| ughhhh
your clothing comments particularly annoy me.
i mean, most people see fashion as a frivolous stupid thing...most people follow trends for the sake of following trends, wear brand names to be "cooler," etc.
but you're completely missing the significance of fashion. why don't we all just wear rags and such? fashion provides a creative outlet that can be incoporated in our everyday lives. your interests, personality, attitude, and mood can be expressed through clothing. The other day I wore a black/white minidress and electric blue tights, which certainly gives off a much different vibe than the jeans and sweatshirt I'm wearing today.
Although it's not usually the case with the clothes you see on the street, go to a couture fashion show and its like going to an art exhibit--in fact, fashion is synchronized with the art of the time. The pieces that these designers come up with are literally artworks centered around the movement and figure of the human body.
Additionally, fashion trends reflect our history and social ideas. As just one example, think about corsests. The restricting nature of the corset throughout history directly parallels the restrictions placed on women throughout history. As these restrictions increased, the usage of corsets and the damage they inflicted on women's bodies also increased. The correlation is valid all the way to the 1920s--a decade during which the corset largely vanished because of the growth of the women's rights movement, leading to the popularity of looser, "flapper-style" dresses and such. This theory can also be paralleled to the rise and fall of the popularity of footbinding in China.
In the words of Gabrielle Coco Chanel, "Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening."
I find the relationship between fashion, social ideas/restrictions, and history/political affairs, fascinating. I've done a bit of research of various aspects of this topic and have written a few papers as well.
I know this is basically a rant to everyone who dismisses fashion as vain, frivolous, and inconsequential, but I would greatly appreciate it if you did not make generalized and stereotypical statements--on any subject--especially without having any idea what you are talking about. |