While fashion is now a common word referring to the popular trends mainly but not exclusively in terms of clothing, it was not always the case. In terms of trends changing this was originally a western concept. Actually, early western travelers reported that in the Asian clothing trends there were virtually no changes at all. Tradition was thoroughly respected. They were talking about Persia, Turkey, China and Japan. However, during the Ming period, China knew rapid changes of styles.
Of course tailors have always used their imagination to a certain extent, making innovations here and there, but it is widely acknowledged that the history of fashion design begins with Charles Frederick Worth, an Englishman who opened the first designer clothes house in Paris. It is then that being a professional fashion designer started actually being taken into consideration as a proper job. Nowadays fashion designers shape not only people’s taste as far as clothes are concerned, but they have the power to change the face of theater, ballet and cinematography.
As far as women are concerned, fashion trends never changed so rapidly and never were as eclectic as they did and appeared to be in the 1920s. It was then that skirts and dresses became drastically shorter and people started preferring loose fitting clothes. The human body was being slowly revealed. This was to become the sure path towards the sexual revolution. As their clothes invited them to be, people in the 20s were much less inhibited than they had been before. Exploring was the key word. Women started openly wearing men’s suits and dresses which would reveal their entire back. Women in the 40s became more practical, which reflected in the fashion trends they preferred. While men were wearing full cut suits and single breasted jackets with no more than 3 buttons, women would wear Dior-like jackets and short skirts with longer overcoats. During the war, women would have to work, often doing a man’s job. Their suits became practical, comfortable and elegant at the same time. Then came the post-war glamor of the rock ’n’ roll era. And soon enough people would feel the need of fashion trends to express their desire for peace and a higher level of consciousness. This was the “flower-power” fashion, the well known hippie style. While the 70s brought close fitting clothes with wider, looser clothes on worn top, the 80s brought the dance-wear and the shoulder pads. Fashion trends of the 90s were based on good old blue jeans and T-shirts. Fashion trends between 2000 and 2009 started recycling the older styles, spicing them up at the same time. It was the vintage era. And now the styles are changing so fast that you simply have to make a little effort to keep yourself updated. It is worth it, anyone knows it.