fashion technology essay

Fashion’s Next Generation: How Technology And Culture Are Combining

• by Antonio Talarico
• March 12, 2024
• 9 minute read

[Featured image: Felix Meritis – The Messyverse – JVDPhotography.]

Key Takeaways:

• Technology has shaped our interactions and opinions more than any other narrative in the last 30 years – infiltrating the fashion accessory market, creating a new kind of fashion that blends digital functionality with aesthetic form.
• The rise of gaming communities, AR filters, and avatar creation mean that brands will need to reevaluate their strategies and engagement approaches – embracing digital tools and catering to a hybrid digital-physical fashion world.
• The future should not be defined by a complete departure from the physical, but by a careful balance between the two strands, and a new narrative that brings together the best of the physical world and the most potent possibilities of the digital one.

We tend to think of the world standing at a crossroads: a digital future in one direction, and a physical past in the other.  How many times have we heard “digital transformation” depicted as an inexorable pull forwards? How often do we talk about “analogue” in a negative sense?

For fashion, and for culture as a whole – since the two go hand-in-hand – I think this is a false premise. The future should not be defined by a complete departure from the physical, but by a careful balance between the two strands, and a new narrative that brings together the best of the physical world and the most potent possibilities of the digital one.

In the context of fashion, that means identifying where the industry’s deep heritage meets the new digital frontier, and it means being both critical of some of the unfounded promises of “digital fashion,” at the same time as recognising that, for a new generation of fashion buyers who are collectively shaping the culture of tomorrow, status symbols are now as likely to be digital as they are physical.

This is also just thinking about fashion as product – as objects to be bought and worn. But the industry also has a huge impact on the wider cultural conversation, and while it’s difficult to prove some of the much-praised claims about consumers buying digital garments instead of physical ones (with a possible net sustainability benefit) it’s clearer that the digital side of the industry has helped to elevate awareness of over-consumption.

But to what extent does the next generation of fashion makers and consumers understand and sympathise with the sector’s long physical legacy and deep heritage? Does a cohort raised on the idea of digital fashion run the risk of becoming desensitised to the industry’s hard-fought history of craft, marketing, and communications? Or does the future look more positively blended, with digital and physical operating naturally in tandem?

To answer those questions, we have to start by evaluating why – and how – technology became such a potent cultural force to begin with.

The Shift: How Technology Came To Define The Aesthetics Of The Future

Technology, more than any other narrative in the last 30 years, has been the prevailing “spirit of the time”. In almost every instance, across every medium and every channel, we have become deeply acquainted with its power to mold, disrupt, shape and percolate through so much of our society. On a daily basis, we all interact with, become inspired or frustrated by, and have our interactions and opinions shaped by technology.

This is why talking about technology is, by definition, talking about society and by proxy, talking about culture. Technology discussions often focus on automation, or the power of technology to improve companies’ bottom lines, but in my opinion the real, visceral property of technology is the influence it has on aesthetics. Because that’s the business that fashion is in.

There is perhaps no better example of this than the extent to which consumer technology has eaten into the fashion accessory market, with people spending money on smartphones that they would once have spent on accessories. For a huge market segment, devices have become tools for self expression, and the focus of a new kind of fashion that blends digital functionality with aesthetic form.

This is the space that digital fashion is trying to insert itself into: standing on a thin line between fashion and technology, and asking big questions about how far the pendulum might swing in the opposite direction.

Because while it’s unlikely that augmented reality try-on is going to make a quantifiable dent in the trend for bulk buys and social media try-on hauls, the idea of digital fashion is still working its way into the public consciousness and starting to challenge some long-established notions of what people value, what they covet, and what constitutes a signifier of status.

Take Apple Airpods and smart watches.For the generation that doesn’t remember, or didn’t grow up in the wake of the craftsmanship of Valentino, Alexander McQueen and the like, these devices hold the same kind of  status  as the low-price-point luxury portion of the fashion market – something that luxury will have a real struggle fighting against .

For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, status symbols also come in the form of influencer-driven fashion statements. And it goes without saying that the ostentatious attempt of luxury brands to keep up with this shifting definition of celebrity, has barely made a dent into the new generation’s perception of who holds the creative reins – and it’s arguable whether that dent is for better or worse.

For the wider population, the excitement of catwalks has now been replaced by big tech new gadget releases, and the accessory market taken by Rayban’s partnership with Meta to produce the second-generation smart glasses – not to mention the Humane AI pin – has made brands bend to start offering phone cases and Airpods pouches as an option alongside their more traditional accessories.

What we saw on Coperni’s catwalk with Naomi Campbell’s walk, wearing the aforementioned AI pin, will become more common, rather than an anomaly. Technology is making significant inroads into what we wear – as well as into the industry’s balance sheet: in 2020, Apple’s apparel accessories sales were 25% of all luxury brands sales, combined.t’s not an overstatement to say that technology is eating through the “status symbol” idea that once was predominantly retained by fashion, and possibly only shared with the automotive and watchmaking industries.

But wearable technology is only part of the picture. While there’s no disputing the influence that consumer devices have had on what we wear, and what fashion creates, the next stage of technology’s inroads into fashion are likely to come from new identities, new sub-cultures, and new spaces that the digital-first generation inhabits, and therefore embodies, as their own.

Digital Subcultures

In all the above, I’m sure some readers will  think these statements are either fictitious or trivial, but only a short sighted eye would be so sure that the role the fashion industry plays in the generations to come will be the same as it has been in the past. And there is no real reason to assume that traditional clothing categories, existing channels, or entrenched mediums will continue as they have in the past decades.

For the next generation, the affinity for legacy brands is already fading. This is a new cohort: a group of people that has far more alternatives, doesn’t take kindly to the “top to bottom” approach of being told what to wear, and has been so wired into new avenues and subcultures that the idea of being in the front row of a traditional catwalk holds very little appeal.

These consumers are already influencing the direction of fashion with their spending patterns, but when they become a larger part of the economic class, brands will need a completely different approach to target them – or to at least entice them into thinking that the brand represents them.

The people born post-Y2K bug fear are personifying and manifesting in what resembles, in its very early stage, Baudrillard’s “simulation and simulacra”. They are not capable of discerning between  the real and the representative of the real. For them, the object and its representative symbol are the same. What better object between a handbag or a smartphone, represents the current times? And in that blurry ground between the real and the hyper-real, what role will digital fashion play – either as a representation of physical products, or as its own category?

Technologically driven subcultures like gaming, cosplay, avatar creation, AR filters and many other are, for sure, still self-segregated and cliquish, but they are reaching escape velocity. It’s become routine, today, for fashion brands to be surprised by the emergence of cultural moments – and to find themselves scrabbling to produce new styles to respond to those sudden trends.

But this distance between traditional fashion and subcultures and movements is shrinking quickly. Consider how quickly “street culture” went from being frowned upon to setting the tone for the whole of the fashion industry. How long will it be until the same happens for other cultures that, right now, fashion looks down upon until they suddenly overtake the cultural conversation and the industry finds itself on the back foot?

When it comes to gaming, for example, the numbers speak for themselves. What started as a cottage industry created from the passion of a few hobbyist coders now captures 3.09 billion people “”, and is drawing the attention and the budgets of some of the biggest brands in the world. All it will take is one top fashion executive (likely someone who grew up with the medium) to recognise that this is where the new generation lives, and suddenly gaming might also start to dominate and lead the cultural conversation.

And this will have much deeper implications for fashion. In theory “dwell time” in interactive entertainment is far superior to any other digital platform, but crucially this sector also represents not just a completely new channel, but a fundamentally different model of fashion, with avatars whose clothing and accessories might matter as much as – if not more than – what their alter-egos wear in the real world.

This transition has slowly started this year, but I expect much more to come. And the tipping point will happen when brands begin to realise that selling digital fashion can be just as viable a business model as selling physical fashion – bringing together two business units and two models as a whole.

Conclusion: The Medium Is The Message

So what  can the fashion industry do to capitalize on the upcoming shift in perspective from a generation that has grown up with the digital and physical world intertwined?

The first step, which is one a good amount of brands are already taking, is to be present in the spaces these communities already occupy. The countless gaming activations by fashion brands in Fortnite, Roblox and the likes, are proof that the above is not a new concept or idea, and it is already being taken seriously by certain companies.

The second, and possibly the most important, is understanding how quickly cultural trends, lingo, and especially aesthetics can migrate between the two realms. All this has its roots in  common analysis of social media sentiments and trends, but the next stageis an entirely different way of thinking of what fashion represents, stands for, and the role it plays in the wider scheme of culture.

It’s also especially vital for brands and designers that are working and creating with 3D and DPC tools today, to understand that small steps taken now can translate into huge strides later on in the positioning of your brand optics, cultural cachet, andmarket stratification. I believe that transition, when it comes, will be both sudden and profound enough to lead to many brands being left behind – just as happened in the eCommerce shift – as well as elevating other brands, which are prepared enough to have digital products and digital workflows, to the top positions.

Last but not least, that there’s a real argument to be made for elevating the fashion experience into a hybrid space that falls between  traditional craftsmanship, artistry, and the dream-like, dystopian and utopian digital spaces that the next generation occupies.

As a brand, ask yourself what it will mean to be both realistic and artificial in a way that reflects the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of the current era, without deviating from the core of what your brand represents. The current activations with CGI out-of-home campaigns from Jacquemus and others are lighthouses in this area. AR activations have fast become the new standard. And hologram catwalks, where fully digital fashion enters official Fashion Weeks are another example of how this blending of channels speaks directly to a generation that sees the digital and the physical as equal parts of a whole.

For better or for worse, technology is and will be the predominant cultural movement of our time, and the most pressing question facing brands who are forward-thinking enough to be reading a report about digital product creation is  what the role of fashion will be in this brave new world. The market will dispose of the ones that don’t find an answer, by the law of demand and supply economics, which will be just as cut-throat in the blended digital / physical future as they are today.

Antonio Talarico

Antonio is the Co-Founder of Future Front Row, an experience showcase of a digital catwalk show, showcased at Amsterdam Fashion Week '23. He previously was a producer for an immersive mixed media museum called Nxt Museum, and led Partnerships at both MetaMundo - a marketplace for digital assets - and Based - a motion capture studio.

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Catherine is President at  Ketner Group Communications , a PR and communications agency working with innovative B2B companies.

One of my favorite movies is The Devil Wears Prada , the 2006 film that gave us an inside look at the fashion magazine world coupled with a ton of laughs. I love the scene in which Meryl Streep’s character, the diabolical editor of Runway magazine, scorches her new and very unfashionable assistant with a killer monologue about how one blue sweater was “selected” for her by those in the room (i.e., the world of fashion).

While the fashion elite continue to focus on next season’s colors and looks, another group of trend makers are creating technologies that could change the future of fashion and ultimately change the way we shop for the things we wear. My agency has been lucky to work with and mentor many different fashion-focused technology companies, from those offering product life cycle management solutions to those involved in apparel e-commerce search and fitting room technologies. Telling their stories to the industry is one of the best parts of my job. After all, we all love to look good in the clothes we wear, and tech companies are helping fashion and apparel brands give us, the consumer, optimal shopping experiences.

The fashion industry certainly took a hit this past year — a report by the Business of Fashion website and McKinsey & Company noted that 2020 was "the worst year on record for the fashion industry." The tide may be turning, however, as the market is predicted to recover and hit $672.71 billion by 2023.

It seems that fashion technology is leading the way with exciting innovations that have been accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis. Let's look at two major fashion tech trends that are pushing the industry forward — and how fashion technology companies can take advantage of the current environment by creating high-impact communications programs.

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Livestream Shopping 

According to the National Retail Federation , livestream shopping “will take center stage in 2021, with the potential to be one of the fastest-growing categories in the digital one-to-one ecosystem.”

Many fashion brands and retailers like L’Oréal Group and Nordstrom  have jumped into the waters of live shopping, allowing them to remain hyper-connected with shoppers during the pandemic. Implementing this technology can help savvy fashion brands keep their shoppers loyal. The popularity of e-commerce skyrocketed in 2020. In fact, consumers spent $861.12 billion online with U.S. retailers last year — an increase of 44% from 2019. The online shopping trend will likely only continue to grow, and the desire for more video content is already here. According to research by Wyzowl,"68% of consumers say the pandemic has impacted the amount of video content they've watched online, with the overwhelming majority (96%) saying this has increased."

Virtual Fit And Inclusivity-Focused Tech

At a high level, virtual fit technology helps e-commerce shoppers make more informed decisions. This technology can provide data-driven style, size and fit recommendations for shoppers, as well as opportunities to "try on" outfits by uploading a photo of themselves. Although virtual fit has been around for a number of years, its use has grown during the pandemic. Virtual fit technology is a great alternative for shoppers who aren't ready to be back in the store but are ready to update their wardrobes after a long year of staying close to home.

In the same vein as virtual fit, inclusivity-focused technologies allow shoppers to see more variety in the body size and skin color of clothing models to more accurately reflect what shoppers themselves look like. As Kayla Marci, a market analyst at a retail and fashion technology firm, told Retail Dive , “67% of American women are a size 14 and are voicing their need for fashionable products regardless of size.”

Haute Communications Strategies For Fashion Technology In 2021 And Beyond

Spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the rapid changes in the fashion industry represent an opportunity for fashion technology companies to create high-impact communications programs. To take advantage of this moment, develop strong communications strategies that include engaging content that establishes thought leadership, and develop targeted media relations that can drive leads. When it comes to content, it is all about storytelling and creating a content “hub” that is based on long-form content. For example, if you have an e-book that focuses on best practices for engaging shoppers via virtual fit, take the content and break it out into a complete network of smaller content pieces. This could include infographics, proactive media pitches, bylined articles, social media posts and press releases. Content is still king, and fashion tech vendors can benefit from keeping it front and center.

As any good PR practitioner knows, media relations is all about relationships. Fashion tech companies should strive to keep their media relations strategies targeted and, more importantly, more personalized. Newsrooms, including those covering fashion, are understaffed and overwhelmed, which means your pitching strategies need to stand out from the rest. Personalization is the name of the game, as well as treating journalists the same as you would your very best customer. These tactics can help you get the media coverage you want and the new business leads that you need.

