Sociology

Fashion systems
Craik maintains that fashion is composed of the array of clothes and decorations of the body to exhibit certain body techniques that underline the interrelation between body and social habitus or social context.  The body then is viewed in combination of how it is used and how the image impacts on the viewer.

Clothing then indicates codes of display, restraint, self-control and impact on a person.  Fashion systems and the associated behaviour vary with respect to its context. Pragmatic considerations with respect to milieu also play a part in choosing clothes to wear depending on the situation and occasion, as exemplified by the type of clothing that is found acceptable for school, work, gardening, shopping, leisure etc. In this sense fashion relates to the codes of behaviour  to ceremonies, rituals and other culture bounded processes and is related to manner of conducting oneself in particular social encounters (2001).

Craik further explores fashion in a complex play of cultural, social and economic factors. She argues that designers play the role of definers on what is appropriate. She illustrates this point in the case of women clergy who wear traditional garb to service but wear other outfits for non-pulpit duties. Designers, therefore present their sketches with practicality and style. One designer thus describes her clothing line with a concept of a fairly demure outlook with a certain reverent attitude. Craik notes that designers combine elements that define the appropriateness for the wearer (19943).

To Craik, such trends suggest that the fashion system interacts in the production of clothing lines. She adds that fashion could be viewed as a combination of factors including conception of individualism, class, culture and consumerism and that there are differences between fashion systems. She cites Simmel (1973176) as contending that the trend in the West is opposite to other cultures with clothing patterns unchanged through the ages. Western fashion aims for the exceptional, bizarre or conspicuous in designs that consciously challenge norms and conventions (19943).

The newness injected in fashion could be construed as driven by consumerism but may not be true in all fashion systems and could be derived from other forms of economic or symbolic exchange. Western fashion could be said to be driven by consumerism hence defined by class position and social status thus the phenomenon of high fashion celebrated as a form of artistic expression.

Globalization
If Craik suggest that fashion is linked to its context then changes in the circumstances of the personal space of an individual could impact on fashion trends. Globalization with the emerging new economies and the changes in the manner of doing business and how we communicate are affecting the conditions on how people conduct the daily acts of living. Clothing like other products could be seen as a commodity but to Appadurai this conception is a simplification. A commodity is multi-faceted and should be taken in the context of its particular complex situation (19868). Apparadurai defines the commodity based on its exchangeability premised on its socially relevant feature. Commodities could be seen in the cultural context thus regulated and interpreted according to some degree on individual taste and preferences. There exist a dynamic relationship between the economic propensity to commoditization and the tendency of cultures to limit or restrict it. Consumer preference is dependent on its level of development with some cultures able to exercise more options as compared to others (Appadurai 198617). Developed societies with stronger industrial sectors and higher purchasing abilities have more options in terms of fashion lines as compared to relatively poorer economies.

The modern world characterized by ease in transport, communication and migration have broken down national boundaries and ushered the phenomenon of cultural diversification.  The context or habitus described by Craik is changing and hence may alter how fashion systems interact and spread across economies. Migration for example brings in new sensibilities to otherwise homogenous societies thus making the exotic part of the normal visual environment when it comes to clothing influences.  It can be argued that the media  television and the Internet for example with the instant reporting bring these images to the homes thus enriching the choices on how to view the world and its particularities.

The media brings an amalgamation of cultures  ideas and lifestyle that can be observed in cultural products such as fashion lines. A new pattern of consumption could be expected out of these influences due to globalization. Apparadurai contends that in the changing landscape of globalization and high interaction between economies, the product is more than the sum of what went into its production such as intensions, efforts and materials.  It generates a life of its own given the changing context of consumption (19864).  In such a scenario, new influences could filter to economies and societies much easier as compared before the advent of globalization. New players from different fashion systems in South America for example could more readily penetrate market in Northern America, Europe and even growth centres in Asia and the Pacific.
Rosensberg meanwhile questions the logic attributed to globalization. He argued that globalization is not a theory to explain anything but a description of an emerging pattern of global production and consumption.  The breaking of national barriers by the changes in technology in transport and communication and a modern financial systems of doing business, have facilitated global trading at an unprecedented scale. There is then a need to re-evaluate the premise of international relations. The doing away of distance necessitates a second look at international relations and trends (2000).

Craiks observation that the system of transcending the boundary between mass and art through the design and production of ready-to-wear and licensing arrangements may have been mitigated by the new trends in globalization as playing for the global market could become irresistible to fashion houses catering to elite clientele (200114).

Trends in the West then essentially is an open possibility with distinction of costume and fashion, Western and non-Western and between high and everyday dissolved in the dynamism of shifting tastes and conventions posited on the concept of self and social codes defining the direction through which fashion trends may take in the future (Craik 2001). With the influence of media and the profound effect of the web and other web technology, social codes may evolve and change in response to multi-cultural and diverse influences filtering from fashion system into another.

