introduction to fashion as a

concept(14 oct)
• Socio psychological association
• Personal perception of fashion
• Factors influencing fashion
• Fashion as a cultural symbol
• Fashion as a system
what's fashion ?
Fashion can be anything that looks aesthetically
pleasing to anything that reflects us in either a subtle,
unique or strong way.

Personally, I feel fashion shouldn’t be

constricted to be all about clothes, it
can reflect in the way we hold
ourselves or the energy that we emit,
because they all together makes our
personality and fashion would be half
empty without it.
FACTORS THAT influences FASHION
Gender and age
With gender, change in fashion was pretty evident although fashion now is becoming gender fluid.
With age its pretty normal for our fashion taste and standards for normal clothing to change. We
might get more or less expressive, adventurous or find comfort in certain specific types of clothes
but its been observed that women tend to change what they wear more often than men with age,
may be because with changing times or body, women are expected to change their clothes too.
For example, a girl child wearing a skirt isn’t an eyesore to the society or even family but their teen
daughter wearing it, is sacrilegious.
 Personal taste
Personal taste is what feels good to you, it can change and its keeps evolving and thus our fashion
sense keeps evolving too, because no matter the trend unless you actually like it, you wont like
wearing it.
Like food, you enjoy food that’s as per your taste, not what others like. For example I like to dip my
fries in shakes and although my friends find it weird, I find it pretty nice. You sip it after fries or you
dip your fries in milkshake, initially feels like the same thing.

Things I like to wear

I feel our personal experiences and the phrases of life, the style of the
celebrity we love, the agenda of our life all adds to our personal taste
and with change in life, taste in fashion is expected to change as well.

For example, I hated animal prints but in between seeing idols I look
up to, to my best friend obsessing over the cow prints, I actually find
cow prints pretty cool now. Either I am really easy to influence or its
what usually happens, your likes gets influenced by people who you
like but I still love my solids.
culture and Exposure
I feel, fashion communicates with societies and cultures around it and takes influence/inspirations from
it. With more and more cultures now interacting, theirs traditions and clothes interact as well, thus we
can see cultures inspiring many fashion looks to start a whole new style of clothing and you'd see many
traditional clothes being modernized in their respective culture or maybe even outside it but its usually
considered offensive to use others culture for mere fashion. I feel fashion of an individual or a culture
depends astronomically on how much exposure they have had with other cultures, concepts and ideas
Cultural part of our fashion will always remain important. With different culture comes different
standards of what's acceptable and to what extent.
I feel culture gives to fashion as fashion gives to culture for example, Mexicans have their very
vibrant Mexican skirts and Japanese have their kimonos and Indians with their sarees and bindis,
all add to fashion and culture both. We can easily identify these said styles or clothes to their
respective cultures, so I feel fashion and culture can both sit at the same table. They add
significance to each other.
AWARENESS
Being aware of the trends, our personal comfort and tastes, our body type and what will compliment it
and what not, what's in trend and what's going in and around the society could increase the fashion
potential in an individual and help them make better and ethical fashion choices.
For example, being aware of the negative effects of fast fashion might lead people to make more
sustainable fashion choices.
Celebrities AND MEDIA
Media plays a fun role in influencing fashion, what we see on TV or blogs makes for what we might
think is stylish, cool and what not.
We usually try to replicate what our favourite celebrity wears or the aesthetic of the character in
liked movies/series or even comics
Bollywood has brought in many fashion trends in India, for example Sharmila Tagore with her
first ever covered bikini shoot to one piece swimsuit, opened up the bikini trend in Indian
cinema that’s still being followed. Kuch kuch hota hai, brought in trends like bob cuts, tight
polo t-shirts , jumpsuits, etc. Casual tees over Patiala salwar pants seems to still going strong.
SEASONS

Seasons dictate change In fashion. Brands have

collections as according to season, like summer, winter,
prefall. People change their whole wardrobe when
seasons changes. For example my mother keeps our
sweater up in a metal box that’s kept on the roof and in
rotation the box changes from storing winter clothes to
summer clothes and on and on.