Hollywood Sets theTrends

The tremendous influence that female movie stars- as icons of style- have had across the world is very enormous. During the 1930’s and 1940’s, Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” movie stars set the trends: Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford. These actresses and others became models for millions of women who, before magazines like Vogue came out, got their fashion sense from the silver screen. For example, in 1932, within just a few days, the New York department store Macy’s sold 500,000 copies of a white dress with gigantic sleeves worn by Joan Crawford.

The aim of fashion trends is more than mere beauty. Hollywood costumes enhanced a star’s natural attributes-up to the point where she becomes her own image. The desired outcome was a fusion of person and look. Half a century later, fashion designers such as Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Jil Sander adapted this principle for every woman and gave it a name: personal style.

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The Little Black Dress

One definite part of from the world of fashion in the 1920’s through today would be the little black dress. It is such a simple garment and color, yet it did not fail to create a long term trend. It is convenient for any occasion such as dinner, business event, and parties. It represents modernism, feminism, individualism, and class. The little black dress has a combination of logical form and sensuality for which this century has come up with the word “glamour.”

The birth of the “wonder dress” took place in Paris. Its creators were designers Jean Patou and Coco Chanel. Patou, a forerunner of Ralph Lauren provided the architectural line, while Chanel contributed that dash of risk. What I mean by that is that she made it black, which is the color worn by the maidservants of her couture clientele. Fashion consultants have for decades praised the little black dress as s slimming garment, as a bridge between day and evening wear, and as the ideal backdrop for accessories.

Coco Chanel

Since I am so inspired by Coco Chanel and her fashion line, I thought it would be appropriate to share some of her history. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was born on August 19, 1883 in Saumur, France. In 1909, she established a hat workshop in the House of Etienne Balsan. In 1910, she opened her first shop in Paris, three years after that she opened a boutique in Deauville. Through the years comes out with many clothing items and in 1924, Coco Chanel shows her first costume jewelry collection; founds perfume company under the management of the Wertheimer brothers. In 1926, she creates the little black dress. The years that follow, she had succeeded in numerous things too such as hand bags, shoulder bags, “Unisex” style, and perfumes such as: Chanel No.5, Chanel No. 19, Cristalle, Coco, Egoiste, Pour Monsieur, and Allure.



Almost all women’s wear today, no matter what kind it is, is practically the result of Chanel’s ideas, experiments, and “clean outs.” She discarded everything which she considered superfluous in order to show the actual substance of a garment that modern women could wear. Chanel was her own best mannequin-she was very slender, and wore her hair very short. She closed her business in 1939, however in 1954, at the age of seventy, she made a comeback. Unfortunately, on January 10th, 1971, she died in Paris. Other designers took over her business, but regardless Coco Chanel has made a shocking impact on fashion that still carries through today.

The Wartime Crinoline

At a time when people had little money to spare, fabric was a luxury and women had to work jobs that men would do at those times in order to afford any fabric. Kriegskrinoline (wartime crinoline) is the German term for the dress and suit silhouette that became the dominant fashion throughout Europe from 1915 to the early 1917, when women wore very wide skirts supported by many petticoats but without a hoped underskirt. Bell-shaped skirts were in fashion despite the difficult demands placed on women because of wartime and bad economic times. What I am referring to here is fashion during the war, years ago.

Even though skirts were high priced, which used a huge amount of material; it was contradicted by the poor quality of fabrics and modest trimmings. During World War I, the emphasis on traditional female forms gained new importance. For the first time, day dresses were barely calf-length, but the women wore them with high lace-up boots. Women also used jackets to accessorize their outfits or in their words as “military decoration”.

I leave you with a quote from Barbara Vinken...”Romanticism is a sign of crisis, the longing for tradition, for better times. When tomorrow has no appeal, two directions remain: the path inward and the path back.”

Orientalism and Luxury

The Orient has been a source of inspiration for fashion designers since the seventeenth century, when the products of India, China, and Turkey were first widely seen in Western Europe. The term “Orientalism” has changed over time, around the 1900’s it referred to the misuse by western designers of exotic stylistic conventions from different cultures across the Asian continent. Not only did designers create garments with Orientalist influences, so did the modistes: outfits topped with jeweled ornaments were paired with neoclassic and exotic silhouettes. The modern couturiers’ adoption of the construction element in East Asia garments was another important innovation in the twentieth- century fashion.

The break through of Orient inspired trends in fashion also had different sources, such as Japanese kimonos made for the western market. Kimonos are a loose, wide-sleeved robe, fastened at the waist with a wide sash, characteristic of Japanese costume. The flowing Japanese kimono was a garment that began to be exported to the West after 1854. In addition to these wonderful costume shapes and luxurious decorative elements, couturiers incorporated vibrant colors into their work.

Script for Audio Pod cast

Fashion, a prevailing custom or style of dress, etiquette, socializing, etc. Whether we realize it or not, it is something that is incorporated in our daily lives. It is not only about clothing, accessories, designer shoes and hand bags, but the meaning behind each piece of fabric that drapes over our body.

Consider learning a fashion trend from every culture out there, and try to understand why they wear what they wear. Just don’t question why they do so....because another thing about fashion is that there is never a right or a wrong. One must know how to wear it! As many say “the clothes doesn’t make the man, but the man makes the clothes.” Most laugh at the old fashion without realizing that they fanatically follow the new trends that have been derived from the old fashion era.

My goal here is not to only target a fashion addict crowd but those who find it to be non-worthy. It’s a matter of appreciation, just as art and many other things are. Believe it can be a hobby! Among other things, fashion can be just as helpful to the environment in all ways, for example: During Fashion Week 2005 in New York City, Earth Pledge teamed up with clothing retailer Barneys to sponsor FutureFashion, a special runway event intended to educate and demonstrate to the fashion world that there are sustainable fashion alternatives to the increasingly unsustainable and unhealthy chemical nanotechnology fabrics being used in conventionally produced fashions and apparel lines. For FutureFashion, 28 leading fashion designers were given the opportunity to create fashion using renewable, reusable, sustainable and eco-friendly fabrics such as organic cotton, organic wool, soy and corn fibers, eco-friendly biopolymers, and natural and low-impact dyes. They demonstrated that sustainable fashions can be as sublime … or as silly ... as fashion using unsustainable fabrics.

With all this said, fashion is made to become unfashionable, so I welcome everyone to comment on my blog! And all we need to remember is that fashion fades, but style remains the same.