About fashions, trends and styles

Fashions, trends and styles are available in all branches, but the concepts is most used about the clothing industry, interior design and architecture.

The most basic of these concepts is that of a style. A style is a set of rules of how an object shall look like or how someone is supposed to behave. A style kan be explicitly expressed or can come about by people repeting each other or it can be enforced as a result of a formal or informal education.

Fashion can be a style or a combination of styles that are currently popular. A trend is the way a fashion is evolving at the moment. The trend shows what will soon be fashionable, or become even more fashionable than it already is, but that has not yet received its highest popularity level.

In this context, one can also define tradition. A tradition is a style or combination of styles that people are taught to use, and which each generation anew learn to use, ehich people adhere to without justifying the use for themselves or others, that people feel safe and comfortable with, but that also can appear rather dull. If a fashion last long NOK, it can develop into a tradition.

Most styles launched as a new fashions go through several stages before they are on the market as fabricated clothes. It often begins with an idea that comes from completely different places than the fashion designers or clothing manufacturers.

The origins of a fashion idea may simply be a former fashion. Fashion has a tendency to mimic each other at regular intervals, for example 15-25 years.

A fashion idea can also come from the traditional clothing designs in specific ethnic communities. In the 70's such things as loden jackets, loden coats and other loden clothes were on fashion. Loden is a certain traditional woolen material used in the Alps. A little earlier in the 70th century Indian cotton shirts were big fashion, especially in youth environments.

Frequently, a known rock group, a renowned dance company, or other popular artists can be the  creater of the idea. Celebrities sometimes ger made clothes for themselves after their own ideas and act with them.

Other times one gets the idea from a famous film. Screenwriters or directors may have original ideas on how the characters should be dressed and have made costumes for these ideas. An example of this is the movie "The Great Gatsby" from the 70ieths, where the white suits and dresses were a main topic.

Fashion may be politically motivated. Fashion image that developed in the 60's and 70's was heavily inspired by the youth rebelliation. An offshoot of this rebellion was diverse strong leftist movements, radical environmental movement and some eastern religious, Christian and Muslim movements. These movements created their own styles of clothing, and also influenced the fashions of those that were not as strongly politically or idealogically motivated.

However, also the strongly politically or ideologically minded young people bought those kind of fashion clothes and used them in a more complete sense to show everyone their stands as alternativly minded people. In a period in the 70s to one could with a rather large security decide based on the clothes hvilet political standpoint, many people had and partly also of religious affiliation. Ironically capitalists in the fashion industry thus way made a lot of mony from radical youth buying their products.

New fashion ideas may also come from individual artists who make their own clothes look original that trend setters within youth environments, corporate environments or specific outreach professionals decide to copy..
 

Trend Setters are people who seek out new styles to be dressed in, and then show their new style up for their peers and other audiences. The trendsetters can also be the very creater of a new style. Trend setters plays a major role in spreading new fashion ideas at an early stage and also at later stages. To be a successful trendsetter one must not only be willing to pick up new original ideas, trends and fashions, but also be well known or popular in certain circles.

The next stage is when the famous fashion houses or fashion designers learn about the ideas and make creations in accordance with these. Fashion houses can of course also conceive ideas on their own. Creations that fashion houses stock is often extreme. Some are meant only for show or for special occasions, and they are meant to worn by famous people or people with a strong economy. At the fashion house's creation shows  the ideas get known to a wider audience and to clothing manufacturers who make clothes for people.

Typically, fashion houses stock a collection for two seasons in years, the fall season and spring song, and hold views of the clothes prior to each season.

Also at this stage the tren setters play a major role. Fashion houses are actively trying to get as many well-known trendsetters as possible to wear clothing created by just themselves.

New Media and including fashion magazines also play a big role in this stadium. Partly, they make reports about the new fashion creations and fashion trends, and partly to create the reports about people who act as trendsetters. Through the mass media have a larger audience to know about new fashion trends.

The next stage is that the larger clothing industries draw models in accordance with the new ideas and bring those clothes out on the market. Sometimes they also let famous fashion houses draw the models for them, or a fashionhouse have mass production of clothes as a second or even main production activity.

In this last stage, massive advertizing campains are performed by the clothing producents. Also at this stage people persceived as trensetters are engaged to show the new creation to the whole market. If the new style is popular at the market, it developes into a trend and becomes a fashion that can last for some years.

How long as a fashion exists varies. Some fads last just one season. Some fads last many seasons. Still others fashions evolve gradually from season to season over many years, and will eventually totally different from the origine. If a fashion lasts long enough, it can be permanent and thus develop into a tradition.

More about trendsetters

Trendsetters are players who decide a major role in order that something should be fashionable and so that a fashion will have great influence and grow big. Traditional trendsetters have been known as jet-set people as actors, rock artists, some politicians, royalty, artists and other celebrities with an Official status. Nowadays, however, many trendsetters are people who are popular in certain circles, but that has no special official status. There may be young people who are known in the nightlife or in the popular social life - people who often are characterized with adjectives hip, funky, progressive, or other adjectives that have no clear content, but signify them as modern, influential and popular people.

As the Internet has become increasingly important, has people with a strong network of contacts on the Internet become increasingly important trend setters. Trend influence happens via blogging, chatting, use of webcams, videos, video databases, like YouTube, Flickr Image Databases, etc.

All commercial operators at all stages in a fashion creation in the fashion industry is in active pursuit of important trendsetters, to engage them or use them in different ways in the marketing of new fashions. They actively monitors the media like YouTube and Flickr, they are finding the chat media in the Internet, and the frequent house-parties or other popular events where trendsetters could be moving.

Now, there are also trendsetters that do not care about fashions or ideas others have created, but which have their own ideas in lifestyle, including dress code, and implement these. And so do many others that see that the same ideas are good and takes after. These trendsetting exposure may have an influence on what kind of fashion that the various fashion houses take forth. Fashion houses take over the ideas of these trend-holders and develop them further.