Representation and ideology
The media strengthened in terms of reach by powerful information and communication technology of the web and social networks is doing away with distance and mitigates open possibilities in the relationship of economies. The media then becomes an intermediary in the emerging globalized system of cultural dispensations. Branston and Stafford contends that the media by its power of selection of subject matter and the production process through which it views the world in effects constructs its own version of reality.  The media in effect makes a representation of reality and presents this as reality to people and communities in a global scale. In the process the media creates snippets of images as representation of the sectors and categories.  Thus an ordered world coded in such images and representation is discernable from these media projections. This codification into simplistic images of for example luxury cars for the rich only reinforces stereotypes of people thus conditioning the audience to follow the basic script of reality presentation. Stereotype according to Branston and Stafford is a widely circulated idea or assumption about particular groups (199991).

Such simplification because of the propensity of the media to capture reality in sound and image bytes poses a danger of reinforcing for example gender and racial bias. The constraints of time and money to a great extent justify this simplification into truncated classifications of events, narratives and people. Thus media, an intermediary between cultures, is in a great sense a perpetuator of ideas that could be out of touched and unrealistic. But nonetheless the importance of the media could not be discounted, as without it, our view of the world would be limited to our immediate environment.  Globalization would not have been possible. Brandon and Stafford contend that we need the media to make sense of the world (1999).

Considering that media text and images are intentional creations by their producers and that the media is now a ubiquitous fixture in the cultural environment and apply such observations into fashion trends, we could say that media play a role of definer of fashion as well. Media practitioners are increasingly determining what is in and what is out in fashion trends. This does not mean people are helpless victims as far as determining the meaning of the world as the relationship between people and media representation is dynamic subject to interpretation and the sense of reality that people could exercise. Such an insight is important in understanding fashion trends if we look at fashion in terms of symbolic meanings it conveys.

Hall meanwhile views representation more on the ideological plane as a reconstruction of relationships of events and relationships than reflection or a mere reportorial act. Hall argues that there are underlying motivation and purpose which defines how a story is crafted. Hence, reporting is subjective rather than objective.  Applied to fashion systems, we can stipulate that promotion of images in media is not merely a representation of certain trends but underscored a possibly more deep-seated reasoning (1997).

Hall maintained that images portrayed in media establishments are reflected in the commoditization process with underlying motivation to sell lifestyles in congruence with the economic interest of the particular media outfit and people who control such outfits.  A product or a piece of fashion then has its associated ideas, beliefs, behaviour patterns and corresponding values to promote certain lifestyles with its array of products they represent. Thus representation is not free from its ideological content. It could not be disassociated from the class pressure between the consumer of these cultural materials and the interest of those who control such media establishments (197). Thus the product, its representation in the media as part of the lifestyle and the producers of the items associated in such a lifestyle are locked in a dynamical relationship. This parallels the conception of Apparadurai of the opposing trends of economic propensity to commoditization and the tendency of cultures to limit or restrict it. In this sense, the globalized economy may have made national boundaries and minimize the effect of distance but the ideological divide in these economies have survived and still embedded in the depths masked by the dynamic flow of exchange of cultural materials and its representations.

Identity and modernity
Craik notes that clothes as cultural representation could connote power or association with power with such trends noticeable in history with the manner how kings and nobles dress with its associated protocols. In the modern word, institutions have replaced monarchies and dress codes could be construed as allusion to power and appropriate conduct of behaviour, thus the corporate look. She noted the interdependence between the person and clothing as an elaborate body technique through which a spectrum of personal and social statements can be made and elaborated.  Fashion systems adapt to distinct circumstances but with a desired effect in mind including identity  a sense of belongingness as well as distinction (200110).

Giddens expanded the notion of identity with the process of the fading away of traditions, within the context of changing norms due to new dispensations and influences. Individuals change their conception of self-identity in response to adapting in a new world with the definition of order not necessarily in congruence with the previous experience wherein order is defined by institutions, traditions, norms, etiquette and routines. In the new or modern world demarcations are altered, patterns are not easily recognizable based on past experiences, and traditional ways of doing thing reaching a stage of obsolescence. Thus the demands of the modern world in effect have disassociated people from the influence of the ways and guidance of the norms and traditions of the locality or the habitus. Giddens maintains that a point has been reached wherein people have entered a new arena of behaviour associated with open options and alternatives in the question of taste and preference. Thus social life becomes a matter of free choice not bounded by the structures of previous beliefs. In such a context people decides which way to go with their lives and how they would spend their time. People are liberated to re-evaluate the present and project the future. Thus self-identity is a flux of possibilities (1994).

Such feeling of freedom according to Giddens is a reaction to what he termed as manufactured risks as result of peoples intervention or impact of their on for example in their environment which brought about uncertainties and let loose uncontrollable forces because of such actions (199452).  Pollution is one example of manufactured risks.  The uncertainties of the future are numerous and big that it defies calculation hence a redefinition of self in the context of hazards and risks.

