Using Fashion To Express Lifestyle And Identity Of Person

Early in the morning before I leave the house, I always take my time to choose what kind of outfit I should wear. A lot of people do not care about it and choose any clothes that are comfortable for them. I always think how we dress expresses what kind of person we are. Many people like to wear sporty outfits, and I sometimes identify them as an athlete or just someone who casually likes to work out. When someone wears a dress to school, I always identify them as a feminine woman. This is because fashion is more than a piece of clothing that people wear to cover their body, but it is a form of expression and identity. The trend of fashion changes over the years and it is mostly influenced by culture and social movement.

The improvement of technology, modernization and art are also related to culture and social movement, which affects the fashion trends throughout the years. There are a lot of questions regarding the changes of fashion throughout the years on why people want to follow the fashion trends. Having a benefit to each individual who follows the fashion trend can also be the reason for how fashion has developed throughout the years. Fashion can also contribute to our lifestyle since fashion is a way to express ourselves. In this sense, the evolution of fashion not only contributes to how people physically look like, but also a way of expressing an individual’s changes on lifestyle and identity with society changes.

I always wonder when did human starts to wear clothes? Or at least, do human ancestors wear clothes? Why does fashion trend even a thing if the purpose of wearing clothes is just to cover our body. According to Toups, Kitchen, Lights, and Reeds (2010), “determining when clothing use began is challenging because early clothing would degrade rapidly, erasing any direct evidence of clothing use from the Late Pleistocene archeological record” (P.29). Although, it makes a lot of sense if clothing was invented in the first place for the use of body cover to prevent early human ancestors from cold weather because “importantly, the development of clothing likely occurred after humans lost their covering of body hair” (Toups et al, 2010, p.29). As we all know, clothing is not simply used to cover our body in the present era.

In fact, clothing have been used as a self-identity and it has moved on to become a fashion trend. We can simply identify it from the early 1990s, when fashion was presented differently compared to the present era. When I was in middle school, I took a history class and there were pictures of women in the 20th century with different kinds of clothing compared to what we used today. Specifically, I never see women wearing shorts or mini-skirts on my history textbook. On the other hand, research shows that fashion in the 1990s, women show little to no skin to show femininity and they usually wear a full-formal outfit, which requires them to use a corset to show their torso figure underneath a long lace dress, and they finish up the outfit with a hat (Kass, 2011, p.6). Fashion in that era was very formal, they sometimes change outfits based on occasion in a day (Kass, 2011, p.6). Which describes that fashion was purposely followed to describe an etiquette of women.

In the present era, there will always be fashion influencer who changes fashion trends and it goes the same in the 20th century because Paul Poitret and Gabriel Coco Chanel took over the fashion trend of tight fitting clothing into looser clothing style by removing corset as part of women’s outfit around the year 1910-1920 to promote modern classic looks (Kass, 2011, P.7). Fashion was known to show femininity among women, but it shows no freedom to women and as the year 1920 passed by, contemporary designs became a trend and women starts to “danced, cut their hair into short bobs, embraced liberalism, and were the beginning of women defying social and sexual norms in America” (Kass, 2011, p.9). Fashion in the 1930s has become more casual as clothing was created in cheaper fabrics in the effect of great depression in the year 1929, which leaves fashion trendless in 1929 because women were not able to purchase new clothes (Kass, 2011, p.10-11).

Fashion trend keeps going up and down as it depends on the economy stability. This might be the start of how people begins to judge economic value of an individual through what kind of clothes they are wearing because in the 1930s Gucci started to get popular among wealthy women and glamorous styles were also popular among celebrities (Kass, 2011, p.11). The year 1950s was the start of fashion for being a self- identity, since fashion in the early 1900s always change depending on economy status in the country. Celebrities start to be a fashion influencer as in the late 1950s, pin-up style with winged eyeliner, red lips, lingerie, fishnet stockings and shorts gains popularity to speak the art of seduction on women, which were promoted by Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page at that time (Kass, 2011, p.19).

The clothes that we are wearing now obviously affected by the past. The trend of high-knee boots, false lashes, mini-skirts, and bold colors that we used now was affected by the year 1960s-1970s, when disco era started as the end of war approaching and women starts to use fashion to represent self-identity (Kass, 2011, p. 21-23). The start of mix and match fashion starts in the 1980s, as fashion has become the huge icon for women. This includes women who wore business suits to work showing leadership personality. This fashion trend in this era was influenced by the community from TV shows and music videos, which includes Madonna’s music videos that promoted the trend of big hair and bold makeup (Kass, 2011, p.27-29). Modernization of fashion continued to grow on in the 1990-2000s, which still shows that fashion to represent self-esteem and individualization (Kass, 2011, p.33).The clothing trend range had become more of casual variety and clothing was worn depending on individual’s taste.

