What is Fashion?

For centuries individuals or societies have used clothes and other body adornment as a form of nonverbal communication to indicate occupation, rank, gender, sexual availability, locality, class, wealth and group affiliation. Fashion is a form of free speech. It not only embraces clothing, but also accessories, jewellery, hairstyles, beauty and body art. What we wear and how and when we wear it, provides others with a shorthand to subtly read the surface of a social situation.

Fashion as a Sign System

Fashion is a language of signs, symbols and iconography that non-verbally communicate meanings about individuals and groups. Fashion in all its forms from a tattooed and pierced navel, to the newest hairstyle, is the best form of iconography we have to express individual identity. It enables us to make ourselves understood with rapid comprehension by the onlooker.

Fashion as a Barometer of Cultural Changes

How we perceive the beauty or ugliness of our bodies is dependant on cultural attitudes to physiognomy. The accepted beautiful female form that Rubens painted is subliminally undesirable nowadays, if we are to be thought beautiful in a way that the majority accepts in the 21st century.

Today an inability to refashion and reshape our bodies whilst constantly monitoring the cultural ideal leaves us failing the fashion test. Those that pass the fashion test invariably spend their lives absorbed in a circle of diet, exercise, cosmetic surgery and other regimes. This includes the rigors of shopping in search of the ultimate garb.

The Need for Tribal Belonging

Our reluctance to give ourselves a regular makeover through diet, exercise, and consistently conscious use of specific dress styles infers that we have the personality flaws of a weak willed human. We become in the eyes of fashion aficionados somewhat inadequate and imperfect in the fashion stakes. Thus we strive to keep a culturally satisfying appearance so that we feel better, whereas in fact we are striving to stay in the tribe, whatever type of tribe that may be.

Group affiliation is our prime concern with regard to fashion. As long as some group similarity is identified within the group, our personal fashion whether current or dated can belong to any tribe. It is the sense of belonging marked by how we fashion ourselves that gives us the tribal connection.

Rôles

An innate characteristic of human beings is the desire to strive for differentiation. The removal of Sumptuary Laws and rigid dress codes has enabled the individual to use fashion as a means to identify clearly the many different rôles that a person plays in any one day.

Sociologists borrowed the word 'rôle' from the theatre because, like actors individuals play many parts and each part has to be learnt. Rôles are continually learned and rehearsed and relearned. They are also shared, because like the actors on a stage, fluid interaction only occurs if all the performers know the behaviour expected.

What is Haute Couture?

Costume and Fashion history would not be the same without Haute couture.

Haute Couture is a French phrase for high fashion. Couture means dressmaking, sewing, or needlework and haute means elegant or high, so the two combined imply excellent artistry with the fashioning of garments. The purchase of a haute couture model garment is at the top level of hand customised fashion design and clothing construction made by a couture design house. A model haute couture garment is made specifically for the wearer's measurements and body stance. The made to measure exclusive clothes are virtually made by hand, carefully interlined, stay taped and fitted to perfection for each client.

High Fashion - High Cost of Haute Couture

Dependant on the Haute Couture design house and the garment, the cost of a couture item runs from about £10,000 to £40,000 and often beyond that figure. A Chanel couture suit for example in 2002 might have cost £20,000. By mid 2004 an evening frock cost £50,000. If you are not rich it's hard for an individual to understand why the price is so high, but it's for service, workmanship, originality of a unique design and superb materials of the finest quality.

In addition the client would get a perfection of fit only achieved by painstaking methods of cutting and fitting to the client's body. The manual labour needed to produce a garment this way takes between 100-150 hours for a suit and up to 1000 hours for an embellished evening dress. The evening dress might have thousands of hand sewn beads probably done by the expert and famous Parisian embroidery and beading firm of Lesage, founded in 1922 by Albert Lesage.

A couture house like Chanel for example will have about 150 regular clients who buy couture and a house like Dior will make about 20 couture bridal gowns a year.

Exclusive Expensive Haute Couture Fabrics

The fabrics available to the couture house would be very luxurious and include the latest novelty fabrics and expensive silks, fine wools, cashmeres, cottons, linens, leather, suede, other skins or furs. In the case of a famous design house the design and colour of a cloth, may be exclusively reserved for that couture house.

Outside specialists make accessories either by design or inspiration. Hats, trimmings, buttons, belts, costume jewellery, shoes and innovative pieces are finely crafted to complement the fabrics and fashion ideas being created. Superb craftsmanship, a fresh idea and publicized internationally renowned names all command a price to match. Those able to afford couture are happy to pay for exclusivity and the privacy afforded by the system.

Toiles are Sample Garments

Designers create their initial designs either by using muslin, which drapes well for flowing designs or by using linen canvas or calico for more structured garments such as tailored garments. These sample models are called toiles and save using very expensive fabrics that can cost a £100 or more a metre. The toile can be manipulated, marked and adjusted to fit a particular live model's measurements until the designer and his sale staff are all satisfied.

The final toile of a design idea is an accurate interpretation of the line or cut right down to the button placement or hemline that the designer is seeking. Once satisfied the designer instructs his staff to make up the garment in the selected and exclusive materials. One seamstress or tailor will work on the garment from start to finish. The cutting and finishing is done in one room and the workroom manageress is responsible for everything produced in that room.