FASHION
Fashion,
by definition, changes constantly. The changes may proceed more rapidly than
in most other fields of human activity (language, thought, etc). For some,
modern fast-paced changes in fashion embody many of the negative aspects of
capitalism: it results in waste and encourages people qua consumers to buy
things unnecessarily. Other people, especially young people, enjoy the diversity
that changing fashion can apparently provide, seeing the constant change as
a way to satisfy their desire to experience "new" and "interesting"
things. Note too that fashion can change to enforce uniformity, as in the
case where so-called Mao suits became the national uniform of mainland China.
Practically every aspect of appearance that
can be changed has been changed at some time, for example skirt lengths ranging
from ankle to mini to so short that it barely covers anything, etc. In the
past, new discoveries and lesser-known parts of the world could provide an
impetus to change fashions based on the exotic: Europe in the eighteenth or
nineteenth centuries, for example, might favor things Turkish at one time,
things Chinese at another, and things Japanese at a third. A modern version
of exotic clothing includes club wear. Globalization has reduced the options
of exotic novelty in more recent times, and has seen the introduction of non-Western
wear into the Western world.Fashion houses and their associated fashion designers,as
well as high-status consumers including celebrities, appear to have some role
in determining the rates and directions of fashion change.(1)