Fashion trend can be influenced by culture. In the early 1900s, fashion style in women exists to represent femininity of women. It can be economically influenced as well because fashion developed to show more skin in the first place by the effect of limited fabrics (Kass, 2011, p.11). Western style has developed to show a lot of skin to show the art of seductiveness as the era moved on (Kass, 2011, p.19). I grew up in Indonesia, which I consider for having a conservative culture as I compare it to United States culture. From this observation, I conclude that showing skin as part of fashion is still considered as taboo in some part of this world, which describes that fashion trends are largely affected by culture. As I live in Indonesia, I know that the population of the country are mostly Muslim.

Muslim culture shows an opposite trend of fashion. Showing less skin and using veils are part of Muslim fashion trend to show good ethics and morals, which is why showing too much skin in Indonesia is considered as impolite. Also, using veils in fashion is also part of commitment in religious form of Muslim. Wearing shorts and tank-tops in western area for daily wear are considered normal, while in Indonesia wearing shorts and tank-tops are not as normal. In the present time, more people starts to wear openly clothes, but it does matter where to use it. It is improper to wear open clothes in public transport or when walking on the street because people will get negative stares, cat-calls, or even sexual harassment. The article “Indonesia Etiquette: How You Can Avoid Causing Offence” mentioned, “Even in cosmopolitan areas like Jakarta and Bali, women wearing short shorts, mini-skirts and revealing tops will often be mistaken for prostitutes, and will be bothered, especially at night”(Sylvester, 2015).

This does not mean all Muslim women in Indonesia are required to wear veils, but showing less skin are encouraged. The article “Secular Fashion, Religious dress, and Modesty Ambiguity: The Visual Ethics of Indonesian Fashion-Veiling” mentioned that, “Wearing Islamic modest clothing, for example, is linked to cultivating modesty, shyness, and obedience” (Bucar, 2016,p.71). In addition the use of veiling and showing less skin in fashion are the effect of Muslim culture with the sense of concerning sexual harassment in male’s instability sexual desire (Bucar, 2016, p.72). In the present era, people who committed in the use of veil can also speak their identity by mix and matching their veils with their outfit, as I observed from people in Indonesia who wore veils. Mixing colors are part of it to show creativity and communicating personality to bring out an individual’s character. In this sense, showing less skin in Indonesian fashion represents the concern of sexual harassment, while in the early 1900s, western culture shows less skin in fashion to represent femininity and elegance and this is why fashion trends are hugely affected by culture.

Fashion is more than a piece of clothing to represent an individual’s identity. Sometimes, depending on what clothing we are wearing, people can get more respect or priorities through fashion. The journal article “Design innovation and Fashion Cycles” mentioned, “the purpose of fashion is to facilitate the differences of “types” in the process of social interaction” (Wolfgang, 1995, p.772). Based on personal experience, securities doesn’t really check ID cards in Indonesian clubs if women wear clothing that shows a lot of skin because they will assume that they are on a legal age. The fact is that fashion have more values in public. As an example, fine dining restaurants requires their customers to wear formal outfits. This means that people who wear shorts or sandals will not be allowed to come inside the restaurant.

Sometimes, I think restaurants are being ridiculous because people who does not wear formal outfits does not mean that they cannot afford the food payments. From this experience, I see that a lot of people stereotyped individual’s economic situation by the clothing that they wear. The journal article called “Fashion and Democratic Relationships” mentioned that, “ Fashion aggravates antagonism among citizens when it is used to flaunt status and wealth, and that luxury items often encourages arrogance as the part of those who have more possessions while it saps the confidence of citizens who lack them”(Miller, 2005, p.6). Although it is normal in the present era to stereotype people’s economic value based on fashion because sometimes I judge people the same way. That is why people starts following fashion trends to fit in.

I watched the movie “Mean Girls” several years ago and the movie is popular among young teenagers. In that movie, they show how popular girls change the way of the so-called unpopular new girl fashion sense to fit into their group. It was shown that the actions of the awkward girl change to a more confident girl. This simple example shows that fashion style can actually change the way an individual act and fit into higher social group. Everybody knows that wearing a business casual or business formal attire is required in a job interview for a good impression. People automatically did it anyway for the sake of impression. Human shows that fashion has evolved into benefiting individuals rather than just a piece of clothing to cover their body. The journal article called “Philosophic-Anthropological Implication of Fashion” mentioned that, “One receives the guests according to his clothes and sees him to the door according to his understanding, but understanding still cannot prevent the impression that a well-dressed person makes” (Meinhold, 2013, p.37).

