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Fashion is not just limited to clothing, but it has an immense
impact on every aspect of daily life, from the type of house one lives in to the
books one reads. Fashion is big business, invented by original designers and
promoted by business magnates for profit. It affects the way people think, feel,
and act, as it is the material expression of a new trend of thought.
The best definition of fashion is that it is the outward expression of a new
idea. New ideas are the lifeblood of business, and fashion has the power to
catch on and create new trends. Most people think of fashion as clothing,
particularly women's clothing. However, men in the past dressed in "fine
feathers" like male birds, while women did not focus much on their appearance.
But since the 1820s, fashion has decreed that to look "male" meant to look
somber, and men's clothing has not changed much since then. On the other hand,
women have more than made up for it, with even the most remote and primitive
women trying to obtain Western clothing and shoes, while wealthier ladies of
developed countries spend millions annually on the latest "model."
Fashion is first produced in famous fashion houses in Paris, New York, London,
and Rome. Haute couture draws the rich to annual shows in these salons for the
purpose of buying exclusive clothes. The prominent designers produce them
according to their own ideas, creating new fashion trends that may or may not be
popular. The next stage is the commercialization of successful models by large
clothing firms, which mass-produce them much more cheaply for the general
market. To be fashionable, women's clothes must have a certain "look" that can
be identified by other women and admired. It may be a raised or lower hemline, a
low or high waist, a dress cut off the shoulder, a certain range of colors or
materials. The fashion-wise woman recognizes fashion at once and buys it, making
fashion a big business. Men's clothes also vary according to fashion, but the
conservatism of the average male is the despair of the men's clothing trade.
Public taste in almost every feature of living is subject to change. Even the
female figure must be one year thin and boyish, another year curvaceous, to meet
the dictates of the couturier. Men's clothing firms are now trying to sell the
"baggy look." The difference between Victorian furniture in Britain, pushy and
elaborate and overstuffed, and the cleaner, streamlined household products of
the middle 20th century is fashion. Modern furniture may be grossly
uncomfortable, and Victorian furniture may be supremely functional. Houses also
vary according to architectural fashion, with modern leading architects setting
the trends. A new house today may be round, made of glass and steel, built on a
split-level plan, or perched high over a river or protruding from a mountain
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