2.1 What Happened to Fashion

In the article, What Happened to Fashion, Teri Agins discusses the success of Isaac Mizrahi in the early 90s and the cause of his fashion house’s collapse. As consumer’s needs changed, so did their purchasing habits. Brands like Mizrahi were no longer in demand as consumer’s found similar styles for a fraction of the price. Mizrahi also failed to creative a recognizable image for his brand like other designers did (ex. Donna Karan, Calvin Klein). Like many other brands, Mizrahi became a fashion victim and learned that designers began taking their cues from mainstream consumers and creativity was channeled more into mass-marketing clothes than into designing them.

4 Megatrends that sent fashion rolling in a new direction: 

1.Women let go of fashion: Women began 

getting serious about their careers in the 80s when career women were moving up in the workplace. Professional women became secure enough to ignore the foolish runway frippery that bore no connections to their lives. They began adopting their own uniforms which consisted of skirts, blazers, and pantsuits that gave them an authoritative, polished, powerlook. Couture houses, such as Martha Phillips, felt the impact of this change and closed its doors as Paris designers couldn’t set the world’s fashion agenda anymore. Styles were no longer trickling down from the couture to the masses, instead trends were bubbling up from the streets, from urban teenagers, and the forces in pop music. 

2. People stopped dressing up: By the end of the 1980s, most Americans were wearing casual jeans and sneakers around, even to the office. Men rejected the business suit, led by the .com boom and Internet CEOs. Alcoa became the first major corporation to allow casual office attire, spawning “casual Fridays” all around the country. Many boutiques suffered and closed, like Charivari, as Americans no longer felt the need to dress to impress.

3. People’s values changed with regards to fashion: Stores like The Limited and Gap made fashion available at every price level, and designer labels started to seem useless. It was fashionable to pay less money and to be a bargain hunter. Studies by Consumer Reports opened the public’s eyes to the “Wizard of Oz discovery: behind the labels of many famous name brands was some pretty ordinary merchandise.” (406) Additionally, the movement of manufacturing facilities out of the US made quality available at a low price, compatible with the classic clothing trends of the 1990s, and the fact that Generation X-ers were used to the wash-and-wear functionality of clothing.

4. Top designers stopped gambling on fashion: Many fashion houses, like Polo Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, are publicly traded companies, which must maintain steady growth for their shareholders. Therefore, they can no longer afford to gamble on the whims of the fashion industry. Agins tells us that “today, a designer’s creativity expresses itself more than ever in the marketing rather than in the actual clothes…fashion has returned to its roots: selling image. Image is the form and marketing is the function.” (408) Branding and logos are the main ways that designers can distinguish their otherwise ordinary clothes. Fashion publications have also lost their power to make or break trends in editorial pages.

The article ends with an important reminder: the consumer is king. As a reminder, Agins states that “those who will survive the end of fashion will reinvent themselves enough times and with 

Mass-marketing theory aka trickle-across theory: fashions spread across different peer-reference groups; fashion information and personal influence in fashion "trickles across" each group

 

Each social group has its own fashion innovators and opinion leaders. Influencers can be anybody from celebrities, to fashion bloggers, reporters, etc.

An example of trickle-across theory occurs when designer fashions are copied quickly for mass-production, providing similar styles at most price-ranges.

 

    

                  Kohl's                                           Rebecca Minkoff   

                                      

So, did fashion really die? 

This is the biggest question remained after the chapter reading. But, the answer is NO. Fashion has changed the form of its existence.

It is no longer holding its original meaning of it as “Parisian Couture” but is now representing individual’s lifestyle. This is because the current public is more interested in cloth than industry. In other words, they care more about functionality and comfortableness of goods than history and authenticity of culture. This movement of self-expression has boosted technological development that allows anyone to express his/her creativity through both expensive and cheap manufacturing. This large variety in clothes gives the public a choice of what to wear.