Fashion is a way of doing or wearing something that is popular at a particular time. It can apply to clothes, shoes, accessories, makeup, or anything else that is part of a person’s appearance. People follow the latest fashion trends in order to look good and feel confident. Fashion is also a status symbol and can indicate how wealthy or popular a person is.
Fashion is all around us. It’s in the designs on buildings, automobiles and even furniture. The most common form of fashion is clothing, however. In fact, there are more people involved in the buying, selling and production of clothes than any other business in the world. Everyday millions of workers design, sew, glue, dye and transport clothes to stores. Advertisements on buses, billboards and magazines give us ideas about what to wear — consciously or subconsciously. Even our families and friends influence our fashion choices.
The popularity of clothes is important because it indicates how many people want to imitate a certain style or look. It can also be used to show solidarity with a group of people. For example, when a celebrity or politician wears a particular outfit, it becomes a trend that many people want to copy.
It’s hard to say what exactly determines the direction of a fashion trend. It might be influenced by music, movies or books. But most of the time, a fashion is determined by what people are wearing. For example, the short skirts and boots of teenagers in England influenced the high fashion of Paris or the baggy jeans that were popular in America inspired the hip-hop fashion of the Bronx.
Clothes can reveal a lot about a person’s personality, as well. For example, a boy with green hair and multiple piercings may look rebellious to some and normal to others. It’s also possible that his clothing is a way of showing he belongs to a specific group, such as the goths, skaters or herbs. The clothes he wears can create stereotypes and distance between groups. This is especially true in high school, where students have names for the groups they belong to based on how they dress.