What is fashion

My definition of ‘What is Fashion’ would be as follows: ‘Fashion is the determining of someone’s identity through dress, as well as the expression of self, regarding gender, one’s beliefs, as well as expression of love to specific textures and/or silhouettes and/or ideals.’ Regarding the development of my perception of fashion throughout the course, my perception most definitely has been amended and expanded. Although I would not say it has fundamentally been completely changed from beliefs deeply rooted, I do feel as if I now have a much better and more prosperous understanding of the cultural values fashion holds within society and its influences. This regards gender-based phenomenons as well as political matters, regarding human interaction through dress as well as dress practices.  When starting this course I was slightly unfamiliar with the idea of gender, as well as gender roles, within fashion, as I had previously read about it and seen examples on the catwalks of the world. Yet I rarely ever had the opportunity to discuss the matter and break it down upon its course beliefs and historical context among other like-minded specimens, in order to generate common ground for discussion and mental stimulation and growth of interest and knowledge of the subject matter.  A quote relevant to this from Kaiser’s text would be ‘sex-gender distinction easily becomes a binary opposition in its own right and oversimplifies or obfuscated some complexities’. This quote in-particularly stuck with me so very much throughout the course as it was at this point that I truly understood the idea of binary opposition, particularly within fashion, as well as found myself brainstorm, as a designer, how to overcome some of the challenges it illustrates. This I found truly inspiring and personally would take away as some of the most precious new knowledge I have gathered when taking this course.