What is Fashion
When I first came into the class, I have only thought of fashion in regards of being a form a self expression, art, and garments. However I know understand that the word fashion consists of a wide range of definitions. Not only is fashion “clothing” and a way of expressing oneself, it is a collective process. The way an individual interacts socially and physically with the clothing is a part of this process. Fashion is not just about producing clothes and appearances, it is interconnected with other aspects of life. Fashion is constantly mixing, creating, continuing, borrowing etc. It consists of many binary oppositions that help shape fashion as a whole. These binary oppositions include: the future versus the past, white versus black, west versus the rest, masculinity versus femininity, and many more. These binary oppositions also raises questions of why and how in regards of fashion.
Susan Kaiser came up with a conceptual definition of fashion. This concept is “ style-fashion-dress.” The concept includes: Representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation. Fashion is most commonly seen as “material.” Therefore production is a key factor in fashion. From production, the word textile emerged. Like everything else, fashion is also history. The production of textile developed and transformed throughout the decades due to the advancement of technology, therefore creating it’s own form of history. Production became the link between fashion, agriculture, economics, psychological, and social issues as well. In order to meet the demands of the huge population, fashion industries began to search for cheap production in developing areas. Bangladesh became a core production site for these industries due to it’s high poverty rate and lack of government involvement. Workers were willing to work for about two dollars a day and their rights and safety were neglected. This becomes a social issues that links fashion into a bigger issue in regards of worker’s rights and safety.
Fashion is also consumption. Consumption plays a major role in the psychological issue of an individual. “You do not buy an object; you buy social respect, discrimination, health, beauty, success, power to control your environment. The magic obscures its real source of general satisfaction because their discovery would involve radical change in the whole common way of life.” (Williams 1980:47) This belief leads to materialistic thinking that benefits fast fashion brands and encourages them to produce more products. Advertisement plays a key role in consumption and can be seen as propaganda by making the consumer believe that if she/he obtains the material that she/he would live a perfect happy life. The way of stylizing and dressing oneself became a way an individual expresses themselves to others around them and affects the way they interact with others.
According to Susan B.Kaiser, fashion is transnational. There is no specific way of fashioning appearances in the world, instead there is more than one “fashion system.” Fashion is a mixture of the world. It is influenced by many different cultures, religions, race, nationality, sexuality, gender etc. A binary opposition that plays a role in this is the west versus the rest. Although each has its own history, we wear globalization on our bodies according to feminist theorist Gayatri Spivak (1999). However, due to the process of hegemony, the leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others people may be forced into buy ideas from a majority of the crowd.
Throughout this course, I also learned that fashion is also a practice or a routine of an individual. The way an individual organizes his or her wardrobe, what she wears, and how she interacts with the material itself and with others is also considered “fashion.” The way the wardrobe is organized affects how the way the individual chooses what to wear. One of the factors that play a role in this is the ease of access. If an individual is in a rush, she/he would most likely grab whichever garment is closest to her/him. However, due to materialistic thinking, an individual may splurge on clothing, resulting in buying inactive clothing. According to Sophie Woodward in Why Women Wear What They Wear, Inactive clothing are clothing that are “worn rarely or sometimes or clothing that is tried on, even if it never leaves the bedroom…”. Inactive clothing plays into the production of fast-fashion clothing and materialistic thinking. Individuals may stop seeing clothing as something that is long-term and more as something temporary. The excess clothing are usually dumped into developing areas like Bangladesh, where they are usually left untouched and cause pollution onto the environment due to its non-biodegradable characteristics of fast-fashion.