I am lucky to be in the world of technology and PR, and even luckier to be supporting clients in fashion technology. We are watching an industry literally transform itself in real time, and the early results are very exciting. Fashion may have had a rough year in 2020, but as legendary New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham once said , "Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life." Last year certainly tested that theory, but the combination of technology and fashion will no doubt keep the industry in the headlines for years to come.

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

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The role of clothing technology in supporting sustainable fashion in the post-covid-19 era.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 3.1. six categories and four directions of sustainable fashion empowered by technology.

3.1.1. Digital Virtual Fashion

3.1.2. variable smart clothing, 3.1.3. material recycling, 3.1.4. interactive functional fashion, 3.1.5. smart clothing and health care, 3.1.6. artificial intelligence and upgrading of the industrial chain, 3.2. pcbs evaluation principles, 3.3. case design and user research, 4. discussion, 5. conclusions, author contributions, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Min, X.; Shen, L.; Ren, X. The Role of Clothing Technology in Supporting Sustainable Fashion in the Post-COVID-19 Era. Sustainability 2024 , 16 , 8287. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16198287

Min X, Shen L, Ren X. The Role of Clothing Technology in Supporting Sustainable Fashion in the Post-COVID-19 Era. Sustainability . 2024; 16(19):8287. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16198287

Min, Xue, Lei Shen, and Xiangfang Ren. 2024. "The Role of Clothing Technology in Supporting Sustainable Fashion in the Post-COVID-19 Era" Sustainability 16, no. 19: 8287. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16198287

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Technology expands the aesthetic vocabulary of fashion even as it streamlines the process of clothing production. Today, the term "techno-fashion" is used to refer to a predominantly twenty-first-century phenomenon, but technological advancements were shaping fashion design and fabrication as early as the mid-eighteenth century. Fashion and Technology focuses on innovations over the past 250 years that have influenced the production, materials, aesthetics, and function of fashion.

"Technology has always been the essence of fashion . . . The fast-paced progress of technology complements fashion’s ever-evolving aesthetic, and each gives the other a wider frame of reference and more scope to explore new horizons." ~ Bradley Quinn

Following World War II, breakthrough developments as disparate as the washing machine and space travel had a profound impact on fashion. American designer Claire McCardell created washing machine–safe sportswear engineered to meet the needs of the suburban housewife; across the Atlantic, Parisian couturiers Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges cited the space race as a primary inspiration for their new, youthful fashions. With the first man orbiting Earth in 1961, it seemed apparent to these designers that an era of recreational space travel was just around the corner.

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Student Editorial Contest Winner

How Fast Fashion Became Faster — and Worse for the Earth

We are honoring the Top 11 winners of our Student Editorial Contest by publishing their essays. This one is by Evelyn Wang, age 17.

By The Learning Network

This essay, by Evelyn Wang , age 17, from Naperville North High School in Naperville, Ill., is one of the Top 11 winners of The Learning Network’s Ninth Annual Student Editorial Contest , for which we received 16,664 entries.

We are publishing the work of all the winners and runners-up over the next week, and you can find them here as they post.

The spring dance is in two weeks, and my friend needs help choosing a dress. She beckons me to her phone where an endless mosaic of elegant dresses, not one over $20, dances before my eyes. After much deliberation, she settles on a glamorous sapphire gown with pleated details lining the bodice. Another two weeks later, the dress carpets the bottom of a landfill, worn only once.

Welcome to the world of fast fashion.

Fast fashion is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the 1990s, retailers began to introduce trendy, cheaply-priced, poorly-made clothes on a weekly basis, intending to match the breakneck pace at which fashion trends move. Style became cheap, convenient and consumable.

Fast fashion, however, is ultimately a privilege. It is a privilege to buy clothes solely for their style, and it is a privilege to ignore the environmental consequences of doing so. In reality, the aggressive cycle of consumption perpetuated by fast fashion means that the clothes we wear are now more likely than ever to end up as part of the 92 million tons of textile waste produced annually.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, tips for writing my fit application essay.

Hey there! I'm working on my application to the Fashion Institute of Technology and I'm a bit lost on how to approach the essay. Has anyone here been through the same process? Can you guys share any tips, ideas, or experiences you had with writing your FIT application essay? Thanks a lot!

Hello! Writing your application essay for the Fashion Institute of Technology can be both exciting and intimidating, but it's essential to let your own voice and experiences shine through. Here are some tips and ideas for crafting a strong FIT application essay:

1. Understand the prompt: Carefully read and analyze the essay prompt. Typically, FIT asks you to discuss both why you are interested in FIT as a school and your chosen major. Make sure you address both of these aspects in your response.

2. Showcase your passion: Share your passion for fashion and your motivation to study at FIT. Use anecdotes or experiences that demonstrate your dedication to the industry or a particular aspect of it, such as design, marketing, or technology.

3. Highlight your relevant experiences: Discuss any experiences you have that are relevant to the fashion industry or your desired major, such as internships, extracurriculars, personal projects, or coursework. It's important to not list them all out as a resume — you can do that in other parts of your application — but explain what you enjoy about these experiences and what you've learned about yourself and your interest in fashion through them.

4. Exhibit your knowledge of FIT: Make sure your essay demonstrates that you have researched FIT and understand what makes it distinctive from other fashion institutions. The more specific and targeted your examples are, the more you will stand out. Remember to not just name-drop aspects of FIT that you find interesting, but explain how they relate to your interests and how you will engage with them as a student.

5. Give yourself ample time: Don't wait until the last minute to write your essay. Start brainstorming and outlining your essay well in advance, leaving yourself enough time to revise and perfect it before the application deadline.

Remember, the essay is an opportunity for you to showcase your story, passion, and experiences as they relate to the fashion industry and FIT specifically. Don't be afraid to let your personality shine through, and make sure to proofread and revise multiple times. Good luck!

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CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

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How to Apply

Find Your Place at FIT

Find a major that fits your interests in our Program Finder before submitting your application. 

Step One: File the   SUNY Application Online  

After you apply, you’ll receive confirmation that your application has been received. The first notification will come from the SUNY Application Services Center.

The second confirmation will be sent from FIT to the email address you put on your SUNY application and will contain your username and password for your   MyFIT  account. It can take 7-10 days to receive the email from FIT after submitting the SUNY application.

FIT takes various measures to protect personal data, including fulfilling its obligations under federal, state, and local law, as well as under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation to the extent it is applicable.  The GDPR provides protections for various information and records while a person is located in the EU.  FIT provides notice to students, employees, and website users of what type of data FIT processes and how and why that data is used and shared through information posted on the   GDPR page   of   FIT’s Privacy website .  Please review the applicable notice(s) carefully.  The   Privacy website   also contains useful information about other privacy policies, such as FERPA and Information Technology’s Privacy Policy, and terms and conditions for the use of the FIT website and social media. 

Step Two: Submit Your Supplemental Materials

After receiving the initial confirmation from FIT, you will receive a second email providing an individualized link to submit your essay, and, if you are a transfer student, a list of your in-progress courses.  

Your essay should answer the following questions:

• What makes you a perfect candidate for FIT?
• Why are you interested in the major you are applying to?

The essay is your chance to tell us more about your experiences, activities, and accomplishments. (No more than 750 words, please.)

If you are a transfer student, you will be prompted to submit information about your in-progress courses, including course name and numbering and the name of the school you are currently attending.

Arrange to have all official secondary and post-secondary transcripts sent directly from your schools to FIT. Electronic delivery of transcripts will be the quickest way to receive and process your documents. The Admissions office will accept electronic transcripts from the following approved vendors:

• Parchment / Credential Solutions
• SUNY Counselor Connect
• National Student Clearinghouse
• Naviance by Hobsons

Transcripts may also be sent by mail in a sealed envelope to: Fashion Institute of Technology Office of Admissions, Room C139  227 West 27th Street New York City 10001-5992

Transcripts received by mail require additional processing time and may delay the completion of your application.

FIT will only accept academic documents that have been officially attested (bearing the stamp and signature of the Registrar or designated officer) by the issuing institution or awarding authority.

Documents from all institutions must be provided (with no exceptions), regardless of the type of institution, subjects taken, or their relevance to FIT. Such documents should include all subjects taken, all grades/marks earned, and any degrees awarded. If you are a high school student earning college credit, please forward a transcript from the awarding college or university.

Home-schooled applicants are encouraged to review the  SUNY Requirements for Degree Conferral and Enrollment of Home Schooled Students  for providing appropriate proof of graduation.

Official AP and/or CLEP scores, if any, are required when available. Official IB (International Baccalaureate) diplomas or certificates, if any, must be provided by the IBO.

International applicants: If you have studied abroad, or you attended secondary or post-secondary school(s) outside the U.S., please submit your academic documents from schools outside the U.S. to a member of the  National Association of Credential Evaluation Services , not to FIT. See  Undergraduate International Applicants  for more information on submitting transcripts. 

To be considered for admission to Film and Media or any major in the School of Art and Design , you must submit a portfolio for evaluation by FIT faculty members . You will be invited to submit your portfolio once your SUNY application has been received and processed by FIT. Please do not submit any artwork with your application.

School of Business and Technology applicants may not submit a portfolio and materials received for these majors will not be reviewed or considered.

See: Portfolio Requirements

If your first language is not English, you must provide an official Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) score, an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) score, a Pearson Test of English (PTE) score, or a Duolingo English Test score—regardless of how long you have lived in the United States. See the section under International Undergraduate Applicants  for more information.

SAT and ACT test scores are not required for admissions purposes. For Fall 2022, they are optional for the Presidential Scholars (Honors) program.

If submitted, SAT and ACT test scores will be used for placement into Math classes at FIT. Use FIT school code 2257 when sending SAT scores and code 2744 when sending ACT scores. Visit Placement Tests  for more information.

International Students who have not taken the SAT or ACT exams will take  Placement Tests  before registering for any English, Math, and Science courses. 

More Information

For more specific application details, see the following:

• When to Apply (Application Deadlines)
• Transfer Students and College Degree Holders  
• International Undergraduate Applicants
• Portfolio Requirements

Please be aware that documents submitted become the property of FIT and will not be returned. This includes official transcripts, test scores, and portfolio submissions. 

Undergraduate Admissions

Prospective students, current applicants/students.

Essay on Fashion for Students and Children

500+ words essay on fashion.

Fashion refers to anything that becomes a rage among the masses. Fashion is a popular aesthetic expression. Most Noteworthy, it is something that is in vogue. Fashion appears in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, hairstyles, lifestyle, and body proportions. Furthermore, Fashion is an industry-supported expression. In the contemporary world, people take fashion very seriously. Fashion is something that has permeated every aspect of human culture.

History of Fashion

The origin of Fashion is from the year 1826. Probably everyone believes Charles Frederick to be the first fashion designer of the world. He also established the first Fashion house in Paris. Consequently, he began the tradition of Fashion houses. Furthermore, he gave advice to customers on what clothing would suit them. He was prominent form 1826 to 1895.

During this period, many design houses hired artists. Furthermore, the job of these artists was to develop innovative designs for garments. The clients would examine many different patterns. Then they would pick the one they like. Consequently, a tradition began of presenting patterns to customers and then stitching them.

At the beginning of the 20th century, new developments in Fashion took place. These developments certainly began in Paris first. Then they spread in other parts of the world. Consequently, new designs first came into existence in France. From Paris, they went to other parts of the world. Hence, Paris became the Fashion capital of the world. Also, Fashion in this era was ‘haute couture’. This Fashion design was exclusively for individuals.

In the mid-20th century, a change took place. Now Fashion garments underwent mass production. There was a significant increase in the rate of production of Fashion garments. As a result, more and more people became involved with Fashion garments. By the end of the 20th century, a sense of Fashion awareness was very strong. Now people began to choose clothes based on their own style preference. Hence, people began to create their own trends instead of relying on existing trends.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Fashion Trend

Political influences certainly play a major role in influencing Fashion. Many politicians become fashion symbols. Notable examples are First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana. Also, political revolutions make a huge impact on the Fashion trend. For example, in 1960’s America, liberal clothing styles became popular among the younger generation. This was due to the Liberal revolution.

Another significant factor which influences Fashion trend is technology. There certainly has been a rapid growth of technology in the Fashion industry. For example, wearable technology has become a popular Fashion trend. Furthermore, 3D printing technology and the internet have also made an impact on Fashion.

Social influences are probably the strongest influences on the Fashion trend. Many music stars strongly influence Fashion choice. For example, wearing hoodies became famous due to rap musicians. Furthermore, movie and television actors create a big impact on Fashion. Many youngsters love to emulate the Fashion sense of their favourite celebrity.

To sum it up, Fashion certainly has become a part and parcel of human life. It certainly is a force that is here to stay. Most noteworthy, Fashion has immersed every place on Earth.

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286 Fashion Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Looking for hot fashion essay topics? The fashion industry is really important, controversial, and exciting. It is definitely worth studying!

🏆 Top 10 Fashion Essay Topics

💃 fashion essay examples & topic ideas, 🥇 controversial fashion topics to write about, 🎓 hot fashion essay topics, ⭐ fashion argumentative essay topics, 💡 most interesting fashion topics to write about, ✅ simple & easy fashion essay titles, ❓ fashion essay questions.

Our article will inspire you whether you want to write an argumentative essay about fashion history or a persuasive paper about modern fashion. Here you’ll find a huge list of fashion topics to discuss and write about, outlining tips, and excellent fashion essay examples. Enjoy!

