Fashion Friday: What is Fashion?

Fashion is a vague topic to cover, and I will divide the topic into 6 parts.  We are going to find out the what, who, when, where, and why’s of fashion to have a better understanding as to why it is so popular and influential. I am also going to share how fashion is being approached here in the Philippines. Let’s start from the very basic…

I. WHAT IS “FASHION”?
Fashion is a general term for a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, body piercing, or furniture. Fashion refers to a distinctive and often habitual trend in the style with which a person dresses, as well as to prevailing styles in behaviour. Fashion also refers to the newest creations of textile designers. (Source: Wikipedia)
I will define fashion as one’s individual taste in clothing, his own self-expression, and an extension of his character. One can be plain (just t-shirt and jeans) or over-the-top like Tessa Prieto-Valdes with her costumey-taste. There are different fashion styles that I can’t even begin to count as numbers wouldn’t figure. Some examples would be vintage, girly, punk, ghetto and rock. We can mix and match, add accessories, jewelries, pair it with a nice bag and a good pair of shoes and we’re good to go.

There are 3 main categories of fashion. The first one is called “Haute Couture” or high fashion. This category in fashion is custom-made which means the textile is measured exactly to the person wearing the dress. The dressmaker uses expensive fabric and materials that’s why Haute Couture is very expensive. The second category is called “Ready-to-wear” or RTW which is not custom-made but high attention to detail is applied in choosing the cut and fabric. RTW’s are presented during Fashion Week by famous fashion houses. The third category is called “Mass Market” which caters for a wide range of customers. Mass market values quantity over quality so machines are basically used to create a lot of clothes without careful consideration of the cut and fabric and are sold at a very cheap price (like the ones in Divisoria).
Fashion industry is the business of fashion. It satisfies customer demand for apparel under conditions that enable participants in the industry to operate at a profit. 

Here are the 4 levels in fashion industry:
1. Production of raw materials – the source of fibers and textiles as well as leather and fur.
2. Production of fashion goods - either by designers, manufacturers, contractors and others.
3. Retail - the sale of clothing, shoes and accessories as well as services.
4. Advertising and promotion – where fashion models play a vital part.
(Source: Wikipedia)

In the next Fashion Fridays to come, I’m going to share the who, when, where, and why’s of fashion as well as fashion here in the Philippines. I hope you learned something from this article though it’s mostly from Wikipedia. :p I just actually chose the parts that are relevant from different fashion topics in Wikipedia and combined them here so we concentrate on the interesting parts and throw the boring parts. Next Friday is about people in the fashion industry. From level one to four, we are going to find out who is who in the real world of fashion. So, see you next Friday readers! :)