Influences of American Fashion on American Culture?

[ellewoods1989]

we have this paper due, a cultural response paper to be exact. i choose the topic fashion, which is pretty broad, but i think im going to stick with the 1970s 1980s 1990s and today. i was wondering if you guys could possibly give me some input as to what are some of the major influences fashion has had on our culture. has it made our culture worse, better, or both? and reasons and evidence to back it up. so far, i concluded that in a way fashion has made us more materialistic. in some ways discriminating too, as in how we view people who don;t wear designer clothing and such. i would like more positive cultural influences, but upon researching only found negative ones. please give me feedback, seeing as how the paper is due in a week or so, and the first draft due tomorrow... .

thnks

 

[scatterak]

One thing I would definitely put in is the influence of jeans, sneakers, t-shirts, etc. It's made the country much more casual than the rest of the world, which can be positive, or negative. To some, it may mean we're less fussy and materialistic than other places, but to others, it may be saying we're lazy and uncultured. Whichever way you look at it.

 

[Bel]

Personally I'm interested in how culture affects fashion--like how movies, political events, and music get translated into clothing. I mean, you could say that fashion has made our culture materialistic, but that's been true for centuries; it's not really particular to modern culture.

 

[ad102616]

^ I agree.
I think culture has an enormous influence on fashion. If you look at the f/w runway collections for 06/07 and make some generalizations about their similarities you might say they are conservative and somber...most of the pieces which emerged on the runway were grey or black...personally, i think this is refelction of what is going on through out the world (ie. the war in iraq) and this is more specifically reflected in american designer's clothing...I truly believe many American collections mirrored the present state of the economy and the public's discontent.

In my opinion, if you say fashion precedes culture, and not the other way around, you're putting the cart before the horse...but then again, i could be wrong. It's a tricky argument you're tackling...I mean, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

[estellaDARREN]

oes anyone know an agency calles qmodels? how is it?

 

[ackulick]

I definitely believe that culture has more of an affect on fashion than vice versa, if you consider the designs themselves.
But a lot of information can be found if you research fashion photography in advertisements on how it is dehumanizing, objectifying, and all around damaging to women. Poses that the models are in are in passive positions and in certain positions to men, that send messages to the viewer. More recently it has become popular for fashion models to look like they've been battered and pushed around.
There is one designer in particular whose designs were advertised with extremely bad presentations of female models- such as one on a bed, on her hands and knees, with a saddle on her.
He says he's a feminist and hes "joking" but the more women are degraded, the more people will become desensitized to situations harming women in the real world.

 

[mayeast]

The way I understand it, cultural icons like Britanny or Madonna (before) wear things and then everybody copies it. Or When the ganstas started wearing pants with no belts (because people in jail are deprived or their belts) now suburbia is doing it.

 

[rangerrick14]

Yep that's the sad truth now adays. People dress like their favorite celebrities who may or may not have any style. This makes the mass public have no style. INstead of following their own flame.

 

[Stylebites]

I have to agree that culture effects fashion more than the other way around but what fashion does well is to bring cultural undercurrents to the surface of mainstream media. Look at Dior's "New Look", the 90's grunge movement, etc.

Look for an article in Vogue from the past year about fashion's pioneers. It was sometime between last summer and this January. Good luck!

 

[thesiren]

as far as american culture...

kurt cobain -> kate moss -> marc jacobs -> puts a giant mess on the runways -> trickles down into middle america/mass retailers -> the birth of a lazy dressing nation is born.

kate isn't american, but the way she was influenced in the early '90s certainly came from the american grunge music scene, which influenced designers (primarily marc), whose collections went on to shape the style of a nation.

they're the reason we have casual fridays.