• Fashion as a form of self-expression
• History of Western fashion
• National differences in fashion
• The role of technologies in fashion industry
• Fashion industry and its key sectors
• Fashion trends: causes and effects
• Fashion as a social phenomenon
• Market research in fashion: the main methods
• Politics and fashion
• Fashion blogs as a marketing channel
• Clothes and Personality In addition to this, it is not difficult to notice that Field had a good idea about fashion and personality based on the outfits and make up for her characters.
• Fashion Clothing Company’s Financial Statements The opening statement of financial position helps to identify capital intensity, the availability of cash to run the business, assets, and the tools available for the firm to continue smoothly.
• Fast Fashion’s Negative Impact on the Environment And this is the constant increase in production capacity, the low quality of the product, and the use of the labor of the population of developing countries.
• The Effects of the Fast Fashion Industry on the World This led to the creation of shops that made garments to meet the needs of such a category of people in the community.
• The 18th Century Children’s Clothing in England With that background in mind, this paper shall discus the characteristics of girls’ and boys’ dresses in the eighteenth century as well as the similarities between the dresses of both sexes.
• Zara Fashion Retailer’s Organizational Change Although this report has mentioned many areas within Zara’s operational and human resource strategies that need redirection as a direct consequence of the ever-shifting business environment, it lays its focus on how the fashion retailer […]
• Fashion and Identity Werner continues to argue that the contemporary generation is deceived to think that personal identity is determined by the physical attributes in a person.
• Supply Chain Management in the Fashion Industry This paper is also aimed at mapping out Louis Vuitton’s supply chain, at identifying and making recommendations for addressing the most significant problems in the management of Louis Vuitton supply chain, and calculating the losses […]
• The Fashion Channel Marketing Plan The firm needs to effect radical marketing strategies to help it increase the value of its service in the market. This approach will help TFC increase the ratings of its products to make it more […]
• 1990s Fashion: A Challenge of the Decade From a more consuming and conspicuous style of the 1980s, a more defined and individualized style of dressing and composing oneself emerged in the succeeding decade.
• Successful Advertising in Fashion This essay looks at advertising in fashion and some of the ways used to make advertising in fashion successful. It suffices to mention that scholars have created a link between advertising in fashion and the […]
• Fashion Clothing Designs: The Golden Mean Ratio The concept of the golden ratio has achieved uniqueness and becomes a fascinating exercise in mathematics because the ratio appears in several elements and creations, such as the human body and face.
• Fashion in the Period of Modernism The main content of the Modern was the desire of artists to contrast their creativity with the historicism and eclecticism of art of the second half of the XIX century.
• Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani: Fashion Philosophy The shift that occurred in the fashion industry toward Italy and designing dresses for movie stars and celebrities linked his name with luxury style and opulence.
• Zara Fashion Retailer: Brand Awareness and Loyalty Discussion: This chapter of this study will organise considering the research question, such as it will describe Zara’s marketing strategies to develop brand awareness and customer loyalty; Conclusions: Finally, the chapter six will scrutinise all […]
• Motivation in Fashion Industry As a student set to join the industry in the future, my dream is to be the best designer and prioritize the needs of my customers.
• Teen Fashion Advertisement From magazines, to the television, to the internet, to the billboards; there is almost no limit to the ways in which teenagers are exposed to fashion advertisements.
• Fashion Design and Famous Designers His character narrative is about the blend of the past and the present as he tries to make his collections more relevant.
• Fashion Advertising and Its Influences on People A study on the fashion advertising processes and their influences on people will help to understand some of the impacts created by increased advertising.
• Fashion and Reasons to Love It The second reason for me to love bags is that my bag is a very important part of my image. The second reason why I love hats is that it adds a touch of elegance […]
• Sandro Fashion Brand The company began in the Marais district of Paris and focused primarily on women’s fashion. In 2009, the company acquired fashion brand Claudie Pierlot in preparation for the creation of the SMCP group in 2010.
• Blogging about Fashion The blogs, as Huang, Chou, and Lin note, allows for individuals with common interest to come together to share information and ideas, as well as to gain knowledge from other members of the virtual community, […]
• Gucci Luxury Fashion Brand Bizzarri describes the reinvention of the brand as the renovation of its image in the effort to recapture “the spirit of innovation” and redefine the notion of luxury.
• The Impact of Fashion Marketing on Culture The primary aim of this study is to investigate the impact of fashion marketing, specifically in the clothing sector, on culture.
• Fast Fashion and Sustainability This paper includes a brief analysis of the ways to address consumers’ fashion-related needs and reduce the negative environmental impact of the fast industry.
• Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Fashion In this paper, the aim is to discuss the eco-friendly and sustainable practices in the fashion industry and forces that may affect the efforts of the stakeholders in this industry as they try to embrace […]
• Just in Time: Management Operations in the Fast Fashion Industry Sourcing is implemented using the famous lean or Just in Time (JIT) models. This means that required materials are acquired and delivered whenever they are needed.
• Women’s Fashion in the Chinese Culture Since 1978 Despite the adopted westernized culture of the in China, especially on women fashion, the author emphasizes that the Chinese still maintain their culture in the long run.
• The American Dandies and Fops History: Men With a Great Passion for Fashion, Style, and Art This paper delves into the 19th-century use of dandies and fops in the American fashion industry, how dandies and fops came to America, and their effects on American men and Masculinity.
• Fashion in Clothing, Music, and Moods Often, the word “fashion” is used in relation to clothing, but this encompasses only one part of fashion. It is a combination of melancholy and fear that makes them appealing to the cyberpunk fashion.
• Voids in the Fashion Industry Performing a PEST Analysis of the fashion industry provided an opportunity to find specific voids in this market and think of the ways to fill them.
• Cultural Borrowing: Ethnic Fashion Obscures Cultural Identity I write this article from the larger perspective of what kind of cultural items can be borrowed and the benefits of the same and at the same time the tendency to obviate the subtext.
• Fashion in the Movie “Zoolander” The movie “Zoolander” shows several designers and the work that they have been doing in the movie, which is paralleled to real life.”Derelicte” is the name of the fashion line that the main character, Ben […]
• Vintage Fashion Styles Overview While there were many different trends in fashion during that time, this loose clothing is a major feature of the ’90s.
• Fashion and Architecture: Relationship The paper goes ahead and gives view of the positive aspects and negative aspects of the relationship of the field in view of the current, past and possible future trends. Areas of similarities between architecture […]
• Coco Chanel: Life, Fashion, Designs, Perfume & Facts The places and people that came into Chanel’s life and helped her take the turn of life that brought her the success she achieved include; the magazine “Time 100: The most important people of the […]
• The Impact of Fashion on Interior Design It is important that fashion in many cases is a habitual tendency of the manner in which the members of a community dress.
• Bahrain Fashion: Culture and Antiquities The main purpose of the paper is to provide the information regarding the cultural and historical peculiarities of the country with the relation to the Bahrain fashion.
• Fashion History’s Understanding Fashion distinct classes of people in the society where complex and sophisticated fashion is related with the rich and modernity. Tailors, dressmakers, and designers have contributed to the increased trend in change of fashion.
• 70’s Fashion as a Freedom of Choice However, with the end of the Vietnam War, the public and the media lost interest in the hippie style in the middle of the decade, and began to lean toward the mod subculture. The 70’s […]
• Harry Winston Fashion Brand and Its Evolution Harry Winston Diamond Corporation was founded in the year 1932 and is headquartered in New York. Harry Winston has remained a powerful brand in the global jewelry industry.
• Women’s Fashion: A Little Black Dress However, I prefer to believe that is color is a classic one, it suits everyone and makes people look elegant and sophisticated. This message is the one that appeals to me, and also I wear […]
• Paris Fashion Design: Christian Dior Brand It was the brand that made women return to the concept of femininity in the middle of the twentieth century. In the 1970, the brand evolved to adjust to the changes in the society.
• Casual Fashion Trends Now vs. 60 Years Ago While this is a natural part of life, any kind of alteration can be rather frightening, as it usually means that every decade or era will inevitably become a part of the past, as opposed […]
• Fur Coat as a Controversial Fashion Garment Proponents state that fur is fashionable and therefore it is the way to go in terms of new fashion designs. The proposed use of refurbished fur and synthetic materials.
• XL Ladies Clothing: Fashion Industry in the UAE In this particular business proposal, SWOT analysis will be used as a practical tool to assess or appraise the current market condition of the clothing industry in the United Arab Emirates.
• The Characteristics of the Fashion Industry and How They Influence Supply Chain The fashion industry thrives on the efforts of retailers who mostly take up the role of supply, sales and merchandising of products to the consumers.
• Fashion Impact on International Students in London The proposal looks at the personal experiences of a small group of international students living and studying in London, utilizing first-hand accounts of how they make sense of their university experiences abroad and integrate them […]
• Versace Fall Winter 2021 Fashion Show Review Flipping the script for the fall 2021 season, the brand introduces its fanbase to a new discussion inside the Versace-verse, monogramming.
• Fast Fashion and Ethical Consumption A narrative literature review is selected to analyse and synthesise available information on the impact of fast fashion on society. The integration of articles is expected to reveal the gaps, tendencies, and limitations that exist […]
• Child Labor in the Fast Fashion Industry To free girls from this choice and reduce the presence of kids in factories, it is necessary to combat poverty in rural areas actively.
• Fashion Capitals of the World The fashion industry is a dynamic industry, which is a product of history and ‘an objective term that depends on context to give it its emotional qualities.’ For a long period of time, Paris and […]
• ASOS Fashion Company’s Market Entry Into Dubai The purpose of the report is to highlight the appropriate market entry strategy for ASOS in Dubai. The report considers the business, industry, and consumer factors affecting the suitability of the business location.
• Fashion Changes in Society and Culture In particular, the pluralism of views was reflected in the character of fashion, which gradually started to synthesize in itself a variety of trends and tendencies.
• Fads Impact on the Fashion Industry Fashion fads are the short-lived trends in the fashion industry that attracts the attention of a wide public and invade the fashion stores.
• Generational Trends in Fashion Although the development of the present-day generation of young people should be discussed as the complex phenomenon, it is possible to focus on analyzing fashion, technology, and parenting skills as the most remarkable elements which […]
• UK Fashion Industry: ASOS Marketing Campaign The success of the re-launch of the modified products will greatly depend on a proper understanding of the internal and external factors that would impact the marketing campaign of ASOS.
• Fashion as the Avatar of an Avant-garde In the discussion that follows, the links between fashion and art will be explored, the potential for fashion to represent the Avant-Garde will be addressed, and the specific case of Viktor and Rolf will be […]
• Fashion Sociology In the view of evolution of fashions and clothing, the modern society is shaping its identity by allowing unique members in the society to have freedom of exercising their values and beliefs in relation to […]
• “Fashion Cycle” of Louis Vuitton Most of the products sold by Louis Vuitton go through the five stages of the fashion cycle, and the company has to use different strategies.
• The Fashion Industry: Discrimination Case To conclude, although the fashion industry seeks to contribute to cultural and ethnic sustainability, there are some issues that require discussion.
• Luxury Fashion and Digital Experience In addition, such a sequence of events causes the loss of exclusivity, which also prevents clients from sticking to this brand.
• The Fashion Show: Famous Designers Feathers were very much in at the latest shows and they certainly add to the movement. There were many very lovely creations and the idea of creating the animal look was more successful than fur.
• Fashion Industry and Vera Wang The fashion industry is one of the most rapidly growing industries in the world. The lack of fashion and good designs in the bridal wears forced her to bring new designs to the bridal industry.
• Miuccia Prada: Luxury-Fashion Pioneer The restlessness of her essence makes her perfect in modern-day fashion circles as she absorbs the dynamism of her world. Miuccia Prada is a symbol of the union between fashion and art.
• Fashion Marketing and Trends for Women With every woman wishing to be a niche above her counterparts when it comes to dressing, she is bound to pay a mind boggling amount of money for a piece of cloth that bears the […]
• Fast Fashion Brand Advantages and Risks in Chinese Market The paper also looked at the risks that the fast fashion brand has to face in the Chinese market and ways in which these risks can be managed to help the organisations consolidate its advantages.
• Is Fashion a Product of Modernism? The purpose of this study is to trace the development of fashion in the context of modernism. The disappearance of opulent Victorian dresses and close attention to the functionality of clothes attests the major change […]
• Print Fashion Media as a Popular Culture Two important aspects of the digital world are worth discussion as a cause of the decline- the economics of print media versus digital media and the change of consumer preference from print media to digital […]
• History of Fashion Merchandising This is in lieu of the fact that the demand for technical skills will continue to grow in future and in an unprecedented way.
• Fashion and Cinema: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” According to Veblen, the aforementioned perspective as displayed in the fashion aspects of the movie indicates that the leisurely class uses dressing to express their way of life and social phenomenon.
• French Fashion in the Eighteenth Century The eighteenth century is a distinct period in the history of the French fashion because during that time, France became the main arbiter of style in Europe.
• Luxury Fashion Market and Ethics This thus leads to the question, is being ethical crucial for the survival of luxury fashion brands in the market? From the discussion above, ethics is a must have tool for luxury fashion brands to […]
• Western Pop Culture and Street Fashion of Japanese Youth The research of the topic needs to be preceded by the explanation of the key subjects and notions used in the current paper.
• T-Shirt as a Fashion Statement with Emotional Expression Painted in the National Day colors and being extraordinary comfortable, the T-shirts by Lowman Fashion Enterprises are bound to become an important part of celebrating the holiday and reminding people about the importance of unity.
• Careers in the Fashion Industry The duty of a manufacturer’s representative in the sphere of fashion is to market and sell the lines of clothes. In conclusion, all of the careers selected for this paper include a lot of responsibilities […]
• Vintage Fashion: Second-Hand Luxury in Global Market Such a drive can be explained through the prism of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in the aspect of belonging. Thus, there is a steady positive consumer attitude towards vintage clothes in the secondary market, yet […]
• Men’s Responses to Fashion Advertising Analysis of information found in current marketing, sales, and branding resources and juxtaposing it with the marketing campaign recommendations provided in the article of central interest of this research has suggested a conclusion that customer […]
• Balenciaga Fashion Brand’s History Born in a village in the Basque region of Spain in the year 1895, Balenciaga spent much of his early life with his mother who worked as a tailor. The Spanish royal family and the […]
• Zara and Benetton Fashion Companies Management The company’s strategy is to increase its sales to diverse parts of the globe. The utilization of a network of local subcontractors proficient in different fields such as knitting and sewing contributed appreciably to its […]
• Fashion Source of Inspiration It needs to be said that experimentation is a critical part of the process, and some colors may have to be slightly changed.
• Fashion and Gender: Globalization, Nation and Ethnicity Today, fashion is changing drastically to compose fashion trends, which is very relevant in the contemporary society as it’s reflected in the new colorful and stylish designs.
• Fashion helps us to define and show who we are and what we do It is possible to state that the individual level included into this scheme corresponds to the ego identity and personal identity from the abovementioned model; the collective identity is similar to the social identity; national […]
• The Fashion Scholarship Fund Website Rhetoric Analysis There are also shared personal stories of alumni and other people who have benefitted from using the website before that, making one visit the website to feel a connection on the importance of the website.
• Avant-Garde Fashion: The History of Modernism and How It Changed the World One of the main reasons why this particular movement resists the main fashion trends is that the garments are abundant with black color, the combination of leather and cotton, and multiple layers.
• How AI and Machine Learning Influence Marketing in the Fashion Industry As governments shut down factories, stores, and events to stop the transmission of the virus, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the worldwide fashion industry.
• Zero Waste Fashion and Its Perception The ingenious sales strategy of the fashion industry has a devastating impact on the environment. Mannarino explains that unlike other industries such as manufacturing and transport that have attracted the attention of the governments and […]
