A sociological view of fashion

By Shirley Hawkins

Fashion is designed for the body: it is created, promoted and worn by the body. Fashion is aimed at the body and the latter is the one that has to be dressed in almost all social gatherings. In the West, and increasingly outside it as well, fashion structures most of our experience of dressing, although, as I argue in this book, it is not the only factor that influences everyday life, since other factors, such as gender, social class, income and tradition, also influence. The fashionable dress is one that embodies the latest aesthetic trend; it is the garment defined at a given moment as desirable, beautiful and popular. By manifesting the latest aesthetic trend and by making certain types of garments available to the public, fashion provides the "raw material" for everyday clothing, manufactured by a multitude of entities operating in a variety of locations. To understand fashion, one needs to understand the relationship between the various agencies that operate within the fashion system: technical fashion schools and their students, designers and design firms, tailors and seamstresses, models and photographers, as well as publishers, distributors, retailers, shoppers, stores and consumers. In other words, studying fashion implies going from production to distribution and consumption: without the innumerable seamstresses and tailors there would be no garments to consume; Without the promotion of fashion by cultural intermediaries, such as fashion journalists, "fashion" in its function of marking the latest style would not go very far; and without consumer acceptance, fashion suits would be left hanging in factories, in shops and in closets. Thus, when we speak of fashion, we are simultaneously referring to a series of interconnected and overlapping organizations involved in the production and promotion of clothing, as well as in the actions of people acting on their bodies when they "dress".

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B09YJ9S3VX
• ISBN13: 9798810618683
• Release Date: April 2022
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 422 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"