Fashion is not just about luxury designer brands and fashion weeks as we consume for the last century by the media’s powerful perception management ways. Fashion has always been with us long before it was an actual industry. When humankind first became the habitants of Earth, clothing was a need for living conditions. As humanity developed its living standards and became more materialistic, clothing evolved from a need to want, and that is what created fashion. Many researchers made contributions on fashion studies, and there have been different aphorisms to define what fashion is.
“Fashion is gossip. Never underestimate the power of gossip…” This aphorism is a very different approach to the word fashion. The reason I agree with this aphorism comes from my background and personal experiences. Where I grew up, popularity is something important element for the wealthy high schoolers. Gossip was and still is, an essential factor in my life, as everybody talks behind their friends’ back. However, gossip never stays with whispers. It reveals fights, copycatting, and even blackmails. I believe the fashion industry lives and protects its popularity under the same conditions. When people gossip, it makes the subject to be known by more people. On entertainment news, it is visible how some designers and models have a fraud between them, and how designers copy from the old archives. The fashion magazines and blogs do the perfect job for the gossip part, as they dig everything and circumvent any mistake. Gossip may seem like a bad thing, but I believe this is what makes fashion more entertaining, with a touch of drama.
“Fashion is intensely personal…It is a medium through which personal stories can be told, memories re-lived, and futures foretold.” This aphorism is emphasizing fashion the most for me as I always design with my thoughts and experiences. Fashion is all about a person’s inner feelings and imagination, both for a designer of a brand and for a person’s style. The designing process wouldn’t be complete without the designer’s perspective. The designer puts his/her life, memories and while designing a garment. When you look at a designer clothing, shoe or accessory, it always carries meaning from the designer’s inner-universe. It is the same way for a person’s style. Everybody has a different approach to clothing, what do they want to wear and how to style them. The style is one of the components which makes every human being unique. Even though fashion always has personal aspects, this aphorism is changed in our decade with the existence of social media and the lack of creativity. As an example, Demna Gvasalia, who is the designer of his own brand Vetements, and also Balenciaga, always copy from Maison Margiela archives. He might be a prominent designer for streetwear today, but he won’t have a legacy because he isn’t bringing anything new to the industry apart from reissue old garments and techniques, and selling thousand dollar sweatshirts. The new generation designers must go to the deepest point of their brain and heart to create their collections if they want to succeed in the industry and have a recollective name years later after this.
There are hundreds of different aphorisms when you think about fashion, but as an aspiring future fashion designer myself, I think the two aphorisms mentioned above are two of the most effective and worth-stressing ones in the industry.
Good work, Ata!