Humans are a social being, which leads them to feel encouraged in following fashion trends and make sure that they are well dressed. Although a lot of people does not care about fashion because they care about being comfortable on daily basis, they still try to dress appropriately if needed. I personally always try to dress fashionably, while a lot of people do it for first impressions. An interesting example other than job interviews are a good first impressions on a first date. A lot of people, including me and my friends, only dress nice for the first impression and the first few months into the relationship. When couples get comfortable with each other, a lot of them tend to dress less fashionable and go towards a comfortable outfits.

This eventually happens to everyone because socially, people wants to attract each other to find a significant other by giving good first impressions through physical looks because “the intention is to win friends or draw appreciations by communicating their values in the form of dress and clothing as appearance is a social etiquette and effective form of nonverbal communication” (Venkatasamy, 2015, p.3). With human needs of social environment, it brings marriage comes to life. Without marriage or couples get into intimacy sexually, human population will extinct because there are no source of reproduction. This is where self-recognition occur on daily basis because it is rare that people get attracted sexually to each other without good physical first impression and Meinhold mentioned in his journal article about Maslow’s words about men in the need of “intimacy and love” because humans are a social being that cannot be left alone (Meinhold, 2005, p.38).

As I mentioned previously, in the 1970s people get influenced by fashion trend through televisions. It cannot be denied that the years after, people get influenced by fashion magazine because back in high school I rely more on fashion magazines than the internet. On the other hand, in today’s era, technology has evolved and people can get easily influenced by social media. It can be through Blog, where fashion icon or “fashion bloggers” share their daily fashion sense through blogs. It is even easier now that Instagram and YouTube took over Blog’s popularity and fashion bloggers starts to move to Instagram and YouTube as public figures. I honestly have been using Blogs, Instagram, and YouTube as fashion inspiration. It is obvious that Instagram and YouTube are the source of an individual’s business because I was once interested to share my fashion as an addition to my personal allowance by sharing my sense of fashion.

The more personal fashion style shared, the more followers we will get and eventually they will get sponsored by various fashion companies, then share more fashion trends. Which a lot of influencers now share their sponsored items to their followers through YouTube or Instagram stories as I see it myself. Most people have social media accounts, especially young adults and majority of people who loved to follow the fashion trends are young adults. This can be due to wanting to attract people socially to find significant other, showing off, or just wanting to follow the trend to fit into higher social standards. The journal article “Democratizing Fashion: The Effects of the Evolution of Fashion Journalism from Print to Online Media” mentioned that, “Print media become less popular and less abundant, digital sources have begun to satisfy this generation’s desire for fashion advice and other topics, ranging from skincare, make-up, and hair tutorials, to do-it-yourself projects and celebrity news” ( Boyd, 2015, p.17).

A lot of people feel pressured if they do not follow the fashion trend because of their status in the social group and wanting to keep their high standards. The article “Fashion Trends and Their Impact on Society” reports that, “a consumer in China saves her three months salary to purchase a LVMH handbag”( Venkatasamy, 2015, p.1). This shows that a lot of people sacrifice their allowance in the purpose of maintaining high social standards by purchasing luxury items. On the other hand, maintaining high fashion sense as being trendy is not a huge problem nowadays because a lot of companies starts to “offer fashion products on a credit basis with easy monthly part payment options” (Venkatasamy; 1). In addition, a lot of entrepreneurs start a company in fashion industry that sells products with cheaper price tag (Zara and H&M) but still following the fashion trends and based on demand, which gives easier access for people to purchase trendy fashion products to maintain social standards and show attractiveness (Bhardwaj and Fairhurst, 2010, p.171).

While decades ago fashion was generally used to cover individual’s body and show a lady-liked manner for women, in today’s era fashion has changed its purpose. Nowadays, people used it to express themselves and show their identity. On the other hand, fashion has changed the society as it changed people’s lifestyle because following fashion trend will benefit an individual socially. Even more, fashion leads to reproductive fitness through self-recognition with fashion trends. In conclusion, the purpose of fashion has changed in the present era, as the evolution of fashion has changed the society and the purpose of fashion itself.