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Fashion, clothing defined primarily for its expressive and decorative qualities and subject to a continual and arbitrary succession of new styles. Innovation and change are its most obvious characteristics. Not all clothing is fashionable, and the term “fashion” is not only used for describing clothes.
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Fashionable clothing
can usually be said to have some
significance, usually dictated by social,
gender, and other conventions. The wearing
of fashionable clothes denotes a certain
status, not derived solely from the inherent
worth of the clothing, but from the degree
to which the clothes conform to a concept of
fashionableness. Historically, fashion has
been defined by the upper ranks within
society. In the 20th century various factors
combined to create fashion-consciousness in
an ever-broader spectrum of society. The
history of fashion is a vast subject, and
for the purposes of this article typical
developments are treated from a British,
American, and European perspective.