Early Western travelers, traveling whether to
Persia,
Turkey,
India, or
China, would frequently remark on the absence of change in fashion in the respective places. The Japanese
Shogun's secretary bragged (not completely accurately) to a Spanish visitor in 1609 that
Japanese clothing had not changed in over a thousand years.
[4] However, there is considerable evidence in
Ming China of rapidly changing fashions in
Chinese clothing.
[5] Changes in costume often took place at times of economic or social change, as occurred in
ancient Rome and the medieval
Caliphate, followed by a long period without major changes. In 8th-century
Moorish Spain, the musician
Ziryab introduced to
Córdoba[6][unreliable source][7] sophisticated clothing-styles based on seasonal and daily fashions from his native
Baghdad,
modified by his own inspiration. Similar changes in fashion occurred in
the 11th century in the Middle East following the arrival of the
Turks, who introduced clothing styles from
Central Asia and the
Far East.
[8]
The beginning in Europe of continual and increasingly rapid change in
clothing styles can be fairly reliably dated. Historians, including
James Laver and
Fernand Braudel, date the start of Western fashion in clothing to the middle of the
14th century,
[9][10] though it should be noted that they tend to rely heavily on contemporary imagery
[11]
and illuminated manuscripts were not common before the fourteenth
century. The most dramatic early change in fashion was a sudden drastic
shortening and tightening of the male over-garment from
calf-length to barely covering the
buttocks,
[12]
sometimes accompanied with stuffing in the chest to make it look
bigger. This created the distinctive Western outline of a tailored top
worn over leggings or trousers.
The pace of change accelerated considerably in the following century,
and women and men's fashion, especially in the dressing and adorning of
the hair, became equally complex.
Art historians
are therefore able to use fashion with confidence and precision to date
images, often to within five years, particularly in the case of images
from the 15th century. Initially, changes in fashion led to a
fragmentation across the upper classes of Europe of what had previously
been a very similar style of dressing and the subsequent development of
distinctive national styles. These national styles remained very
different until a counter-movement in the 17th to 18th centuries imposed
similar styles once again, mostly originating from
Ancien Régime France.
[13] Though the rich usually led fashion, the increasing affluence of
early modern Europe led to the
bourgeoisie and even
peasants
following trends at a distance, but still uncomfortably close for the
elites – a factor that Fernand Braudel regards as one of the main motors
of changing fashion.
[14]
In the 16th century, national differences were at their most pronounced. Ten 16th century portraits of
German or
Italian gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats.
Albrecht Dürer illustrated the differences in his actual (or composite) contrast of
Nuremberg and
Venetian fashions at the close of the 15th century (
illustration, right).
The "Spanish style" of the late 16th century began the move back to
synchronicity among upper-class Europeans, and after a struggle in the
mid-17th century, French styles decisively took over leadership, a
process completed in the 18th century.
[15]
Though textile colors and patterns changed from year to year,
[16]
the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the
pattern to which a lady's dress was cut, changed more slowly. Men's
fashions were largely derived from
military models, and changes in a European male
Silhouette
were galvanized in theaters of European war where gentleman officers
had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles such as the
"Steinkirk"
cravat or
necktie.
Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, was a leader of fashion. Her choices, such as this 1783 white
muslin dress called a
chemise a la Reine, were highly influential and widely worn.
[17]
Though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France since the 16th century and
Abraham Bosse
had produced engravings of fashion in the 1620s, the pace of change
picked up in the 1780s with increased publication of French engravings
illustrating the latest Paris styles. By 1800, all
Western Europeans
were dressing alike (or thought they were); local variation became
first a sign of provincial culture and later a badge of the conservative
peasant.
[18]
Although tailors and dressmakers were no doubt responsible for many innovations, and the
textile industry certainly led many trends, the
history of fashion design is normally understood to date from 1858 when the English-born
Charles Frederick Worth opened the first true
haute couture
house in Paris. The Haute house was the name established by government
for the fashion houses that met the standards of industry. These fashion
houses have to adhere to standards such as keeping at least twenty
employees engaged in making the clothes, showing two collections per
year at fashion shows, and presenting a certain number of patterns to
costumers.
[19] Since then, the idea of the
fashion designer as a celebrity in his or her own right has become increasingly dominant.
[20]
The idea of unisex dressing originated in the 1960s when designers such as
Pierre Cardin and
Rudi Gernreich
created garments, such as stretch jersey tunics or leggings, meant to
be worn by both males and females. The impact of unisex expands more
broadly to encompass various themes in fashion including androgyny,
mass-market retail, and conceptual clothing.
[21]
The fashion trends of the 1970s, such as sheepskin jackets, flight
jackets, duffel coats, and unstructured clothing influenced men to
attend social gatherings without a tuxedo jacket and to accessorize in
new ways. Some men's styles blended the sensuality and expressiveness
despite the conservative trend, the growing gay-rights movement and an
emphasis on youth allowed for a new freedom to experiment with style,
fabrics such as wool crepe, which had previously been associated with
women's attire was used by designers when creating male clothing.
[22]
The four major current
fashion capitals are acknowledged to be
Paris,
Milan,
New York City, and
London, which are all headquarters to the greatest fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion.
Fashion weeks
are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing
collections to audiences. A succession of major designers such as
Coco Chanel and
Yves Saint-Laurent have kept Paris as the center most watched by the rest of the world, although
haute couture is now subsidized by the sale of
ready-to-wear collections and
perfume using the same
branding.
Modern
Westerners
have a wide number of choices available in the selection of their
clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect his or her
personality or interests. When people who have high cultural
status
start to wear new or different clothes, a fashion trend may start.
People who like or respect these people become influenced by their
personal style and begin wearing similarly styled clothes. Fashions may
vary considerably within a
society according to
age,
social class,
generation,
occupation, and
geography
and may also vary over time. If an older person dresses according to
the fashion young people use, he or she may look ridiculous in the eyes
of both young and older people. The terms
fashionista and
fashion victim refer to someone who slavishly follows current fashions.
One can regard the system of sporting various fashions as a fashion
language incorporating various fashion statements using a
grammar of fashion. (Compare some of the work of
Roland Barthes.)
In recent years, Asian fashion has become increasingly significant in
local and global markets. Countries such as China, Japan, India, and
Pakistan have traditionally had large textile industries, which have
often been drawn upon by Western designers, but now Asian clothing
styles are also gaining influence based on their own ideas.
[23]