• Fashion Consumerism and Its Negative Effects The fashion industry is one of the fields that is consumerism saturated the most. It is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic caused another wave of consumerism in fashion because people felt alone and bored.
• How 40 to 50-Year-Old Irish Women Choose Fast Fashion and Why The replication of styles and the use of synthetic materials is meant to ensure that the product is made as affordable as possible while at the same time meeting the expectations of the market.
• Native American Fashion Discussion Native American fashion collections aim to show respect and immortality of the indigenous culture; however, implementing the items in modern life is false memorization.
• Analysis of Simone Rocha Fashion Designs The designs are inclusive and relate to women’s outer beauty as they bring out a sense of femininity in terms of skin tones, freckles, and skin lines.
• Generational Attitudes Toward Fashion Sustainability To explore generation Z and millennials’ attitudes and product expectations towards sustainability in the fashion market. To explore the overlap in fast fashion and sustainable fashion markets.
• In America: A Lexicon of Fashion Exhibition The different installations operated back and forth in interesting ways throughout the show, and it was a highlight of the curators’ strategy.
• Waste Management Sustainability in the UK Fashion Industry In spite of the presence of the overarching goal, the exact nature and direction of sustainable policies may vary across different contexts and regions of the globe.
• 3D Printing Development for Fashion Industry The fashion industry was not moved or altered by 3D printing during the earlier days because most of the inventions covered the need to modify and improve the printing capability.
• Purchase of Fast Fashion Clothing and Ethical & Personal Values On the other hand, the emergence of the practice threatened the aesthetic value and ethical approach based on the utilization of the available facilities.
• Discussion of Sustainability in Fashion In conclusion, the widespread problem of the usage of unsafe chemicals by the textile industry may well be avoided by including a precisely controlled and preventive strategy.
• Sustainability in Fashion: Clothing Rental Services Having rented an outfit, you do not have to think about what to do with ten different dresses worn for girlfriends weddings or family dinners, because, as a rule, it is a pity to throw […]
• Analysis of Major Fashion Trends and Their Perspective For this reason, this paper will look at such trends as the use of AI, sustainable fabrics and China’s e-commerce in fashion to predict their future development and impact on the fashion industry.
• Socio-Economic Future of Fashion Industry Hence, in order to minimize the negative impact of this problem on the world, fashion experts encourage people to export used clothes to others with the help of second-hand markets.
• Is Fashion Destroying the Planet? Before starting a review of the documentary, I feel it is necessary to give a definition of sustainable fashion and establish a connection between the fashion industry and the environment.
• The PEST Analysis of the Fashion Industry The brands focusing exclusively on such products in demand during the summer or the winter as, for example, swimwear or parkas, have to account for the potential losses during an off-season.
• Counterculture Fashion: Patched Denim The presentation focuses on patches and their role in the counterculture fashion. Over the century, the significance and meaning of patches in fashion have evolved.
• Fashion Forecasting and Trends There are a lot of spring tendencies that are widely awaited; however, the designers are most thrilled about the new bottom silhouette.
• Changing the World Through Fashion: Eva Kruse at TEDxCopenhagen The speaker says that the solution to the problem of clothing sustainability lies in understanding the changing behavior of consumers and studying the essence of the fashion industry and brands.
• Fashion Industry: The Role of Insiders In the fashion industry, the insiders imply that one should work hard to present to the world the best products. Sometimes one does not know how people will react to the content; the vital part […]
• Fashion: Studying Complexity of Industry However, most of them have a limited understanding of how the industry functions, its unique peculiarities, and laws that affect the cooperation between designers, models, photographers, and multiple roles people perform to create the basis […]
• Red Color in Branding of McDonald’s and Christian Louboutin Fashion House The above examples of the use of color in brands are typical marketers’ techniques to draw attention to the brand and increase sales.
• Brands’ Analysis in the Fashion Industry For the fashion industry, the ability to support the interest in a product or idea is one of the success factors.
• Winter 2020 – 2021 Fashion Trends The following are the most recent winter and holiday fashion trends of 2021. The fashion world is rapidly shifting to the new era of jeans, forgetting skinny models and returning to the silhouettes of the […]
• Pricing With Fashion Retailers The key to success in price setting and approaching customers more effectively is focusing on the transformation of non-transactional data into some analyzable form.
• Examining Vintage Luxury Fashion The recent evidence demonstrates that the re-sale of high-quality clothing becomes especially demanded, and the market seems to increasingly offer the desired products.
• Analysis of Developing Fashion Trend Some of the ideas that shape fashion in the contemporary world are: This is an inspired theme that has emphasis on the significance of local values as one takes note and appreciates the moment.
• Journal Entries: Advertising in Fashion The main argument is that advertising practitioners use an advertising imagery labelled the grotesque to generate narrative transportation for fashion consumers and also to assist in overcoming consumer resistance through fostering a more powerful experience […]
• Legal Context of Fashion and Design: Trade Dress This is one of the strategies that can often be adopted by designers to defend their rights in court. This is one of the points that can be made.
• Google Jumps Into Fashion E-Commerce In addition, the organizational strategy of the company is to find new ways of serving customers. It is important for managers to embrace information systems in order to achieve the corporate goal of a business […]
• California Fashion Brand Juicy Couture Applications of this technique is appropriate, because the use of cheerful colors and an adorable design is a mode of igniting emotional and physical responses from its targeted audience hence, arousing in them the curiosity […]
• Fashion Retail Trends In the modern age, traditional advertising is becoming obsolete, and distributors are forced to find new ways to connect with their audience.
• 20th Century Dress and Culture – Punk Fashion This firm has a large share market in the current fashion industry providing trendy products in clothes and shoes. Culture in fashion is essential in enhancing the social grievances of a discriminated group of population.
• Evolution of Clothes and Fashion in Twentieth Century The first half of the century was notable for the development of artistic movements, which contributed to the emergence of new elements in clothes.
• “Management Fashion” by Abrahamson To be able to contribute effectively in the fashion setting process, scholars should internalize the knowledge that fashionable management approaches must appear both rational and progressive, management fashion should not be adopted due to sociopsychological […]
• The History of the Fashion Industry: The Economy and Market Because of the significant numbers of the middle class, people are able to mold and shape the business and industry of fashion.
• Fashion Industry’s Challenges & Negative Effects In this regard, average women are used to illustrating the beauty of the fashion products being displayed. This has significantly reduced the negative effects of the fashion industry on women.
• The History of Corsets in the Context of Fashion History Corsets may be a perfect illustration of the expression ‘beauty has its price’, and ladies from the past centuries were willing to sacrifice the health in order to look beautiful and win attention.
• Female Image in Alexander Wang Fashion Advertisement In the “Alexander Wang” fashion advertisement analyzed in this essay, the female image is exploited to create a provocative symbol which lacks the sexual self-empowerment of feminist ideology. The woman’s shirt is white, with the […]
• Social Media and Fashion Trends The influence of fashion on social media runs the gamut today. Prabhakar, Hitha.’How the Fashion Industry is Embracing Social Media’.Web.
• The Influence of Jacobs and Cornish on Fashion Born in 1963 in New York, Marc went to the prestigious school of arts, The New York High School and later went on to join The University of Art and Design, Parsons, to further his […]
• Art Deco: Fashion Merchandising The model on this picture is wearing a fur trim jacket from Bisou Bisou that has been clearly influenced by the fashion of 20’s.
• The Indigo: International Fashion Exhibition The fashion exhibition offered designs, embroideries and appliques, knits, fabrics and a lot of other aspects that deal with the fashion industry.
• Haute Couture: A Fashion Design Only for the Privileged Haute couture and high fashion is a flight of fancy of the best designers around the world. One of the most prestigious events in the world of fashion is the week of high fashion in […]
• Fashion Behavior and History: The Impact of Fashion Behavior on the Mechanisms in Society As a result of social influences, the fashion process performs in many areas of group life, particularly in the area of clothing and adornment.
• Fashion in Society: School Uniforms and Self-Expression The use of school uniforms can actually enhance a child’s personal character development as “such requirements of standardized dress also include a symbolic rhetoric of legitimate authority, a reservoir of institutional and organizational values of […]
• Cultural Identity vs. Ethnic Fashion A part of the modern lifestyle that looks hip and very happening without actually understanding the real meaning of the cultural item as it pertains to the ethnicity of the person.
• Off Season Fashion Sales: Procurement in Retail Karakul’s 2008 article “Joint Pricing and Procurement of Fashion Products in the Existence of a Clearance Market published in the International Journal of Production Economics, cites that in the apparel industry, the dilemma of always […]
• Eco-Friendly Design in Contemporary Fashion In this case, fibers are plants that need to be treated during processing; designing and they too require the usage of herbicides, fertilizers, and other chemicals that are hazardous to the environment at large.
• Fashion: Why Does It Change in the US? Many people spend a lot of income in the fashions in US this is because with the changes in the technology and culture changes in America, people are becoming more civilized and are ready to […]
• Gay Culture’s Influence on Hip Hop Fashion Gay men have the influence of female fashion design due to the fact that most of the designers of female clothes are men and most of them are homosexual.
• Fashion as a Mirror for Social Change The restrictive clothing of the previous years, counting up to the ‘Flapper’ era, had been a mark of the suppression of women and was shrouded in societal myth and sexual restraint but became a lesser […]
• Agile Supply Chain in the Fashion Industry The importance of this theme lies in the fact that today, the quality and speed of interaction with suppliers are the keys to business success, and the sphere associated with style and fashion is no […]
• Sustainable Fashion: Approach Evaluation According to Niinimaki, in the fashion industry, there is a special algorithm that determines the nature of interaction with the target audience to maintain stable sales and satisfy customer interest.
• Fashion and Cultural Studies by Kaiser Chapter 7 is related to fashion and cultural issues for two reasons, and both of them are about linking the way people dress to their sexuality, but the term “sexuality” can be understood differently.
• Turkey as a Business Environment for Fashion Retailing The vision of the company is to be the preferred brand among Muslim women in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.
• Fast Fashion Business Model Pros & Cons Specific Purpose: The presentation is meant to inform listeners about the advantages and disadvantages of fast fashion as the business model and discuss possible strategies retailers can use to increase customer attraction.
• Textile and Fashion Technology Academic Journals This journal is both print and electronic and can be accessed using the following URL http://trj.sagepub.com/ The Journal of Industrial Textiles refers to the only journal dedicated entirely to technology, production, style, modeling, and uses […]
• Medieval Fashion Styles: Typical Examples In comparison, the modern-day version of the medieval gown seems to be an overly exaggerated version of the original. Considering the overly conservative nature of members of the upper class during the Middle Ages, such […]
• Developmental Theory in the Fashion Industry Flaunted by actors and actresses, the wealthy and the entitled these products have come to be associated with being part of the fortuitous upper class of society and with it the accompanying glares and stares […]
• Social Media Marketing of Luxury Fashion Brands The objectives of the study: To examine the impact of companies’ messages on consumer behaviour; To explore the influence of people’s messages on consumer behaviour; To compare the influence of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
• The Fashion Channel Company’s Marketing Research The company’s current goal is to create a strategy that could sustain its market leadership position through increased advertisements, improved ratings, and proactive cable affiliation to effectively respond to the current competition. This is an […]
• Oliver Cabell’s Fashion Startup Blending Ethics with Profit For instance, in the case of the Bangladesh factory, meeting the human cost would require the management to ensure proper and decent working conditions.
• Celebrity Advertisement for Fashion Development The main purpose of this research paper will be to find out how the developmental theory applies in the fashion industry. The relationship between a celebrity and a fan is normally said to Para-social.
• Fashion Advertising Impact on Social Identity The concept of social identity in modern society is increasingly becoming important in a global society as people try to identify with specific cultures and practices.
• Fashion Changes in Sociology and Philosophy As a result of many investigations and analyses, specialists conclude that fashion has the power to impact people’s social tastes and attitudes. Moreover, fashion frequently has a political context and is an outcome of people’s […]
• The Sourcing Shifts in Fashion Industry The paper at hand is aimed at analyzing the impact that the innovations in the artificial intelligence field are likely to have on the fashion industry in general, and supply chain management, in particular.
• Pregnant Women Fashion Forecast for the US Hence, the tendencies in maternity fashion are the topic of this research. The choice of the maternity wardrobe greatly depends on the season and the area of living.
• Apparel’s Role in History: Fashion Exhibition and Impact of Historical Events on Design The proposed exhibit will be concentrated on the counterculture fashion and the role of patches in the counterculture. While in the 1960s denim jeans were of simpler fashion and had embroidery and patches as the […]
• Burberry Group Plc’s Fashion and Retailing In a larger sense, SWOT analysis will assist in the comprehension of the fashion market and the place of Burberry Company within it.
• Carmina Campus Project and Fashion Sustainability According to Christen and Schmidt, there are three main causes of the ambiguity of SD discourse: the vagueness of the definitions, the narrowness of definitions, and the variety of them.
• Nike and Lululemon Athletica Stores: Shopping Experience The overall trends in the stores are quite similar, with a prevalence of tight-fitting clothes made from innovative materials that are breathable and lightweight.
• How Can Fashion Be Used to Identify Gender? The purpose of this paper is to consider the way fashion as a symbolic value can be used to identify gender.
• E-Commerce Fashion Business in Saudi Arabia This fact is explained mostly by the popularity of the Internet among the citizens and the variety of products and services that can be bought there.
• Global Production Network in the Fashion Industry
• Lead Fashion Designers: Enterprise Resource Planning System
• Global Economy: Cheap Fashion and the Human Price
• The Fashion Channel: Cable TV Network
• 2014 Fall/Winter Fashion Collection’s Macrotrends
• Fashion: Bamboo Fibre in the Textile Industry
• Chinese Art, Fashion, and Mass Production
• Charity Fashion Show: Project Management
• Coco Chanel: Profile and Fashion Design
• Peacock Fashion Company’s Online Shops
• Online Shopping Impact on the Fashion & Design Industry
• Galaxy Fashion Company’s Flexible Work Practices
• Fashion History – Women’s Clothing of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s
• Fashion as Material Culture
• CuteCircuit Fashion House and Its Technologies
• Beauty and Fashion in United Arab Emirates
• Zeizt Fashion Company’s Vertical Integration Process
• Coco Chanel Fashion: History of Costume
• Color Cycling and Fashion Industry
• Mathematics Requirements for Fashion Merchandising
• Fundamentals of Fashion and Design
• Fashion of Lebanon
• Fashion Magazines: Print Media Isn’t Dead and Here’s Why
• Fashion Designer Jeremy Scott
• Is Faux Fur Responsible for the Rebirth of the highly coveted Real Fur to the Fashion Industry?
• The Contribution of the Luxury Fashion Industry in Economic Development of the World
• Faux Fur and Real Fur: Fashion Industry and Market
• The Impact of Instagram on Consumers’ Purchase Intentions in the Fashion Industry in Thailand
• Generic Toolkit for Implementing a Web-Based Product Innovation Strategy for Zara Fashion Retailer
• Key Success Factors of the Global Online Fashion Business
• Digital Marketing in the Fashion Industry
• Instagram: purchase intentions in Thailand fashion industry
• Influence of the Fashion Attributes on the Social Status and Personal Identity
• Abaya Fashion: Six Major Forces in the Broad Environment
• Brand Extension in High End Fashion Industry
• How Companies Can Successfully Enter The French Fashion Industry
• Zara apparel fashion Store
• “Generational Buying Motivations for Fashion” by Laura Portolese Dias
• Internal and External Influences on Program-Level Curriculum Development in Higher Education Fashion Merchandising Programs
• Designer Clothing Market in the UK Fashion Retail Industry
• The Role of the Fashion Buyer Considering Buying for Different Organisations and Categories
• Representation of the Parisienne in Advertising and marketing for French perfumes and fashion
• Astonishing Success of Zara in the Fast Fashion Industry
• “How the Fashion Industry is Embracing Social Media” by Hitha Prabhakar
• “The end of fashion: How marketing changed the clothing business forever” by Teri Agins
• The Successful Implementation of Social Networks for Fashion Marketing
• “Fashion retailing, marketing, and merchandising” by John Major
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Fashion and Technology: Modern Fashion

