Clothing Fashion
Fashion,
as the term is used in this chapter, refers to a dominant mode of dress in a
particular place or time, usually a mode that is established by a perceived
social elite or by notable persons. Fashion functions as a social phenomenon,
setting standards of dress that periodically change when what once was new and
desirable becomes ordinary and then must be supplanted by yet another
innovation.
Moreover, fashion as a social force possesses its own
natural laws. For example, it appears that once innovative fashions move too
far from what society perceives as the norm, it rejects these excesses, and a
pendulum swing occurs with a return to an older or plainer style. Fashionable
clothing must convey the impression of distinction, excellence, originality, and
character expressed artistically. And, of course, fashion responds to the
availability of new materials, dyestuffs, and technologies. The relative
importance of each of these factors, although generally present in some
combination, will vary at any given time.
Therefore, a fashion system is characterized by
constant change. Historians of costume agree that in Europe fashion as a social
concept—that is, an ongoing awareness of self-consciously changing styles—began
in the Middle Ages. By the middle of the fourteenth century, this system was
well enough established to be the subject of ongoing commentary and concern,
since the pressure always to be purchasing new and expensive clothing, with its
emphasis on the human body, has moral implications. But even before fashion
became a major force in society, elements of a fashion system were present in
European courts, making it possible to trace the development of fashion as
early as the age of Charlemagne in the eighth century.
