Fashion is a broad aesthetic term, in a certain context and time, of apparel, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, hair styling, and physique. In its broad usage, the word also means a definite look as what is the latest fashionable look of time. So for instance, a lady wearing a skirt and sweater would be considered fashionable today. But a gentleman wearing a button up shirt and slacks would not be considered fashionable today. The meaning of fashion, then, is that which changes with changing times.
The word, in its broader sense, can also be related to the word of two different words that modify it. One word from the base language is ‘Fasmer,’ which means the style or form, and ‘efficacious’ meaning effective. In English, style denotes what is typically done in everyday life, while efficacy denotes something that brings about practical results. Thus, according to the etymology dictionary, style is “a new idea or style, especially one adopted for particular purposes.” “Fasmer” is a feminine form of style, therefore” Fasmer,” the feminine version of style, refers to a certain female fashionable trend or habit, as in “the new wave.”
The fashion industry has come up with various definitions for what constitutes high fashion. In certain areas of the industry, such as jewelry, where the definition of high fashion differs among designers, there is frequent disagreement about what constitutes high fashion. Jewelry is a good example because some jewelry manufacturers claim to have created high fashion while others (mainly the European designers) consider it over-stated, pretentious, and materialistic. However, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, high fashion as it relates to jewelry is “an elevated degree of design and style characterized by an exaggeration of design or style, especially by the combination of cutting and embellishment.” In this particular definition, jewelry is one of the few examples of high fashion in which the designer has the power to completely alter the appearance of the article by choosing elaborate materials, designs, colors, and sometimes even textures.
There is great debate in the fashion industry concerning whether or not high fashion is just for the wealthy and famous. This is primarily due to the fact that most of the clothes that are worn by celebrities (and other well-known people) are extremely expensive and only available to the elite few. Because of this, ordinary clothes and accessories are seen as low fashion. Thus, ordinary clothes are passed over when it comes time to choose new accessories and outfits for a celebrity or someone who is well-known, as opposed to someone who is not yet well-known, which makes ordinary clothes like most of our clothes on the high-end market.
The fashion industry has come under fire for many of its practices, such as those of having plastic-surfaced models used for advertising campaigns, as well as requiring models to do poses for fashion shows that are designed to have the models look “so hot”. Recently, there have been increasing reports of abuse committed by some fashion designers, such as Fath and Dior, who have forced models to do shots while they were naked or made other models bend over so that they could do shots of elongated but seemingly endless poses. Many high-fashion designers have been brought into the public eye because of their controversial ways in which they promote their products, and often for reasons of exploitation and harassment.
As we can see, there are many gray areas when it comes to the prevailing fashion. This is partly why the debates about the definition of fashion itself are so heated, because nobody can agree on exactly what it is. It will most likely continue to undergo changes, with both designers and consumers dissatisfied with the methods of how clothing is designed. However, there is no doubt that the power of fashion will continue to be influential in society, as it has been for the last several decades.