The consolidation of fashion and technology is becoming one of the most modern trends in the creative industry that need detailed research and identification of prospects. The issue is of particular interest in the context of its novelty and little study. Even though the combination of digital practicality and the aesthetic component appeared in garments quite recently, the theoretical perspective of the trend is potentially stagnant. Now technologies in fashion do not go beyond the podiums (Smelik 256), which indicates a possible decrease in the dissemination rate of the trend. Despite the apparent relevance of the topic, the idea of integrating fashion and technology is failing due to such clothing’s impracticality and the difficulty of introducing an aesthetic component.

The digital field in fashion is quite multifaceted and, to some extent, experimental, which makes it difficult even to define a single terminology to denote trends. The most common option seems to be “fashionable technology”, introduced by Sabine Seymour in 2009 (Smelik 254). It appears to be the most reflective aspect of the combination of two contrasting elements. The term “cybercouture”, proposed by Smelik in 2012, also concentrates on the futuristic component of new trends in style (Smelik 254). Both of these terms denote the fact of wearable technologies, bringing the field of advanced gadgets closer to the area of fashion. The appearance of specific designations indicates the increasing integration of digital elements into clothing, shoes, and accessories, affecting cultural value and setting new directions in the work of fashion designers. Despite this, the trend has not been able to get enough distribution over a fairly wide period, which questions its further success and the importance of its role in the history of fashion.

Nanotechnology in clothing is most widespread today in security, including the police, firefighters, and the military (Smelik 255). In this case, technological elements in clothing are not considered a fashion trend but a necessity that creates comfort for civil servants. An example is the Prospie project, which makes clothes for measuring body temperature as an effective method of monitoring heat stress among workers in hot conditions (Smelik 256). Experiments with fabric and textiles are also finding popularity among healthcare workers. For example, as part of a project by Heinz Daunen, professor of Fashion and Technology at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute, a “smart” shirt was developed to correct posture (Smelik 256). However, such clothes are due solely for practical purposes, which generally removes the aesthetic aspect. In other words, success in certain areas is not enough to ensure the introduction of technology among the general population.

Among the potential markets for cybercouture, communications are common. Their manifestations can potentially have the greatest impact on the broad strata of society. The area is greatly influenced by upper-class representatives, such as the singer Imogen Heap, who wore the ‘Twitdress’ to the Grammy Awards (Smelik 256). The dress had a digital collar displaying her fans’ tweets in real-time, which was an excellent example of the integration of digital devices into clothing. Since the fashion industry has traditionally been from the top down (Entwistle et al. 315), the singer, as a representative of the highest socio-cultural class, can set a new trend. However, the distribution of the item is also hampered by wearability. It means that the clothes may be interesting as a one-time way to draw attention to the figure on the carpet, but their comfort and practicality for the general public are very doubtful.

From all of the above, the main aspect hindering the development of the technology element in fashion is the lack of convenience and little need for wearing. The trend focuses only on functionality, ignoring the social or cultural value of the new technology (Smelik 256). In other words, no matter how interesting and modernized a new idea is, if it does not find practical application, it will not be popular among the ordinary population.

The point of fashion technologies is to combine fashion with technology so that it becomes wearable and fashionable at the same time (Smelik 256). In the context of already existing elements on the market, fashion will lack either one aspect or another. One of the definitions of fashion suggests that for its full implementation, the element of acceptance by many people must be taken into account (Tortora 159). The general population, not seeing the need for clothes that regulate posture or broadcast messages on the collar screen, is unlikely to be interested in such experiments. This leads to the conclusion that fashion and technology cannot merge into a single component and harmoniously complement each other (Smelik 256), which stagnates the development of the trend. Since technology in clothing is still viewed as something new and incomprehensible, this problem is unlikely to find a solution in the foreseeable future. Thus, it will significantly slow down the development of the trend and, with a high probability, will lead to its attenuation.

In addition to misunderstanding the purpose of such clothing items, the trend for wearable technologies also faces difficulties in application. If the trend is spreading from below, it should be primarily convenient for the middle and lower classes. The use of smart fabrics and textiles in developing individual elements can create difficulties with washing, ironing, and other everyday processes (Smelik 256). Each aspect of fashion culture, having its unique purpose, is connected with other parts and functions as a single whole (Jansen and Craik 8). In this case, the aspects of practical convenience and technological novelty counteract. Using digital technologies directly will also hinder the desire to purchase such an item of clothing, reducing its role to a single experiment. Thus, at the moment, the practicality aspect is undergoing significant difficulties, limiting the further development of the trend.

The unreliability of the technological direction is also explained by a small aesthetic component, which remains the main element in the development of fashion. Since the aesthetics of the design are still not integrated into technology (Smelik 256), the population continues to perceive such clothing items as technologies and not as wearable things. Accordingly, such a perception blurs the entire concept of fashion. It potentially reduces people’s interest who will continue to prefer a separate dress and a separate smartphone to a combination of a dress and a smartphone in one element. Designers see the difficulty of merging fashion and technology (Smelik 256), which does not allow digital clothing elements to become a real option in stores for the middle class. Numerous prophecies that the future of the streets remains with fashionable technologies do not justify themselves (Smelik 256). From year to year, they remain only a strange and eccentric whim of fashion designers. In the context of the modern world, the need to introduce new technologies into clothing also seems unprofitable and unreasonable, creating a pile-up effect in fashion and shifting the emphasis from the development to other directions.

Moreover, the introduction of innovative technologies requires a special critical analysis of the relationship between the device and the body. With everyday wear, the body becomes a form of interface, blurring the boundaries between technology and the body (Smelik 257). This understanding gives rise to a natural fear in a person of the close connection of devices and identity (Smelik 256), which can potentially ruin the spread of the trend. In this case, the cultural value of fashion and technological innovation are considered two opposite aspects. Thus, the general public not only does not promote but also hinders the introduction of technologies, uncritically considering them as something alien and aggressive for the body and identity.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that the latter aspect is generated by an uncritical perception of the trend and can be overcome shortly. Clothing functions primarily as decoration, modesty, and protection (Flugel 17), while technologies are perceived largely as an extension of the human body (Smelik 257). In this regard, the fear of integration is growing since the alienness of innovation is seen by a person as a threat. Now humanity is entering an era where technology can serve as a physical improvement and self-expression (Smelik 257). In the latter aspect, there is also a connection with fashion, through which designers must work to spread the trend of cybercouture. Since clothing is a part of the self-expression of human identity, digital innovations can bring a lot from a person’s ability to express themselves. Following the theory that a person “represents” and not “is” his identity (Smelik 257), it can be concluded that overcoming such uncritical thinking can ultimately contribute to a broader integration of technology into clothing.

Thus, cybercuture, despite numerous positive forecasts about the potential spread, is still at the stage of stagnation. The development of trends is limited to the catwalk, fashion houses, and experimental laboratories without going beyond the established practices. With many difficulties to overcome, designers have not yet found solutions to them, and some do not even see ways to overcome them in the near future. Nevertheless, fashionable technologies continue to fight for a place in the market and find more and more new applications in various fields. While the widespread integration of fashion and technology does not seem real, any trend can undergo global changes and surprise even the most convinced skeptics.

Works Cited

Entwistle, Joanne, et al. “Fashion Diversity.” Fashion Theory vol. 23, no. 2, 2019, pp. 309-323.

Flugel, John Carl. “The psychology of clothes.” The Sociological Review, vol. 25, no. 3, 1933, pp. 301-304.

Jansen, Maria Angela, and Jennifer Craik, editors. Modern Fashion Traditions: Negotiating Tradition and Modernity through Fashion . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016, pp. 1-10.

Smelik, Anneke. “Cybercouture: The fashionable technology of Pauline van Dongen, Iris van Herpen and Bart Hess.” Contemporary Dutch Fashion, 2017, pp. 252-269.

Tortora, Phyllis, editor. Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: The United States and Canada . Berg, 2010, pp. 159-170.

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Essay on Fashion

Students are often asked to write an essay on Fashion in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Fashion

Introduction.

Fashion is a popular style, especially in clothing, footwear, and accessories. It is a way of expressing one’s personality and culture.

Importance of Fashion

Fashion is important as it reflects every culture in the world. It was a way to create different social groups and be differentiated according to your status.

Fashion Trends

Fashion trends change with every season, influenced by celebrities, designers, and even social media. It inspires creativity and encourages diversity.

Fashion is a fascinating world, full of color and diversity. It’s a way of life, a reflection of inner beauty, and a sign of personal expression.

250 Words Essay on Fashion

The evolution of fashion.

Fashion, an ever-evolving phenomenon, reflects the societal changes and individual identities of cultures globally. It is not just about clothing; it’s a mirror of our times, embodying our values, ideas, and aspirations.

The Role of Fashion

Fashion serves as a form of self-expression, allowing individuals to showcase their unique personalities and beliefs. It can be a powerful tool for non-verbal communication, influencing perceptions and shaping social dynamics. It’s also an economic powerhouse, contributing significantly to global economies.

Fashion and Sustainability

However, the fashion industry is also notorious for its environmental footprint. This has led to the rise of sustainable fashion, aiming to minimize the industry’s impact by promoting ethical production methods and materials. It’s a testament to fashion’s ability to adapt and respond to societal demands.

Technology and Fashion

Technology’s integration into fashion has revolutionized the industry. From virtual fashion shows to AI-designed collections, technology has opened up new realms of possibilities, making fashion more accessible and personalized.

Fashion is a complex, multifaceted entity that impacts and is impacted by society. It’s a reflection of our times, an economic driver, a tool for expression, and an industry ripe for technological innovation. As we move forward, it’s crucial to foster a fashion culture that values individuality, sustainability, and inclusivity.

500 Words Essay on Fashion

Introduction: a glimpse into the world of fashion.

Fashion, an ever-evolving entity, is a reflection of societal change and cultural evolution. It is not merely about clothing or accessories but a comprehensive expression of personal identity, creativity, and social trends. This essay explores the multifaceted nature of fashion, its significance, and its impact on society.

Fashion is not a static concept; it evolves with time, reflecting the changes in society, politics, and culture. From the corsets of the Victorian era to the miniskirts of the 1960s, and from the grunge look of the 90s to the sustainable fashion of today, each trend signifies a particular era’s zeitgeist. Fashion trends also often act as a reaction to societal norms and expectations, challenging and redefining them.

Fashion as a Form of Self-Expression

Fashion is a powerful tool for self-expression. It allows individuals to communicate their personalities, beliefs, and values without uttering a single word. By choosing a particular style, individuals can convey their mood, their status, or their affiliation to a particular group. This non-verbal communication can be empowering, enabling individuals to define their identity and assert their individuality.

