The World of Fashion – A Layman’s View
Fashion comes and fashion goes but the fashion designer remains forever. Let us at the onset of this discussion analyze what fashion really is. Fashion is the name given to the mode of dress and make up at any given time. Fashion is not anything that is static, or stays for any length of time, it just goes and comes, and goes just to return at some later date when people have forgotten the past. Like everything else, fashion also keeps changing and this change is the backbone of all time fashion. However, what we have to understand about fashion is that, how far can fashions change.
Let us for an example take the dress of women, which is the most important thing in the modern world of today. For example take the dress of a saree and a blouse. A blouse changes from full sleeves, to three quarter sleeves, to half sleeves and then sleeveless. Once this circuit of change is over in a particular length of time, the fashion comes back to full sleeves and continues on the same path once again. Sometimes it is seen that the back is not there, sometimes the front is changing in shape. With all these variations in the blouse, decades pass by and the fashion comes back to the original position from where it started. Regarding the saree, this is even originally a very versatile dress. Every state of India has a different style of wearing it and draping it around.
This is just one piece of a dress that we see a sea of change in. In reality all dresses witness such changes in either their sizes or texture or patterns. All dresses have to go through changes in order to fit into the pattern of the latest in fashion. Another example we can see in men’s wear – the pant. At one time it used to be broad from top to bottom, loose fit. Tired of a loose fit came the bell bottoms with length of the pant being fit, but it being bell shaped and loose like a bell at the bottom, and hence named bell bottom. After a while, the loose bell gave way to tight pants not only tight but I must say they were skin tight, called drain pipe trousers, which were actually shaped absolutely straight like a drain thus named drain pipe trousers. Now, the latest is a change from pants of any pattern and size to jeans. We see all, men, women and children dressed in jeans. The pant has now taken the position of a formal wear.
In the major and most common dresses we have noticed how patterns keep changing. In the world of fashion there has to be a continuous change. However there is still a limit to the extent fashion can go, in the given scenario. In these days of exposure of the body, even there is a limit, so, fashion designers have to keep changing the portion of the body that has to be exposed. Sometimes and in some dresses, the legs are shown and at others the front or back is shown. It is only within these permutations and combinations that the designer has to work. The day when the entire body will be sparingly covered or dressed, is not very far.
Regarding a following for the fashion setters, they do not have to worry at all about that aspect, for, it has been noticed time and again that, the fashion designer just has to bring out something new, something different and the public, yes all of it follows it. This is because it is a thing of pride to be in fashion, that is to be dressed like all others. It is this attitude of the public that has made the world of fashion a very lucrative business/profession. No matter what the change introduced in a dress, the public is bound to follow it as, to be in fashion is as if the code word of all modernity. Anything that is not in fashion is thrown out to the winds, and anyone who is not dressed as per the latest code of the world of fashion is backward, orthodox and just not fit to move in society and this, gives a boost to the business of fashion.
With this attitude towards fashion the industry of fashion is having a hey day. Though to be in fashion is an expensive hobby, most people wish to remain in fashion, and follow the latest trends.
In this regard I feel that, since fashion keeps on changing and that also very fast, instead of an individual following it, it would be more interesting for fashion to take a full circle and came back for me to fit in the slot. In my view we should wear the dress that suits us and is comfortable. Its being in fashion or out of fashion should be only secondary. Sure enough, a time will come when whatever I like to wear will be in fashion for me..