The impact of manufactured risks appeared to reinforce the impact of globalization in terms of breaking boundaries and in opening of possibilities. In such a world the play of the exotic as stipulated by Craik is not anymore confined to the play for distinctiveness but a play for experimentation given the diversity of lifestyle choices. The discordant scenario of grim and the promise of a better life in a modern world hang in a balance in the everyday life. Such a conception of identity makes room for experimentation and applied to fashion scenario may reflect the possibility of a more dynamic interaction and competition between fashion systems.  The mood of adventure in dealing with uncertainties may enhance cross-cultural exchanges that may result to adaption of new lifestyles. Such a trend could open possibilities for fashion systems never before seen.

The dress and gender, social values,
political processes and ethnicity
A discourse on fashion and gender is marked by ambivalence. Craik notes attempts to reconcile such ambivalence on the notion of female pleasure in explaining the seductive fascination of fashion manifest in the popularity for example of fashion magazines  advertising which is essentially stereotypic and exploitative. She argued that these magazines offer women fantasies, identities, and momentary escape from the contradictions and pain of everyday life (20018).  Such accounts she maintains point to fashion as multi-dimensional not restricted to consumerism but also related to acculturation, acquisition of taste and beliefs.

Craik notes that dress and decoration varies across cultures but nonetheless embedded in the social values and political process.  Somehow fashion sense is a statement of identity as in the adaption of ethnic decoration as part of haute couture.  Tattooing in some tribal practices for example exhibited changes in design pattern from animal images to geometric patterns. Exotica include use of decoration or motif from other cultures and are associated with achieving distinctiveness or a thrill or quiver. In this way fashion system could be seen as taking its elements from other fashion systems and cultures thus creating newness and distinctions (200119).

If Craik refers to the ethnic as exotica in mainstream fashion, Eicher tackles ethnicity in relation to fashion and the impact of western fashion or world fashion to ethnic cultures. Eicher defines dress as a coded sensory system of non-verbal communication that aids human communication in space and time. Dress is a combination of visual and other accessories that appeal to the other senses. Decorative items such as jewellery and trinkets could be considered as part of dressing up. It has the effect at the cognitive and effective process through which a viewer may or may not identify with the wearer. Hence ethnic dress for example marks ethnic identity (19991).

Eicher cites Appadurais concept of ethnoscape or the movement of people facilitated by ease in transport in the modern world as signifier of change. In the process they gain knowledge of a world outside their homeland.  Media is another precursor in the introduction of new knowledge of the world previously not available to ethnic communities (1999295).

Western way of dressing especially is a familiar fare in movies and television more so from western media establishments. Eicher contends that western dress is misnomer arguing that world fashion or cosmopolitan fashion is a better term. The promotion of the image of cosmopolitan dress is for example evident in the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine, which is published in 28 editions, 12 languages in more than 80 countries. The blue jeans is another example of world fashion popular worldwide, thus the trend for manufacturing and marketing of ready-to-wear lines with wide and global appeal. Eicher contends that ethnic dress and world fashion are interrelated and causes for wearing either ethnic or world fashion co-exist as far as preferences of indigenous people are concerned. Group and individual identities coincides and affect the choice of what to wear (1999).

Eicher cites de Voss and Romanuccis four aspects of ethnicity as important in understanding how changes occur in the manner of dressing. These include the structural, patterns of social interaction, subjective experience of identity and expression of a pattern of behaviour and expressive emotions.  Thus the manner of dressing is a complex form of cultural identity with respect to the individuals conception of self (1999296).

The modification in presenting the body is influenced by the notion of being part or being distinct from a particular group. Dressing up in the manner associated with the corporate look for example, may signify the willingness to be part of that world. Eicher observes that African leaders adapted western clothing while negotiating for independence but signified their independence by wearing national costumes in UN or formal affairs of the state (1999298). The wearing of world fashion then is complex and urbanization could be attributed as one of the reasons but then again, world fashion style of dressing have influenced even remote areas where people wear the same pattern of clothing.  Ethnic dress in the context of these trends could be viewed as capturing the past or as a display of a cultural heritage.

Evans meanwhile relates fashion with gender, commercialization and artistic expression. She pointed out the women has been associated with fashion. And one way this is shown is through fashion shows which rather than being merely celebratory, can acquire a garish, hallucinatory quality. She cites Adornos argument that in the 19th century that the commoditization of fashion and indirectly women is hidden through the inauthentic sense of theatrical illusion (2007106).