The Socioeconomic Impact of Fashion

Fashion also plays a significant role in the global economy. The fashion industry, encompassing design, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and retailing, contributes substantially to job creation and economic growth. However, it also raises concerns about sustainability and ethical practices, prompting a shift towards more responsible fashion.

Conclusion: The Future of Fashion

The future of fashion lies in its ability to adapt and innovate. As society becomes more conscious of environmental and ethical issues, fashion must respond by embracing sustainability and ethical practices. Moreover, with the advent of technology, fashion is likely to become more personalized and interactive, blurring the lines between the physical and digital realms. Regardless of its direction, fashion will continue to reflect societal changes and serve as a powerful tool for self-expression.

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State of Fashion Technology Report 2022

In 2021, fashion companies invested between 1.6 and 1.8 percent of their revenues in technology. By 2030, that figure is expected to rise to between 3.0 and 3.5 percent. Behind the predicted increase is a conviction among many that technology could create a competitive edge—in customer-facing activities, where companies have mostly focused to date, and, more increasingly, in operations. Technologies such as robotics, advanced analytics, and in-store applications may help streamline processes and support sustainability, as well as create an exceptional customer experience (exhibit).

About the authors

This report is a collaborative effort by Imran Amed, Anita Balchandani , Achim Berg , Holger Harreis , Manuel Hurtado, Saga af Petersens, Roger Roberts , and Carlos Sanchez Altable , representing views from the Apparel, Fashion & Luxury Practice.

Consumer digital engagement rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a result of more hours spent online, new shopping habits, and rising interest in gaming and virtual worlds. In 2021, people spent on average just below four hours on their mobile phones, which includes about two and a half hours of scrolling though social media. 1 Rebecca Moody, “Screen time statistics: Average screen time in US vs. the rest of the world,” Comparitech, March 21, 2022. Of the fashion customers who made the move to online-shopping channels in 2021, 48 percent said the pandemic was the reason, 27 percent cited convenience, and 11 percent cited product availability and promotions. 2 McKinsey Global Digital Sentiment Insight Survey, 2021. The pandemic also boosted digital brand relationships, with 72 percent of customers reporting they interacted with brands online in 2021. In the year ahead, as restrictions ease in some geographic areas, digital interactions will likely stabilize at about 66 percent on average. 3 McKinsey Global Digital Sentiment Insight Survey, 2021.

Looking ahead, the impact of technology on people’s lives may accelerate. By 2024, AI-generated speech could power more than half of human interactions with computers, McKinsey analysis shows. Soon after, more than 75 percent of enterprise-generated data could be processed by cloud or edge computing. 4 Kasey Panetta, “Gartner top strategic technology trends for 2021,” Gartner, October 19, 2020. This offers a more flexible, scaleable foundation on which brands can potentially build their tech offerings. By 2030, more than 80 percent of the global population is expected to have access to 5G networks, 5 “ Connected world: An evolution in connectivity beyond the 5G revolution ,” February 20, 2020. McKinsey estimate based on Cisco’s projections through 2022 and extended to 2030. For Cisco’s 2022 projection, see “Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global mobile data traffic forecast update, 2017-2022,” Cisco, February 2019. enabling, among other things, faster connectivity and data transfer across Internet of Things devices.

The operational potential of technology is becoming ever more apparent. McKinsey analysis shows that fashion companies that now embed AI into their businesses models could see a 118 percent cumulative increase in cash flow by 2030. Conversely, those that are slower to invest in digital technology will lag behind—and could see a 23 percent relative decline. Over the next three years, potential key areas in which fashion executives could make digital investments are personalization, store technologies, and end-to-end value chain management—areas in which digital can make a real difference to performance.

Fashion’s five key technology themes

As fashion industry executives consider how to maximize their technology resources, McKinsey and the Business of Fashion have identified five key themes that could help the industry address some pressing challenges, as well as unlock potential opportunities: metaverse reality check, hyperpersonalization, connected stores, end-to-end upgrade, and traceability first .

Metaverse reality check. The marketing value of digital fashion and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) may now be clear, but fashion brands will need to separate the concrete opportunities from the hype to generate sustainable revenue streams presented by growing consumer engagement with the metaverse.

Hyperpersonalization. Brands have access to a growing arsenal of personalization tools and technologies to upgrade how they customize and personalize their customer relationships. The opportunity for executives now is to harness big data and artificial intelligence to provide one-to-one experiences that build long-term loyalty.

Connected stores. The inexorable rise of e-commerce has forced fashion players to rethink the role of physical stores. Fashion executives can address consumer pain points by using in-store mobile apps to enhance the in-store experience and microfulfillment technologies to leverage the store for the quick-commerce era.

End-to-end upgrade. Digital tools and analytics have transformed key parts of the fashion value chain, but these optimizations are often siloed within organizations, limiting the potential of cross-functional improvements. Brands should embark on end-to-end value chain integration to create more efficient and more profitable ways of operating.

Traceability first. Traceability systems powered by traceability software and big data will help fashion brands reach far into their supply chains to understand the entire life cycle of their products, a key enabler for sustainability road maps.

Of all the technology-based evolutions affecting the fashion industry, one of particular interest is virtual worlds, also known as the metaverse. Global spending on virtual goods reached more than $100 billion in 2021, more than doubling the total in 2015, 6 The Virtual Economy , L’Atelier, 2022. with around 30 percent of revenues attributed to virtual fashion assets. 7 McKinsey estimate based on expert interviews and inputs. Amid demand for products such as virtual fashion and NFTs, fashion companies focused on metaverse innovation and commercialization could generate more than 5 percent of revenues from virtual activities over the next two to five years. 8 McKinsey estimate based on expert interviews and inputs. The task for decision makers, however, will be to focus on specific opportunities.

For many fashion brands, highly personalized customer experiences are a cornerstone of their digital businesses. Their customers expect nothing less. Advancements in AI, analytics, and cloud computing mean that businesses have the tools to work with all types of data across channels in real time. This could support a move to hyperpersonalization, in which technology could help search-based e-commerce transform into individualized discovery of products and styles. This may enable customers to routinely access curated websites and marketplaces, from landing pages to payments. To make that vision a reality, decision makers may need to optimize their data and analytics capabilities and roll them out at scale. While this may create some important considerations (for example, to ensure that customer data is protected and that data collection follows best practices), the upside could be the ability to acquire and retain loyal customers.

In parallel to personalization, the coming year will likely see many brands investing in in-store functionality and experiences, bridging the gap between online and offline channels—and moving away from stand-alone technologies such as magic mirrors, connected hangers, and interactive holograms. In-store mobile “clienteling” apps could offer a frictionless way for store associates to serve customers, while in-store mobile apps can help boost engagement, reduce customer pain points, and increase time spent browsing. Beyond the shop floor, robotics and stock optimization software can help brands and retailers set up microfulfillment centers, integrating physical stores as digital nodes in their distribution and delivery networks and cutting fulfillment costs by up to 90 percent. 9 Lauren Thomas, “Target CEO says cost of handling online orders drops 90% when shoppers use same-day options,” CNBC, November 20, 2019.

From demand forecasting to transport operations, a critical element in expanding the role of technology could be to apply digital tools to make end-to-end improvements in the value chain. To operate more efficiently, brands could consider breaking down the silos that have defined many digitization programs and integrating multiple back-end systems, workflows, and data functions. More than 60 percent of fashion executives believe creating integrated digital processes throughout their organizations will be among their top five areas for digitization as they look to 2025. 10 McKinsey Apparel CPO Survey 2021. By adopting digitally enabled value chain solutions, brands could see a 50 percent reduction in time to market, an 8 percent rise in full-price sell-through, and a 20 percent decline in manufacturing costs, our analysis shows.

More than 60 percent of fashion executives believe creating integrated digital processes throughout their organizations will be among their top five areas for digitization as they look to 2025.

More than 50 percent of fashion decision makers say traceability will be a top-five enabler of reducing emissions in their supply chains, 11 McKinsey Apparel CPO Survey 2021. but many brands currently have visibility over only direct supplier relationships. We see brands increasing their focus on traceability through their supply chains, helping them address demands from regulators, investors, and customers for greater transparency. As they aim to cut emissions and meet their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) targets, brands could benefit from a common data language to enable comparability, as well as new labeling standards and tracking software. Brands could consider joining forces with peers, start-ups, and industry bodies to establish a common data standard and to share data and knowledge via software platforms, open ledgers, and big data technologies.

One of the few certainties in fashion is that nothing stays the same, and the opportunities offered by technology are continuing to evolve as some markets look to move beyond the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The task for fashion decision makers is to consider how to harness technology to creativity, streamline operations, and create value from innovation that can be sustained in the years ahead.

Anita Balchandani is a senior partner in McKinsey’s London office; Achim Berg is a senior partner in the Frankfurt office; Holger Harreis is a senior partner in the Düsseldorf office; Manuel Hurtado is a consultant in the Madrid office, where Carlos Sanchez Altable is a partner; Roger Roberts is a partner in the Silicon Valley office; and Saga af Petersens is a consultant in the Stockholm office. Imran Amed is the founder, editor-in-chief, and CEO of the Business of Fashion and an alumnus of the London office.

The authors wish to thank Larissa Blau, Pamela Brown, Sandrine Devillard, Jonatan Janmark, Madé Lapuerta, Phoebe Lindsay, Ewa Starzynska, Michael Straub, and Cyrielle Villepelet for their contributions to this report.

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• modern slavery
• critical fashion studies

The introduction maps the emerging field of critical fashion studies, whereby the ‘critical’ in this context marks the networks of influence and overlap between Cultural Studies and Fashion Studies. It brings together Cultural Studies’ long-established interest in social and economic inequality, consumer habits, mediated experience and everyday tastes as well as a more recent focus on environmentalism and the Asia-Pacific region, with fashion studies’ interest in aesthetics and design, clothing and the body, sustainability and curatorial and business practices, to understand the new theoretical and real-world problems facing the future of fashion. While fashion studies emerged out of a rich sociological and philosophical tradition that positioned clothing and fashion at the core of our social processes and indeed central to the sensibility of the modern self, critical fashion studies turns to the newly emerging material, political, and environmental ontologies of fashion production and consumption in order to map some of the possible futures emerging from fashion as a critical and practical enterprise in an age of increasing social and environmental precarity.

Over the last decade, fashion has emerged as a key site in which debates about social and environmental responsibility, and their gendered, socio-economic, and spatial dimensions, have intensified. This special issue on ‘Fashion Futures’ brings together the material, aesthetic and ethical practices of fashion with cultural studies’ approaches to sustainability and the micropolitical practices of cultural production and consumption (Littler Citation 2009 ; Lewis and Potter Citation 2011 ; Hawkins, Potter, and Race Citation 2015 ; Probyn Citation 2016 ). It focuses on fashion as a cultural practice and creative industry but also crucially as an epistemological opportunity, where aesthetics, consumption practices, digital media landscapes, and technological innovation are being shaped by local and global landscapes of activism and critical enterprise. It explores the intersection of new media practices and sustainable fashion entrepreneurialism in forging forms of resistance to the mainstream fashion industry. But it also crucially examines how the targeting of fast fashion as the bête noire of labour exploitation and environmental degradation may occlude other structural inequalities and blind spots, including ethical fashion itself as ‘a new layer of commodity fetishism’ (Gunderson Citation 2014 ) or optimized individuality (Binkley Citation 2008 ), or as a register of gendered moral blame and responsibility (Horton Citation 2018 ). It also examines how mediated forms of outrage culture around sustainability often bear little relation to the complexity of a deregulated global fashion industry, the dependency of livelihoods on that industry, let alone the agency and political will of garment workers themselves.

The collection asks how a shared dialogue between small- and large-scale fashion enterprises, and between researchers and those working at all levels in the industry, benefit from a holistic approach to building more responsible forms of fashion production and consumption but also, crucially, activism. To ask for more responsible forms of activism is to reflect on how efforts within the fashion sector are always entangled with global and local forces often not captured by the clear-cut rationales driving boycotts or slogans. Although boycotts and social media campaigns have played an important role in calling for change, to over-valorize the freedom of the consumer to act ethically risks minimizing the effects of deregulated global markets and systemic structural inequality. Invoking these broader global forces and stratifications does not mean we necessarily need to give up on ambitious forms of change, but it might mean that collective responsibility should be more attuned to what Lauren Berlant has defined as ‘the increasing corrosion of security as a condition of life for workers across different concentrations of economic and political privilege’ ( Citation 2011 , 193; original emphasis). ‘Fashion Futures’ takes the corrosion of security as the demand for a more just transition to a sustainable future for the environment, and for the workers and communities that inhabit it.

To think critically about fashion entails both a critique of commodity forms enmeshed in global systems of production and political formations and an understanding of fashion as an assemblage of micro-political and aesthetic practices. Critical fashion studies positions fashion as a critical and material enterprise that works across cultural studies’ multi-focused lens of epistemological inquiry and empirical methods but also, importantly, social justice. While food studies, ocean studies, and animal studies have all risen to prominence within cultural studies, fashion studies feels as though it has come and gone but at the same time never fully arrived within the discipline. As Elizabeth Wilson contends, ‘because fashion is constantly denigrated, the serious study of fashion has had repeatedly to justify itself’ ( Citation 2007 , 15). This ambivalence to fashion registers the long-held suspicion about the feminization of commodity culture, with fashion as its most conspicuous and spectacular form, occasioning what Meaghan Morris described as ‘the lived ambiguity’ ( Citation 1998 , 207) of consumption practices. More recently, that ‘lived ambiguity’ has been registered as the site of the ‘ethical turn’ in fashion, bringing in newer forms of heightened moralism and discourses of shame. Additionally, fashion has been marginalized as a creative industry and as a site of rich knowledge production and innovation.

