Changing Fashion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Changing Fashion - Essay Example The essay "Changing Fashion" discusses how and why fashion and trends change. From the definition of Barnard it is evident that fashion can mean different things to different people. Kawamura propounds a sociological approach to fashion that is based on a system of social institutions that produces and nurtures the concept of fashion as well as the phenomenon or practice of fashion. An institutionalized system comprising a persistent network of beliefs, customs and formal procedures form a distinct social organization with the acknowledged focal purpose of creating or producing fashion. Fashion is dynamic, it keeps changing, it is a target that keeps moving; yet fashion is not just change per se, it has been defined as â€Å"institutionalized, systematic change produced by those who are authorized to implement it.† Again, it has also to be understood that notwithstanding the fact that fashion undergoes a continuous process of change, the institutions, organizations and firms t hat form the basis of fashion can be relatively very stable. Some researchers tend to incorporate this dichotomy into their works by differentiating between style and fashion. Style is defined as â€Å"one of the main components of group identity A style is the external manifestation of certain underlying values and principles †¦ Style is not just musical taste, ways of dress or speech. It should be seen as a combination of all this elements, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.† Fashion is considered to be the variations.