Fashion is intensely personal, in the same way that poetry is intensely personal. It is a medium through which personal stories can be told, memories re-lived and futures foretold.
To reinterpret this aphorism, fashion becomes the reflection of one’s self-consciousness, through which individuals chose fashion based on their self-realizations and self-expectations to achieve their desired social recognition. I partially agree with this aphorism. In my opinion, for fashion to be considered intensely personal and thus viewed as a revelation of one’s self reflection, that oneself must first has his or her distinguished understanding of fashion. To many consumers nowadays, fashion starts to mean merely “trends” but not apparel aesthetics. For those whom make fashion decisions on a piece’s popularity – as how welcome it is among celebrities – or for its price, I doubt if their fashion is still personal to the level that any memory or future goal of their lives can be seen. It is only for the ones who know what suits them and what types of fashion will help them to present themselves in the way that they wish to enhance their public images, shall their personalities be found through their fashion tastes and distinct aesthetics.
Fashion does not define. It is instead a term that demands definition.
Without further question, fashion is indeed too wide a field to be defined and at the same time too influential a social, cultural and even historical sector for us to overlook. Thus we constantly seek the meanings, causes, results of fashion, in order to understand what had made us today and to where are we moving forward. Taking its importance in human history as an example, fashion started the moment when human began to walk with two feet. As soon as we became homo sapiens we developed the desire to cover our body with clothes. We cannot merely sees fashion as clothes, but also needs to consider its significance in history and as a privilege specific to our species. Just like cooking with fire is something other animals has not learnt, fashion, derives from the simple need of covering human body with some pieces of fabric or cloth, is the testimony to our distinct intelligence and creativities – The world fashion history is at the same time part of the reflection of human history. Every piece of clothing embodies the value or belief that is most important to the culture it belonged in that historic moment. Thus fashion does not define easily, but it demands constant study and exploration.
