What is the point of fashion?

My immediate answer was money, but as you suggest, sex and status also enter into it.

To give one fresh ideas. Does not mean to be a slave to fashion. Also to take what you want and leave what you don’t. Inspiration, new ways of thinking, creativity, as well as determining individuality. Expression and change.

It’s a form of language, really. By associating outward appearances with certain sets of values, fashion allows us to communicate our values through the visual language of clothes and other styles.

I thought we did design our houses and our dress according to our own personal taste. I think fashion is a form of art.

Watch the little movie thestoryofstuff.com. It explains how fashion as we know it today is designed to stimulate our consumption based economy.

attracting sex partners to create offspring.

I think it’s a vestige of mammalian evolutionary development A buck white tail deer grows antlers. They are not used for defense. They get caught in underbrush and branches. They are heavy to carry around. Why have them? Because the bigger the rack, the more mates they attract.
I look at fashion the same way. If you wear the most expensive clothes it supposedly shows you can afford them and will be a better long term partner than someone who cannot. Unfortunately our technology has evolved faster than our genetic makeup. Now anyone can wear expensive clothes. They can be in debt or buy fakes and look exactly like the person who can legitimately afford them. If you can afford it once that does not mean you have the resources to do it again. Therefore the fashion industry must change every season both for their continued health and the fashionistas’ need to show they can run with the herd.
We need to learn that the real value of a prospective mate is what is in their heads and not what is draped on their bodies. Until then, let fashionistas date fashionistas.

I think there’s a big difference between fashion and style.

Fashion is whatever’s currently “in” and faddish. The latest style of clothing or interior decorating quickly becomes stale and dated.

Example. About 10 years ago, black-brown-orange were “the” colors for decorating a room. The excessive motif is already passe. Now, when I see those colors overused in great proliferation—maybe in a hotel lobby or an office—I know exactly when the ownership had the room done. It just looks old.

Style is classic and timeless, and it can take a good eye to recognize it.

Example. Gentlemen, if you buy well-made, two-buttoned suits, they’ll look great for years. If you go for something trendy—extra wide or narrow lapels, or a four-button suitcoat—you’ll enjoy it for one season.

Status symbols

It’s yet another tool to force us into uncontrollable debt so that the powers that are controlling us have a tighter grip on us.

Planned obsolescence for clothing, as for autos, tech devices and other consumer products, is how the garment industry attracts new and repeat customers, which creates a trickle-down effect that ensures income for countless workers in that and many other industries.

In most places, covering your body is required. If you have to do it, people differ in how to do it. Some people are creative and enjoy the decorating job. Some, couldn’t care less and put on whatever is available. Then there are those who are competitive and want to either create or be the first followers of a new solution to the body covering problem. The differences create jobs for a lot of people. So you could say that fashion is part of ou economic system.

As you suggest money is part of the fashion industry. But, packaging ourselves in clothing can enhance certain features that make us more attractive. Some of the attractiveness is probably environmental influences, meaning we see enough ads and trendsetters that we want to copy their style. I also think we innately find some things attractive. Studies show most people prefer symmetrical faces, and women that are more hour glass project sexiness and fertility, and so on. Clothing can create a look, even when we naturally don’t have the body type.

It also is like art. Watch the documentary Valentino: The Last Emporer. The man was amazing. Watching that movie is like taking a class in art history of fashion. Just absolutely beautiful his creations. His love of fashion and women.

I worked in fashion for many years, and I can tell you this, most of us dressed in black, or very basic clothing, and we sold the super duper fashion stuff to the rest of the public. Back then I wore my clothing more like it was a uniform, especially at work. Outside of work I paid a little more attention maybe, but still my style tends to be fairly basic. Simple lines, mostly solids, classic styles. Now I am living back in FL again and happy to throw on shorts or jeans and a t-shirt. My husband tells me all the time I look like a “portrait.” He says it in Spanish, basically means I look the same over and over again LOL.

I agree with the comments about commercialism and social status, but I must say that I enjoy wearing new “fashion” simply because I get tired of the old stuff. Since we must wear clothes, why not make it fun. New styles keep things interesting.

I just thought of one more thing. About 20 years ago I read an article about how fashion was the new religion. That people wore fashion as part of an identity with a group. The same way people feel a bond when they know the other person is Catholic or Jewish, people who wear Tommy Hilfiger or Lilly Pulitzer know by just looking at someone that they might be from the same socioeconomic status, or same psychographics and demographics. It’s sort of true that certain professions and certain lifestyles wear certain fashion. It isn’t a hard fast rule, but there are generalizations to be made. Think the Nanny, She’s the lady in red when everybody else is wearing tan.

@JLeslie, I see that with women and purses. There’s the Coach set then there’s the Louis Vuitton set. The Michael Kors and Coach folks sometimes intermingle.

Fortunately, it’s not commercialism or social status at all. It’s simply expression. It’s art.

Think about it: You MUST communicate with others. You have no choice unless you want to live like a hermit. Also, others MUST be communicated with by you, unless you happen to be an entirely successful recluse. So when these communications are happening, would you rather be monotone or would you rather be expressive? Would you rather people experienced you in color.. or in black and white?

We do fashion and style because we like it better than no-fashion and no style. We like expression. We’re artists.

I think the point of fashion is to relieve boredom and excite us into forgetting about the doldrums of life. It is actually pointless, but our innate fascination with appearance is a target of marketers.

