Fashion is an abstract concept, ever changing in public view. My personal view of fashion is constantly shifting; taking Fashion Studies this semester has definitely worked as a catalyst in my understanding of fashion. Fundamentally, my comprehension of fashion has remained the same: fashion is the convergence of art and body. Each week in fashion studies, I started realizing that although my definition of fashion is accurate, there’s so much more to the abstruse idea of fashion.

Prior to fashion studies, I had never considered intersectionality and fashion. I thought that people simply dressed themselves in the way they saw best. Little did I know, there are a plethora of subject positions that inevitably make up every single persons’ dressing patterns. Susan Kaiser wrote that “There is not merely one model for fashion subjectivity… subject positions are embedded in cultural discourses over which individuals may have little control,” (Kaiser, 28). Kaiser makes it clear that intersectionality is a driving force of the style/fashion/dress complex.

Another topic I didn’t consider prior to taking Fashion Studies is subcultural relation in fashion. I’d always known about The New Romantics, Punks, and other subcultures; what I didn’t know was the vast influence fashion has in each subculture. Specifically, the use of the safety pin in punk subculture and the consequent appropriation in high fashion (Gianni Versace, Spring 1994). The manner in which subcultures are neglected until they are appropriated is something to always take note of in fashion. Studying the formation of subcultures and their influence in fashion has made me more aware of how fashion ideas are formulated. If you consider where your ideas come from before you develop them, the issue of appropriation can be avoided completely.