What Is Fashion?

As mentioned in a previous post, I am hoping to go into the fashion industry in the future. It's all I've wanted since I could grasp the idea of fashion. But I have found myself doubting whether or not I am capable of excelling in the fashion industry...am I fashionable enough? I don't necessarily follow trends. Do I set trends? Do I have what it takes to be a style icon? Will I fit into the fashion industry?


I did some research on how to get into and succeed in the fashion industry. I came across this video of one of my personal style icons and role models, Eva Chen.


She says something in the video that got me thinking. "Someone else might look at my outfit and say, 'Okay, hate the shoes, love the jacket, hate the skirt' and they'll be able to take one thing and create their own...there are many magazines that are very dictatorial. They'll say 'this in in, this is out, nothing in between'. You don't want to be told that the jacket that you bought last season for $1,000, now it's out." 

It occurred to me that fashion is what you make it. Your style is your style, and as long as you're true to it, you are fashionable. No one can have an outfit that's perfectly fashionable and on trend. Fashion is a form of art, and a form of expression and a lot of people have different tastes and different ways of expressing themselves. In my opinion, as long as you are expressing yourself, it is fashion.

Now I'm not saying that you can throw on absolutely anything and be fashionable. You can't simply throw on the sweatshirt that was sitting on your bedroom floor and say you're expressing how tired you are. Like I said before, fashion is a form of art. There is an expectation that your clothes is flattering to your body, looks good on you, and is appealing to the eye to be considered fashionable. But that does not mean "fashionable" has a certain guideline.

The way I've been thinking lately, makes fashion seem dictatorial - you must wear this and this and look like this to be fashionable. I am now realizing that is not the case at all. Everybody has a different definition to the term "fashionable". The way people prefer some types of art over others, somebody might prefer some part of your outfit over the other, or the outfit you wore yesterday over the one you wore today. But you can like everything about what you're wearing, and love how you look in it, and feel good in it. It is your form of self-expression and as long as you're working it, girl you're fashionable!

Then there's the Plastics...as pictured below:

The high fashion brands, the classic looks, the looks and the brands that have rooted themselves in fashion history. They are the ones that will always be fashionable and - considering the extent to which they have stayed in and influenced the fashion industry - are loved by all. They are the Mona Lisa of the form of art that we call fashion, they are fashion icons. But it takes a little bit of your own personality to be a style icon. Even the Plastics adapt timeless, high fashion to their own taste and even trends of the moment. You can't be a style icon without the word style, and the only style you will ever exude is your own.

xx. K

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