As a far-reaching eco-system, the Australian Fashion Council (AFC) reported in 2021 that, despite the effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the Australian fashion and textile industry contributed over $27 billion to the Australian economy in 2020/21, generating over $7 billion in export revenue (twice as much as beer and wine). The Australian fashion industry has also been a leader in innovation, addressing the new challenges of digital transformation, circular and transparent business practices, and sustainable textiles. And yet traditionally the fashion industry has been overlooked as a substantial contributor to Australia’s export industry or beneficiary of federally funded innovation and manufacturing grants, especially compared to other non-feminized industries, such as wine, beef, and energy – although this is now beginning to change. Footnote 1 It has always been the case that the fashion system is overwhelmingly dominated by women, from garment workers and shop assistants to fashion scholars and writers, activists, and entrepreneurs. In Australia alone, 77% of those employed in the fashion and textile industry are women. It is only at the most prestigious level, the level of fashion design that men dominate, although in Australia and New Zealand successful women designers have fared well. Those who work in the fashion and textile industry are some of our most vulnerable workers, from garment workers most recently affected by Covid-19 and the cancellation of orders by multinational brands (Khan and Richards Citation 2021 ) to sustainable fashion designers and entrepreneurs for whom there is high cost of emotional labour and little financial reward (Heinze Citation 2020 ). Given that women’s work is undervalued, increasingly so during the pandemic, even as gains in other areas of women’s lives have improved, this brief snapshot of the fashion and textile industry in Australia gives us some insight into why fashion has been at the margins of recognition as an important creative industry and as a site of fertile knowledge production.

If, as Angela Carter once remarked, ‘Nobody who feels superior to fashion can write well about it’ (Angela Carter Citation 1985 ), could it be that Cultural Studies has, at different moments, felt a little superior to the world of fashion? There are, of course, some notable exceptions that reveal the productive coalescence of fashion and cultural studies: Rimi Khan’s analysis of the idealized discourses of empowerment in ethical fashion enterprises in Bangladesh ( Citation 2019 ); Min-Ha T. Pham’s sobering work on the limits of ethical consumerism and fashion ( Citation 2017 ) and global supply chains ( Citation 2020 ); Angela McRobbie’s large project on the creative industries which includes the successes and perils of fashion micro-enterprises ( Citation 2016 ); Andrew Ross’s pioneering work on garment workers ( Citation 1997 ) and on consumer-based activism ( Citation 2008 ); Susan B. Kaiser’s Fashion and Cultural Studies ( Citation 2012 ), which demonstrates how cultural studies relies on fashion and how fashion studies benefits from the critical tools of cultural studies; and Joanne Entwistle’s analysis of the aesthetic economy of fashion ( Citation 2009 ). All of these followed in the wake of Jennifer Craik’s seminal The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion ( Citation 1994 ), which put fashion on the cultural studies map through its analysis of the complex relationship between designer fashion and everyday fashion or ‘fashionability’ in ways that disrupted an over-simplified ‘trickle down’ model or teleological narratives of consumer capitalism. Citation Wilson’s ([1985]1987) early attention to fashion and modernity from the vantage point of critical theory and cultural history also established the importance of aesthetics, from a feminist perspective, in shaping broader social, cultural, and economic relations. Similarly, Ulrich Lehmann’s analysis of the revolutionary impetus of fashion, by way of his close reading of Walter Benjamin and his milieu, brought into stark relief the philosophical dimensions of fashion as ‘the supreme expression’ of modern life as transitory and fragmentary ( Citation 2000 : xii). Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas’s examination of critical fashion designers, from Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo to Gareth Pugh and Rad Hourani, reveals how particular forms of fashion design and practice are not merely critically alive to the socio-political landscape, but actively shape it ( Citation 2017 ). This list, of course, does not include the many brilliant fashion studies scholars (too many to name) working across a variety of disciplines, from art history and film studies, to historical studies, sociology, anthropology, and gender studies, many of whom also draw on the critical tools of cultural studies.

Increasingly, however, fashion as a creative industry and as an everyday aesthetic practice cuts across many of our most pressing problems: sustainability, globalization, decolonization, aesthetic distinction, and consumer responsibility and activism. The ethical turn in fashion has perhaps brought it even closer to cultural studies’ interest in radical consumption practices (Littler Citation 2009 ) but even here the multi-dimensional nature of fashion as a critical and creative practice gets subsumed by the broader anxieties and heightened moral castigation of commodity culture. While the ethical turn in fashion has played an important role in refocusing the hidden social and environmental costs of the fashion industry, from the anti-sweatshop movements of the 1990s to the more recent digital media campaigns such as #fashionrevolution and #whomademyclothes, increasingly these campaigns have become more intensified forms of ‘cosmopolitan caring’ (Littler Citation 2009 ) that do little to secure ‘labor rights for workers in the global South through political tactics that [appeal] primarily to the conscience of consumers in the North’ (Ross Citation 2008 , 772). As Ross argues, this risks staging ‘a fragile connection between … unequal communities [that] is not easy to maintain beyond the duration of a few news cycles’ (772) or indeed short-lived social media feeds. The perils of social media-oriented activism in an over-cooked information landscape adds to the sense in which media forms of environmentalism are increasingly discursive practices of the virtuous and privileged, blind to the ways in which environmentalism sets in place feelings of shame and blame for those already marginalized or fails to recognize existing raced and classed burdens of responsibility and survivability beyond saving the planet (Seymour Citation 2018 ).

The recent introduction of the Australian Modern Slavery Act in 2018 (following on from similar legislation in California and the UK) nevertheless might be one indication that this increased activism in the fashion sector and elsewhere has slowly pressured governments to address the lack of transparency of supply chains in a deregulated global market. While the Australian Modern Slavery Act is far from perfect (tellingly there are no penalties for failing to report or for inaccurate reporting) it has begun to attract a wider critical audience concerned with modern forms of slavery and human rights abuses, from politicians and shareholders to scholars and consumers. It has also begun to shift responsibility from individual consumers to multinational corporations who risk being named and shamed for failure to report information about where and how their goods are made. While the new Act has increased pressure on large businesses to understand the traceability of their supply chains in ways that make the transparency of fashion a far-reaching concern, it is too early to predict how effective the legislation will be in reducing exploitative and enforced forms of labour.

Critical fashion studies takes the complex interwoven ecologies of fashion as a set of concerns in the present to think across the competing pressure points that make fashion a critically dynamic ‘problem.’ Celia Lury ( Citation 2021 ) has recently defined a ‘problem space’ as a process in the making, shifting away from the problem as a contained entity (with a set of givens, goals, and operators), and instead identifying the coming into being of the problem in tandem with its methodology. In this way ‘the becoming of the problem’ is, as she argues, compositional, in that it ‘describe[s] a methodology in which the focus is on the ways in which a problem is put together, how it is formed and transformed, inventively (Lury and Wakeford Citation 2012 )’ (Lury Citation 2021 , 2–3). As the essays in this special issue demonstrate, critical fashion studies draws on a range of interdisciplinary tools to address the emergent and contingent configurations of fashion, cognizant of the tangible and creative as much as the illusive and detrimental. If, as Lury argues, a problem space is ‘a space of methodological potential,’ how might critical fashion studies offer cultural studies new ways to activate the present, both diagnostically and laterally? As Ilya Parkins suggests, ‘the fashion system is an ideal diagnostic tool for the contemporary moment’ ( Citation 2018 , 426), one which might offer cultural studies new insights into the entanglements between gender, labour, aesthetics, and commodities. The methodological approaches developed via critical fashion studies, as the essays here show, contribute novel insights into global labour markets and economies, consumption practices, new biotechnologies, and everyday practices in ways that are experimentally alive to ambivalence and contingency as well as creativity and speculation. This side of fashion studies, however, is often drowned out by the polarizing voices of critics and advocates alike. To move beyond the polarizing configurations that have traditionally marked approaches to fashion (between superficiality and creativity, between denigration and celebration, between ethical consumption as a social movement and ethical consumption as another form of commodity capitalism) requires a geo-political recalibration of the fashion system’s diffuse knowledge claims, at a time when competing regimes of truth and veracity within a decentred world require ever more vigilant scrutiny.

To rethink the geo-political in new ways might mean that we don’t always look to Western environmental or anti-consumer campaigns to find inventive examples of political work in the fashion sector. The recent mobilization of Myanmar garment workers in opposition to the military coup that ousted the civilian government in early 2021 is a potent example of local forms of militancy co-opting global infrastructures. Workers and trade union leaders from the garment industry, mostly women, have played a prominent role in organizing militant protests against the coup whilst mobilizing international media outlets to call on multinational fashion brands to boycott Myanmar garment factories. The swift mobilization of this workforce was made possible because of an existing highly unionized garment industry, formed locally in response to Myanmar’s relatively late entry into garment manufacturing (Paul Citation 2021 ). As images of garment workers were splashed across the international media, multi-national brands such as H&M and Zara were called upon to take a political stance against the military, and in this instance rose to the challenge and boycotted factories, many of them Chinese-owned and suspected of supporting the coup leaders. While garment workers in the global South are all too frequently represented as in need of ‘saving’ by expert forms of knowledge and political activism in the West (Khan Citation 2019 ; Pham Citation 2017 ), this event tells a different story, one far removed from the tokenistic visibility of the garment worker as the person who made our clothes, splashed across brand websites and social media feeds. This event requires us to recognize the role of Myanmar garment workers in shaping geo-political forces and their own livelihoods, if not their lives, through locally informed investments in unionized labour in the fashion sector. But it is also about a temporary alliance, for political ends, between garment workers and multinational corporations, one initiated by garment workers themselves.

Lury’s recalibration of the problem space as a way to overcome despair and inertia offers critical fashion studies an opportunity to capture the diversity of work undertaken in the name of ethical and sustainable fashion, responsive to the complex nexus between gender, race, labour, and commodity culture in ways that do justice to the precarious, though no less militant, subjects for whom fashion and clothing remain sites of meaningful economic, social, political and cultural work. But critical fashion studies also remains attuned to the everyday and sometimes more mundane practices and activities of fashion, such as falling in love with a garment, curating a wardrobe, navigating value beyond monetary worth, or repairing and caring for one’s clothes. It is in these more routine experiences that the ambivalence of fashion often takes hold or at least becomes most visible. As Elizabeth Chin ( Citation 2016 ) reminds us, the things in our life, the things we come to love, such as a pair of purple shoes, are always registered ambivalently, what she describes as ‘the war of … contradictory desires’, a battle between relishing in the act of consuming and falling in love with particular objects and feeling an almost palpable repulsion towards the excess of accumulated stuff. But Chin’s larger point here, through her close reading of Marx’s domestic and somewhat contradictory life, is to fully account for ‘the realness of competing demands, disparate desires, inchoate needs’ ( Citation 2016 , 28). If cultural studies has long been interested in everyday forms of consumption and consumer agency, we need to take seriously the joy and satisfaction as well as the meaning and value that fashion provides for practitioners, consumers and workers. In this regard, designers, garment workers, researchers, activists, businesses, consumers, wearers, and advocates are differently situated workers, for whom the meaning of fashion sometimes coalesces and at other times is radically different. While the ethical turn has taken fashion into new and productive networks of knowledge and everyday assemblages, these require continuous reflection as part of an ever-evolving ‘problem space’, which would include fashion’s more ordinary attributes, given clothing is an everyday necessity that implicates even the most disinterested clothing wearer in the social and environmental costs of fashion. Understanding the failures, as well as the successes, of shopping ethically might also bring us closer to the impediments that drive the gap between the consumer’s noble intention to buy ethically and actual consumer behaviour. But if we continue to address fashion in monolithic despairing terms instead of addressing the diverse social, economic, and environmental ecologies that inhabit the fashion system, we risk falling into the often self-serving trap of divisive scapegoating. This is not to minimize the need for change or the very real environmental and social harms that the production and consumption of fashion invariably entail, but to recognize that there are alternatives between what Littler describes as ‘corporate utopianism around the potential of radical consumption’ and ‘a dystopian rejection that devalues its significance’ ( Citation 2009 , 5).

The essays in this collection address the creative, social, material, environmental, technological, and political forms of fashion and clothing, drawing on a range of interdisciplinary methods to get to the heart of thinking fashion critically. The essays are drawn from conversations emerging from critical fashion studies events hosted at the University of Melbourne in 2019 and 2020. Contributors include both established and emerging fashion and cultural studies scholars from across the region, using a cross-section of practice-based, empirical and theoretical methods to address a wide range of topics. These include new biotechnologies transforming textile production; the feminization of responsibility in the broader ethical and sustainable fashion dialogue; tensions between local practices and global markets; the rise of popular feminism in digital fashion activism; systems of clothing care and longevity; practices of scale; networks of creativity and solidarity; the necessity to rethink value; and potential new sites for resistance and mobilization, innovation and novel methods. ‘Fashion Futures’ applies a critical lens to some of the deep tensions informing the ethical turn in fashion production and consumption, including ‘greenwashing’ and Western-centric moralities that flatten the lived realities of garment workers and fashion enterprises in the global South, the viability of small-scale sustainable fashion enterprises, mediated forms of fashion consumer citizenship and activism, and new high tech and lo-fi biotechnologies reshaping debates about eco-materials.

Annisa Beta and Rimi Khan open this special issue with a timely reminder of the rich diversity of creative labour and entrepreneurship in the fashion sector, contributing new insights about how ideas of ‘ethics’ and ‘community’ are deployed differently in ways that de-centre fashion as primarily a creative industry of the global North. While Beta examines how the expanding Muslim fashion industry combines new forms of ethical entrepreneurship with pious femininity to drive an expanded market for ‘pious fashion’ in Indonesia, she nevertheless argues that this is not simply the commodification of religion, but a complex pious habitus that reflects a number of competing local formations. These involve traditional ideas of pious Muslim womanhood and new forms of ethical entrepreneurship informed by the rise of creative and digital economies, which bring new forms of visibility and pious respectability to fashion entrepreneurs. Such ethical entrepreneurship in Indonesia, as Beta reveals, is tied to forms of pious self-cultivation central to the success of modest fashion business owners, but which often occlude class differences and the labour conditions of garment workers.

