously proposed and analysed by researchers into the socio... ...ns clothing? To look at the mens side of underwear is different. One page of the calendar (April) does depict mens undershirts from the 18th and 19th centuries.Even the face language has been influenced by undergarments. Several popular expressions make reference to underwear Loose woman comes from the connotations associated with uncorseted or loosely corseted women, Queen says. A similar solecism is shiftless a shift was an 18th century support-providing undergarment, and Queen says the term was meant to characterize someone without support.Many people believe that underwear for wom en has changed as it has because of womens lib and changing social attitudes. To a large degree, thats true, Queen says, but there are other factors as well. In the past, undergarments were often designed for their body-shaping features. But these days, give 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 baleen for this purpose, she says.The choice, says Queen, is do we want to spend three hours a day in the gym to sculpt the body, or do we want to put on a piece of cloth?