Fashion is the most popular way of expression. Fashion is ever-changing in patterns, colors, and textures. When a style is accepted by a number of people, it becomes a fashion. Fashion changes time by time. Fashion is always influenced by age, gender, occupation, culture, social life, and location also. Nowadays, fashion is defined by fashion designers following the coming season and it includes cultural aspects, celebrity influence, or anything which looks different than regular fashion.
Every fashion has its’ life cycle in which the fashion moves. The movement of fashion should be known by fashion designers, manufacturers and forecasters, etc. to generate new fashion as well as to develop a successful approach. The knowledge about fashion movement and direction will always help to understand the market acceptance, need, and rejection.
Fashion is always influenced by various factors. The movement of fashion indicates the speed and future direction. The acceptance and discontinuation of any style through the path is called a fashion cycle.
Most of the styles are always introduced at a high price. Designers design various apparel using lines, colors, shapes, fabrics, and structural details. Because of the high price, very few people can purchase these garments. Small quantity production requires high production budget but it also gives a designer, freedom for production and it even gives room for creativity. At this stage, the style is new and to be worn by only a few people on special events.
TV celebrities, film stars always wear new styles to attract the attention of the public. When the general public watches these new styles they wish to imitate it. Popular celebrity styles are always copied by many manufacturers. For creating these low priced versions, producers use less expensive material.
When any fashion is at the highest point of popularity it is called a peak point in popularity. At this stage, the demand for the particular style is so high that manufacturers produce various adoptions of the same style of many price ranges.
At peak stage, the various copies come in the market. Everywhere, the same fashion has been seen and the fashion-conscious person gets tired of the same style and starts to search for something new. At this stage, consumers wear the same style but are not ready to spend for the same style. The popular style has been on sales counter, by retailers making space for new arrivals.
In the last stage of the fashion cycle, many consumers have turned to new styles, and here is the starting of a new cycle.
A fashion cycle is a reflection of fashion acceptance or rejection. So, this acceptance and rejection of fashion creates length in fashion cycles. Every fashion moves in the same cyclical pattern but the time varies. Some fashion comes and goes in a very short time and some stay for a long time.
The style which comes in fashion and stays for a long time and never gets completely obsolete is called as classic fashion, a classic example would be Indian sarees, jeans, etc. A classic fashion has an apparel of simplicity which keeps the constant flow.
Some styles come and suddenly get popularity and disappear suddenly too. These styles are known as fads. These are short-lived fashions. They come and go in the same season. They do not have the strength to get attention from customers. It is accepted by a little number of people.
In fashion, various elements have their own impacts such as structural details, texture, color, and silhouettes. They create cycles within cycles like jeans came in fashion in the 1960s and stayed forever but the styling variations in jeans are always seen.
In the interrupted type of cycle, consumer acceptance and purchasing makes fashion ever-changing. Fashion is always influenced by various factors, so is the fashion cycle. Some cycles get interrupted or prolonged by recession, war, or the viruses like the COVID-19. The recession in 2000 or the current virus- COVID-19 has made people concentrate on finances rather than fashion.
After the total rejection of any fashion, it can come back. Designers always get inspired by past fashion styles and can regenerate the style. When any style reappears in the market with new features is known as recurring fashion. In the late ’90s, parallels were in fashion but then they disappeared; now it is seen in different silhouettes named palazzo.
There is always a start and stop in fashion. The flow of any fashion cycle can be broken or interrupted by anything like change in group choice or unpredictable situations like war, viruses, recession, or weather calamities. It is considered that this kind of broken cycle starts with the same stop and come to a normal flow. Recession also has its’ own impact and influence on fashion.
Long run fashion takes more than one season to complete the cycle than the average fashion cycle. Short-run fashion completes its cycle within the same season.
Some fashion takes time to become popular while some take time to decline.
– Poonam Saner
Lecturer, Fashion Design Department
Cool. Thanks for the tips ma’am. it will be surely help full for the students to gather knowledge thru your blogs. Hope to see more blogs with more knowledge pouring in.
Informative and interesting ! More to come !!
Thank you mam for this information