Khan, through her examination of the luxury fashion label, Aranya, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, finds a new model of entrepreneurship that through a considered attention to practices of scale and reciprocity acknowledges the particularity of place and the challenge of intercultural reciprocity for sustainable fashion enterprises. By tuning in to the cross-cultural relationships that underpin the sustainable fashion practices of Aranya, including the navigation of different registers of cultural and economic value, Khan brings to light forms of intercultural exchange that are framed in terms of generosity and solidarity. As such, Khan demonstrates the way in which neo-colonial understandings of the ‘local’ often miss the agency of local practices in shaping the global rather than merely being an effect of, or resistant to, the global. Through attention to the ‘more than local’ as it unfolds in her case study of Aranya, Khan brings a critical locational politics that disrupts the reductive local/global binaries in existing scholarly approaches to ethical and sustainable fashion.

Lisa Heinze and Alison Gwilt turn to the everyday practices and emotions of dressing and caring for garments, affording us insights into the everyday perspectives of clothing wearers in Australia and the UK. Heinze, in the spirit of Lury’s aim to think through problems via new methodological approaches, utilizes ‘wardrobe examinations’ to unravel the everyday emotions, motivations and aesthetic choices informing fashion purchases. Drawing on social practice theory to get to the heart of how items in an individual’s wardrobe are chosen, valued, and cared for alongside the emotions and practical consideration that inform the purchase of individual garments, Heinze argues that we need to understand the complexity of people’s relationship with clothing before sustainability might be meaningfully factored into clothing purchases. Responding to the problem of textile waste and the increasingly short lifespan of the garments we purchase, Gwilt investigates the practices and attitudes of garment wearers who repair and care for their clothes, thus extending the life of their garments. Building on the existing data on why clothing users habitually discard items of clothing (lack of repair skills and the appeal of inexpensive clothing), Gwilt’s investigation is twofold, focusing on those users who do care for and repair items of clothing, and also the kinds of garments that are cared for and maintained for extended periods of time. Drawing on interviews with clothing users and data gathered from repair workshops, Gwilt offers a thick descriptive account of the garment/user relationship that builds a complex picture of what Alison Gill identifies as ‘a space of everyday inhabitance, dwelling and self-configuration,’ giving rise, as she suggests, to the often-repeated phrase ‘like a second skin’ ( Citation 2007 , 504). Understanding why we become attached to particular garments in our wardrobe, wearing them frequently, and hence dutifully attending to their maintenance and care, has the potential, according to Gwilt, to rethink the way we design and manufacture clothes. By turning on its head the rationale for good design (starting with an understanding of a wearer’s comfort and attachment to certain clothing items), Gwilt shows how new practices of care around clothing may be factored in from the very beginning of the design process.

Kathleen Horton and Paige Street turn to the dissemination of popular forms of feminism in digital fashion activism to query how the concept of feminist solidarity, employed in online campaigns such as Fashion Revolution’s #whomademyclothes (WMMC), reproduces a reductive gendered binary of ethical fashionability in the global North and labour injustice and victimhood in the global South. Drawing on Sarah Banet-Weiser’s attention to the neoliberal formations of choice and agency governing popular feminism, they argue that ethical fashion campaigns constitute a form of sartorially inflected self-entrepreneurship. Horton and Street nevertheless contend that they also extend forms of participatory girl culture by navigating the tensions between the pleasures of consumption and the increasing demands of ethical consumer citizenship. As such, they argue that although Fashion Revolution and its various digital campaigns are cognizant of the vectors of power and mobility that inform feminist activism, they nevertheless risk reinforcing static gendered binaries of empowerment and vulnerability.

Luis Quijano, Robert Speight and Alice Payne team up to examine how biotechnology maps out a future for fashion informed by both high-tech industry and DIY culture that is greener and more environmentally sustainable. Working at the intersection of microbial biotechnology and fashion design, the three co-authors explore how biotechnology may offer the fashion sector less harmful textile alternatives, firstly through the theme of ‘taming’ that looks at the increasing emergence of industrial-scale replacement of fossil-fuel-based fibres with bio-based equivalents. Moving beyond solutions that remain within industry norms, the authors also explore the theme of ‘rewilding,’ turning to community led initiatives aimed at creating open-access biotechnologies for small-scale biotextile production for designers and entrepreneurs, sidestepping corporatized industrial processes that rely on high-tech, laboratory-derived processes. What is striking here is the use of digital media to share knowledge and resources to extend makerspaces and lab communities virtually, so that home-grown biotextiles are being used in novel ways by ordinary citizens to tackle real-world problems, most recently in the form of biodegradable face masks made from bacterial cellulose. While neither ‘taming’ or ‘rewilding’ biotech solutions have resulted in widespread uptake in the fashion sector, they have carved out an important space for speculation and experimentation that has led to the development of novel fibres, materials and processes that offer hope for a more sustainable fashion and textile industry and, in the process, build hope for embryonic possible futures. Like the care and repair skills examined by Gwilt, rewilding fashion draws on the resources and skills of local and virtual communities sharing knowledge and practices that provide a counter future to global capitalism’s logic of endless extraction.

In her forensic examination of ‘radical transparency’ deployed variously in the fashion sector to communicate supply chain details, Harriette Richards ponders the question of value beyond its usual monetary associations or indeed how value is traditionally understood by either producers or consumers. Turning to the use of ‘transparency’ as a marketing strategy in two global fashion brands (Everlane and Nudie Jeans) and in one smaller, circular fashion label (A.BCH), Richards discovers that while some brands use transparency to focus on the breakdown of cost and supply chain details, more effective approaches such as that used by A.BCH detach value from cost almost entirely. Instead, they narrativize the garment’s provenance through a ‘Product Story.’ As Richards contends, this provides consumers with a clear account of all dimensions of the garment, including instructions for its care after purchase, in ways that may be more appealing for consumers but also challenge existing systems of value readily associated with consumption. By interrogating how transparency is put into practice, Richards shows the varied meanings and practices of transparency, from its use as yet another marketing tool to its potential to educate consumers about garment manufacturing, or indeed the way it builds narratives that feed into our attachment to things beyond their putative material or economic value.

‘Fashion Futures’ concludes with an edited version of an industry-facing dialogue that took place at the Critical Fashion Studies conference in February 2020, involving an Indigenous fashion activist, a circular fashion consultant and a circular fashion designer. In addressing small- and large-scale forms of complexity that now inhabit the ethical fashion space, these industry practitioners have much to teach us about creative and collaborative practices that extend the diversity of fashion narratives and voices, from decolonizing Australian fashion to building individual and collective forms of responsibility through circular fashion systems and transparent supply chains. This dialogue demonstrates the importance of forging connections across industry, academia, and entrepreneurial practitioners that build individual and collective forms of responsibility, and in the process develop resources of hope for the future of sustainable and ethical fashion practices.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Natalya lusty.

Natalya Lusty is Professor of Cultural Studies and an ARC Future Fellow (2018–2021) at the University of Melbourne. Her work examines the relationship between modernist cultural and political formations and contemporary aesthetic, political, and vernacular practices. Her Future Fellowship project investigates how the department store became an important institution for the transnational dissemination of modernist and avant-garde aesthetics alongside its cultivation of new forms of creative and innovative forms of consumption. Natalya is the author of Surrealism, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2017); Dreams and Modernity: A Cultural History , co-authored with Helen Groth (Routledge, 2013); Photography and Ontology: Unsettling Images , co-edited with Donna West Brett (Routledge, 2019), Winner, Best Anthology in the Association of Australia and New Zealand Art Writing and Publishing Awards (AWAPA); Modernism and Masculinity (Cambridge University Press, 2014), shortlisted for the Modernist Studies Association book prize, and Cambridge Critical Concepts: Surrealism (CUP, 2021).

1. See Australian Fashion Council Report, ‘From High Fashion to High Vis: Australia’s Fashion and Textile Industry,’ 31 May 2021. https://ausfashioncouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/From-high-fashion-to-high-vis-EY-final-report-31-May-2021.pdf

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Home — Application Essay — Architecture & Design School — My Motivation to Study at the Fashion Institute of Technology

My Motivation to Study at the Fashion Institute of Technology

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Updated: Nov 30, 2023

Words: 778 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Reflecting on my childhood, it's clear that my passion for fashion and design, a seed that would eventually lead me towards the Fashion Institute of Technology, was evident from an early age. I spent countless hours in the world of dress-up, effortlessly shifting roles from a princess to a doctor, a chef, or a model. My dolls, the first recipients of my budding design instincts, were never left in their original state. They underwent dramatic makeovers - a snip here, a new outfit there - ultimately culminating in fashion shows to showcase their fresh, innovative looks. At the time, this was more than play; it was the beginning of a lifelong journey in fashion.

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As I got older, fashion began to interest me even more and eventually became an addiction. I would spend hours looking through fashion blogs, and reading through stacks of fashion magazines. By the time I reached my freshman year of high school, I knew the fashion industry was where I wanted to be in life. I was hooked.

Entering high school with the goal of being in the fashion industry one day, I took as many fashion related classes that I could. In 10th grade, I was able to take the first one of these classes, which was an introductory course to fashion. This was one of my favorite classes of the entire year and through this class, I was able to put the skills that I learned to use and participate in a service project for sewing tote bags for the homeless. It was great using fashion to not only help someone in the practical way of them having something to carry their things in, but also in the sense that it would be something new for them, something that could make them feel stylish in what would be a very difficult time in their life. After having such a good experience in this class, I wanted to take another. My junior year of high school, I was able to take Fashion Merchandising. I looked forward to going to this class every day as what we were learning, and the projects that we did were so enjoyable. This is where I realized that I wanted a job specifically in fashion merchandising.

The Fashion Merchandising Management program at Fashion Institude of Technology is a very rigorous program, requiring a variety of different characteristics to succeed in the program, with one of them being a strong work ethic, which I have prepared myself for through my challenging course load that I have had throughout high school. Beginning during my freshman year of high school, I have always taken the most difficult classes that were available to me. My junior year, I was able to take 3 Advanced Placement classes and I am taking 7 Advanced Placement classes currently, during my senior year. One of the Advanced Placement classes that I am taking this year is AP French. I am not only taking this class because of my love of the French language, but also because I believe that it will be a beneficial skill to be able to speak another language in the fashion industry. I hope to be fluent in French by the end of this course and it will help me to be able to understand not only the language, but the culture of a variety of different people and potential employers throughout the fashion industry and to not be disrespectful in expecting them to already know English. I have also been a part of the French Club at my high school, taking on different leadership roles such as Secretary and Vice President. This characteristic of leadership will help me to better succeed in this program, especially when working with a group. I also believe that my years in gymnastics have contributed to my strong work ethic and team work skills. Being a competitive gymnast for 4 years, I would have to train in the gym for hours to perfect the skills I was working on for meets. At meets my teammates and I would support each other, so that we would be able to perform to the best of our abilities. This has shown me that any goal in achievable, as long as you put in the time and effort needed to get there.

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To conclude the essay, the admission to the Fashion Merchandising Management program will offer me countless opportunities to be prepared for a career in fashion merchandising through networking with industry executives, the invaluable skills that I will learn about the industry, and the amazing study abroad opportunities. Eventually, I dream of being able to be a top executive in the fashion merchandising field, and being a part of this program at FIT is a crucial step in this process.

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Home » Education » FIT Admissions Essay Tips – How to Write a Better Fashion Institute of Technology Admission Essay

FIT Admissions Essay Tips – How to Write a Better Fashion Institute of Technology Admission Essay

When applying to the Fashion Institute of Technology, there are some important facts that you should consider. Your admission essay is your chance to make a statement about who you are and how your fashion career has affected you. It’s your chance to show that you’re not afraid to take the next step in achieving your goal.

You want your admissions essay to be compelling and unique. You want it to capture your reader’s attention. You want it to grab their attention and convince them to want to come to FIT as an alumni. You want it to show your personality.

The fashion industry is constantly changing. The latest fashions come out and the older ones fall out of favor. There are always new trends and new fads, so you need to be aware of this.

The fashion world is extremely competitive. Many schools offer scholarships to help students from low-income families afford to go to school and earn their degree. This is an advantage for you because FIT may not be able to afford to pay all of your costs if you’re going to attend.

The admissions essay also has the potential to turn away other prospective students. It is your chance to show that you’re not afraid to challenge yourself and do whatever it takes to succeed in school. The admissions essay is where you tell people what you’ve been through and what you’ve achieved. It’s your chance to prove that you are an exceptional student and a valuable member of the FIT community.

Your essay can also show you’re a good fit for the School of Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. They have a reputation for having an exceptionally well-rounded and diverse student body. In fact, FIT is one of the most diverse colleges in the U.S. It offers many majors that will meet your needs while at the school.

You should also expect some form of review of your admission essays. This is not done in an insulting way, but with an unbiased attitude. The admissions committee looks for certain things and will check every single one of your essays to make sure they’re written in a professional manner.

Once you are admitted to the Fashion Institute of Technology, it’s your chance to create a career that will change your life forever. Make the most of this opportunity.

Admissions essays are an excellent way to show that you are capable of going through college and being successful. They give you a chance to show how your achievements will help others. They also give you the chance to show that you are an exceptional person that can change the world.

The Fashion Institute of Technology is an outstanding institution in terms of scholarship availability and diversity. If you are looking to get into a top college, take full advantage of what this great university has to offer.

FIT admissions essays are a big part of the interview process for many students, so make sure you research the schools before committing to attend. the school. You can make an impressive impression on them by presenting yourself well.

Don’t put your best foot forward in any interview, even if you know that you’re good at the things you’ve studied. Just be honest and be confident about your talents.

Writing an admissions essays doesn’t have to be intimidating. FIT offers a variety of materials that will help you get prepared. Don’t give up, though.

Don’t make a half-hearted attempt to write my essay , either. Instead, have someone help you prepare it. They’ll be able to make sure that all of your information flows well and they can also point out any gaps in your knowledge that could potentially hurt your application.

FIT admissions essays require you to be precise. They want the information to match what the school needs, and that is why they are looking for clear writing skills. as well as grammar and spelling errors. You’ll also need to be able to explain your reasons for why you chose a particular program.

If you’re ready for this opportunity, you’ll do just fine writing your FIT admissions essays. You just need to have the right mindset. to see it as a challenge instead of a burden.

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