How Does Fashion Mean Something?

The author of this paper is going to explore the question “How does fashion mean something?”. Firstly, the author will document how fashion and fashion design is a subjective topic based around individuality and originality, this will be outlined first as it is thought that fashion (as a branch of art) is a difficult topic to sum up. Once a working definition has been established, the author will introduce the first of her two chosen items of clothing, the rationale for choosing the garment will be discussed, then a summarising sentence will round matters up. To finish the paper the author will provide a conclusion which will include a summary of all learning outcomes understood and achieved.

The concept of fashion is one that is incredibly difficult to define. Without a definition it is even harder to work out whether fashion actually matters, this will be my starting point. Fashion is a form of art (Maynard, 2000), and for this particular subject there is a whole branch of philosophy dedicated to estimating its meaning and worth (Carroll, 1999). Within this discipline it is claimed that fashion (as a form of art) cannot be defined at all, at best we should look to explore an individual’s own sense of style based upon their own subjective opinion (Warburton, 2004).

Why is fashion hard to define? It is hard to define because there is no right or wrong answer to the art of fashion as it is down to one’s interpretation. Interpretation is the key element as without it there would be no individuality and we would all be walking around the same. Fashion can be used to create a statement, for example, a feminist could wear an outfit that could seem to look unflattering from an aesthetic view point, however she would wear it as she doesn’t want to be sexualised in anyway, but to somebody who appreciates and understands what the outfit is saying (based upon the lady’s meaning), the unflattering garment could be seen as the best outfit in the room.