fashion

fashion

modes of behaviour or dress ‘in which the key feature is rapid and continual changing of styles’ (E. Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity 1985). However, although centred on dress, fashion can be a feature of any area of life. Fashion is associated with three aspects of‘modernity’:

1. culture of consumerism and perpetual change created by ADVERTISING, and fuelled by the MASS MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION;
2. conformity and differentiation – as Simmel (1905) suggests, fashion supports the differentiation of self but at the same time lightens the load of responsibility for actions as this is shared with others;
3. the more accessible affordability of ‘fashion goods’ and 'S tyle’ as an option in choice of clothes, furniture, or similar goods which enables people to exercise an element of control over their immediate social environment and presentation of self and social identity (cf. LIFESTYLE).

D. Hebdige (Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 1979) argues that different subcultures make their own style through the creative juxtaposition – or BRICOLAGE – of different clothes or objects. Thus fashion is subject to the same assessment as other forms of popular culture. It contains elements of both creative expression and manipulation.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

Fashion

Brummel, George B. (Beau Brummel) (1778–1840)

set styles for men’s clothes and manners for a quarter century. [Western Fashion: NCE, 926]

Harper’s Bazaar

leading fashion magazine. [Am. Culture: Misc.]

Royal Ascot

annual horserace, occasion for great fashionable turnout. [Br. Cult.: Brewer Dictionary, 49]

Vogue

leading fashion magazine in France and America. [Fr. and Amer. Culture: Misc.]

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.