Fashion < Topic >

Fashion 

is something we deal with everyday. Even people who say they don't care what they wear choose clothes every morning that say a lot about them and how they feel that day. 

One certain thing in the fashion world is change. We are constantly being bombarded with new fashion ideas from music, videos, books, and television. 

Fashion is revealing. Clothes reveal what groups people are in. Acceptance or rejection of a style is a reaction to the society we live in. Fashion is a language which tells a story about the person who wears it. "Clothes create a wordless means of communication that we all understand," according to Katherine Hamnett, a top British fashion designer.  

Fashion is big business. More people are involved in the buying, selling and production of clothing than any other business in the world. Ads on buses, billboards and magazines give us ideas about what to wear, consciously, or subconsciously. 

Fashion is an endless popularity contest. High fashion is the style of a small group of men and women with a certain taste and authority in the fashion world. People of wealth and position, buyers for major department stores, editors and writers for fashion magazines are all part of Haute Couture ("High Fashion" in French). 

Some of these expensive and often artistic fashions may triumph and become the fashion for the larger majority. Most stay on the runway. Fashion is a state of mind. 

Most of all fashion is about being comfortable with yourself, translating self-esteem into a personal style. Fashion is a means of self-expression that allows people to try on many roles in life. 

Whether you prefer hip-hop or Chanel-chic, fashion accommodates the chameleon in all of us. It's a way of celebrating the diversity and variety of the world in which we live. 

Fashion is about change which is necessary to keep life interesting. 

It's also a mirror of sorts on society. It's a way of measuring a mood that can be useful in many aspects, culturally, socially even psychologically. 

At the same time, fashion shouldn't be taken too seriously or you lose the fun of it. 

Debby Di Palma