We’re social animals. Fashion is a statement aimed at the rest of us, about how well we read the signs of our group(s) and how we place ourselves in them.

There’s likely also a lot of group aspiration involved.
This has more to with the group you want to be in than with the one you’re actually in.
You may find this lemma interesting, from wikipedia on self-branding.

I have never had a great deal of interest in fashion and I prefer to associate with others who are not so concerned with fashion that they overlook more enduring and meaningful aspects of individuality.

@Dr_Lawrence That’s part of the psychographic, group thing I mentioned above. Your group has it’s own “fashion” it identifies with.

@Judi That’s interesting. I have never been much of a purse person so I had not paid much attention to that. With my accident a year ago I have damage to my shoulder so now I use a very lightweight practical purse most of the time. In some places I have lived black people buy a lot of Coach. It truly varies by location.

This reminds me of this question. Do your clothes wear out?
That’s seems to look at fashion from the other end of the spectrum.
I might date someone who wears the latest fashions but I know I’d marry the one wearing the 15 year old coat.

Lots of great answers guys, thanks. I get what some of your are saying about it being a way of expressing ourselves instead of just being plain, but is it really that much of an expression when you look like everyone else?

I never got the point of buying a shirt from gap, aeropostale, nike etc with that brands name and logo across the whole front of it. It’s like I’m now paying this company to advertise for them…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ut93YYZu8
Saw that in another thread, thought it relevant to here too.

@uberbatman, so far your whole thread has been in English. Does that mean that we’ve failed to be expressive because we’ve used the same words that we’ve all heard a million times before? The same words that everybody’s always using? Expression simply doesn’t require that much uniquiositiousness for it to be successful.
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I do believe we’re in a sort of consumerist system in the way that that video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ut93YYZu8) was suggesting but that video’s message is pretty alarmist, I hope you can tell. It’s a great video, somehow, but the message is a bit unrealistic and anyway it doesn’t apply strictly to fashion.

Consuming is adopting. If the world were to take on a new idea where they decidedly reject consumerism.. they would still be consuming anti-consumerism. It would simply be the next fad. There’s no escaping it.

“now paying this company to advertise for them” – This is paranoid thinking, I promise you. Listen, you buy a shirt because you enjoy the look of it and the way it looks when it’s on your body. That’s it.

Others who see you in what you’re wearing may be inspired to pursue similar style or brands as they see you wearing IF they too enjoy the look. But they may not!

If you enjoy a particular brand you may well want to promote it to others. Haven’t you ever told someone of a sale you knew of? Or haven’t you ever invited someone to an opportunity to share with you in something you thought was good? Perhaps you found a mecahnic who does a better job than another, so you told a friend, don’t go to Jimmy’s Auto Repair.. go to Charly’s, trust me it’s better!

Different brands make different things. Some make them better than others. There’s no shame in voluntarily promoting brands you’ve found who do things well. Maybe that brand makes a shirt that you like and it happens to have their logo on the front of it.

A more modern way of applying the whole ‘survival of the fittest’ idea; i.e. attracting more males to produce offspring with in order to pass on your jeans (PUN INTENDED I’m so funny)..Maybe that’s extreme but in the end it all falls down to this I’m guessing.

As a social species we are always looking for ways of measuring our status. Fashion provides an easy formula. All you have to do is wear the right tags and change outfits at the appropriate time.

It is easy to poke fun at this. I have zero interest in fashion, but I am grateful that clothing is inexpensive enough that I can change what I wear depending on the circumstances. What I wear will depend on whether I am working in the garden, going to the mall, showing up at work or going out on the town. It was not always this way. Before the industrial revolution, only the most wealthy could afford to vary their attire. Most everyone else had an extremely limited wardrobe, parts of which may very well have been hand-me-downs.

Clothing is necessary. Your choice of clothing is a fun way of expressing a little of your personality. Shop in thrift shops its kinder to the environment and you can find real bargains.
Why let a bunch of strangers dictate what you should wear? The fashion industry makes an obscene amount of money from folk who have no sense of self or individuality often at the expense of sweat-shop workers in third world countries.

:O—> :|
That’s me on any thread that @thorninmud has already responded too.

Fashion as a concept is just another means of communicating to one another. Money, status, values, interests, etc. But it’s not as straightforward as it used to be. These days, an old pair of Converse shoes could go for more than a new pair of Louboutins. But that’s fodder for another discussion.

And as @Pachyderm_In_The_Room already mentioned, fashion as a machine is about planned obsolescence.

My friends say I’m a fashion prodigy. This may be an opinion but I think fashion doesn’t seperate us WE seperate us. Like the populars may not like a underdog not based on there clothes but on there popularity factor. I use fashion to express myself. That’s why I hate charter schools of (uniforn schools) because if I want to show people I am artistic (which i am) then I use my fashion sense to express thay side of me. If I want to show a guy I’m girly ill dress as comfortable as possible in a girly cute outfit because to be honest I’m more tomboy and can’t stand skirts. My point is without fashion the world would be so plain like on that awsome american girl movie “paige paints the sky” she shows the school and community how boring life would be in beige. About how life would be so boring eithout art or fashion. Hope this helps!

@miranda365 Many families can’t afford to buy a “girly cute outfit” or indulge a daughter’s “fashion sense.” Uniforms create an even playing field for both the privileged and those less fortunate. They also contribute positively to students’ behavior; when people dress the part, they act accordingly and focus better.