FASHIONand Social Construction

“What role does Fashion play in Human communication? —What is the relationship between appearance and communication?

“ Appearance is a way to Communicate

Social class, gender, sexuality, character, etc

“a style that is popular at a particular time, especially in clothing, hair, make up, etc.

-Cambridge Dictionaries Online

“Fashion plays central role as the shared aesthetics of a community, and is a lens through which we can examine the relationship between appearance and communication.

Thesis

FOR EXAMPLE

➤ Fashionable clothing indicates ideologically modern

Tradition, on the other hand, signifies the unchanging, the repetitious, the stable

➤ Fashionable clothing indicates one’s social class in some cases.

➤ Different gender has distinguished fashionable styles.

Example: A man wear women’s cloth is considered as a feminine

a women wearing men’s cloth is considered as a masculine

Fashion is a social behavior where the fashion leaders first recognized a new fashion and start to perform it. In most cases the fashion leaders are the upper class people. After that, working-class individuals made choices about which middle-class items of style they discovered attractive and inclusion to their new mode of adaptation in their daily life. ( Crane, 2011)

Levy and Weitz, The essentials of retailing (1996)Stages in the Fashion Life Cycle

Creation

Spread to larger consumer groups

Adoption by Fashion Leaders

Saturation

Decline in Acceptance

Obsolescence

DONEXianlin Shao