The treatment of fashion as a spectacle characteristic of the 1990s signified the commercialization of fashion as disguised as a form of public entertainment. The fashion show to Evans could also be the venue for creative expression of designers, not only a fashion statement but a political statement as well.  She cites Marxs concept of commodity fetishism or when people becomes alienated from direct social relations and relations mediated by objects produced in production. She cites McQueens presentation involving revolving mannequins and the dark background of the show.  The inanimate mannequins signify the inversion of the relationship between the commoditized objects.  By making the mannequins the centre of the show it assumes the life of its own while the designer assumes the role of the machine (200794)

Thus fashion design according to Evans given the anxieties and uncertainties of the modern times, has to make sense of the developments particularly technology, both industrial and communication.  She argues that fashion designs are at the edge of commercialization - artistic expression but at the edge or sphere of influence of global brands and imperatives of mass production for mass consumption. Thus designers play with themes that are constantly on the edge, experimentally addressing anxiety and uncertainties in the interplay of beauty and horror, sex and death but performed within bounds of commercial consideration.  Thus the designer is by definition is in the edge too. Dabbling in extremes to make a statement on contemporary issues assimilating the fantastic in the past into their representations of life in the present through fashion (2007).

Fashion then reflects the changes and the rapid transformation, which led to what we call the modern world - thorn between convention and experimentation, always in a flux and changing. Thus the imagery of the last decade of the 20th century appeared dark and bleak perhaps signifying a start of new social and cultural identities for the coming millennia and saying goodbye to the old. But there were designers though which highlights optimism in the attempt to explore the complexities of modern life and created new images.
The past and present are inexorably mixed expressed for example by Walter van Beirendonck in his Aesthetic Terrorist collection when he used neon graphics on t-shirt underneath an 18th outfit. The revival of the corset as outerwear in the late-20th century likewise signifies the interspersing the distant time with the current, perhaps a search for the meaning of the future. The use of combination of images of the past such as Gallianos design for Dior on the spring of 1997 combined images from Pocahontas, use of African beads, western corsets and images of old Europe among others which combines for a spectacle as if its attempt is to bridge time (Evans 200790).

While the designs and the fashion shows that highlight the designs, could be considered as political comments, it remains a form of commercial seduction using novelty, creativity and innovation to attract publicity. Thus fashion is in a sense intimate with the concept of the celebrity as major brands such as Versace has on its list clientele celebrities and media personalities.  The masses are seduced into fascination perhaps vicariously living glamour through the people they idolize and raise in the pedestal above the rest. Thus wealth and status could be seen in many fashion shows underlining the dreamscape from which fashion designers seem to draw their inspiration.

Though the fashion shows could be taken as an objectification of women or women are themselves commoditized as well as the clothes they display, these is hidden in the explosiveness of the spectacle.  The fantastic and pushing reality into the edges of illusion hides the boiling cauldron of contradictions in the representation of the fashion shows.

Possibilities of alternative fashion systems
Given the impact of globalization, there is the possibility of other fashion systems entering the playing field an effectively compete if not surpass traditional centres of fashion. Latin America for example given the riches of its cultural materials and the rise of emerging economies such as Brazil could become major fashion centre in the years to come. Influences of the Latin Americans can be glimpsed not only in the dances, which they are more famous for such as the Tango or the Rhumba but also in the colour and texture of their fabric and adornment. In a review by Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies in 2005 of a collection of essays in Regina Roots The Latin American Fashion Read, the authors discuss influences of South American figures, such as Eva Peron, or even the beat of the song The Girl from Ipanema as well as the strong influences of Latin American fashion.

Distinctions in terms of fashion, for instance can be seen in terms of colour preferences, such as in the case of the Caylloma Province in Peru where hybrids of their traditional colour such as black, for example for mourning has evolved since tourists take this as a fashion statement. Tourists would ask for embroidery done on black fabric thus creating hybrid garments.

Cross-cultural influences could be inferred from the works of photographer Mario Testino. His photography book on Rio de Janeiro which captures the vibrant city as manifest of the emerging new economy and with the subject matter of the youth careless and unbounded epitomizes the spirit and trends of the new world seemingly free from the shackles of traditions.  The images of Testino including wide beaches set in the dimming sun exemplify what could be limitless possibilities (Testino 2009). Cultural images of the past manifested in a festival with nude dancers exemplify the mixture of the old and the new. It is not preservation of cultural heritage but use of cultural materials to explore present possibilities. The work of Testino exemplifies the changing world of fashion in term of from which place or locality the next major influence would emanate.  The habitus described by Craik have been transposed into a possibility of reaching to the world through the wonders of instant communication.  The media in this case photography brings the images into a worldwide audience including its sensibilities and influences.

Localities rich in cultural materials to draw on and back by its new found strength as emerging economies such Rio and other South American centres would inevitably make a bid or by circumstance become the next centre or dominant sphere of influence.  The element of newness and distinctiveness demanded by world in a stage of rupture from the past coupled with the new technology of communication may signal for a new dispensation in fashion.