Fashion Etymology

Fashion:

Fashion is a major force in our daily lives which affects every aspect of our lives... what we see, do or wear.

It is a complex concept involving much more than apparel, accessories, cosmetics and hairstyle.

It is a style that is accepted and used by the majority of a group at any given time.

Fashion leads us to discard a product that is still useful but is no longer “IN”.

Fashion is a prevailing custom, usage or style.

Fashion is vital, challenging and ever changing force.

Trend/Popular Fashion:

Current style is the latest in fashion. 

This is the ‘Fashion’ that is popular everywhere.

A fashion which is religiously followed by a certain group is called a trend.

In a trend the following things combine to make a fashion:

Its eye appeal and the comfort in an essence.

Its wearable quality.

It is adapted to figure types, to age groups and its shape must be such that it will make up superbly into almost any fabric in any season.

Classic:

When a style stays in trend for a long period and is accepted anywhere and everywhere, it becomes a classic.

A classic stays in the fashion cycle for a long period. 

It is accepted by all groups of a society.

It belongs to highest rank/class.

It serves as the established model or standard.

It has lasting significance or worth.

A classic is a typical or traditional example.

It is a creation of the highest excellence. 

Fad:

A fad is a fashion that comes into popularity overnight. The style becomes a fashion very quickly and it fades off even quicker. 

A fad refers to a fashion that gains popularity in a culture relatively quick, but loses popularity dramatically.

Some fads may come back if another generation finds out about it and gets interested in it.

For example Dayglo paint was a fad in the USA in late 70s. Then Dayglo accessories and clothes had a comeback in late-mid 80s.

It is arguable that a fad that remains popular for a significant amount of time typically loses its significance in current popular culture as it evolves and becomes accepted into a society’s everyday culture as trends.

Collection:

A line of products manufactured for one season, as those developed by a fashion designer.

Style:

It is a way of expressing something that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people of a period. 

Silhouette:

It is the outline or basic contours of an object.

Avant Garde:

It is a French word meaning “front guard, advance guard”.

It refers to people or works that are experimental or novel.

Couture:

It is the business of designing, making and selling high fashionable, usually custom-made clothing for a person. 

It is the high-fashion clothing created by fashion designers. 

Haute Couture:

Haute Couture is a French word for “high sewing” or “high dressmaking”. It refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted fashions.

Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish. It is often time consuming and made by hand-executed techniques. 

Bridge fashion:

A bridge line refers to pricing and styling category of misses apparel.
Typically, bridge designers are one notch under designer lines.

Bridge lines have more unique styling than contemporary misses but are usually not as pricey as designer lines. The hierarchy with regard to styling, price and exclusivity from highest to lowest is:

Haute Couture >> Designer RTW >> Bridge >> Contemporary

Pret -e- Porter:
It is a French term for 'ready to wear' garments, and are usually made for common people, they are replicated in vast amount and are usually non-expensive.

Knock offs:

Adaptations are referred to as “line-for-line copies” or “knock-offs” and are made of less expensive materials.

Manufactures copies new looks or adapt some of their dominant features, making simpler styles in preparation for rising sales expectations. 

Motifs:

It is a design or figure that consists or recurring shapes, colours as in architecture or decoration.

It is a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in artistic work.

Trimmings:

Something added as decoration or ornament, especially a band or lace or embroidery on clothing.

Boutique:

A boutique is a French word for “shop”, is a small shopping outlet.

It specializes in elite and fashionable items such as clothing and jewellery.

Soft goods:

Non durable goods or soft goods are defined either as goods that are used up when used once, or that have a lifespan of less than 3 years.

Texture:

Texture refers to the properties held and sensations caused by the external surface of objects received through the sense of touch. 

Texture is sometimes used to describe the feel of non-tactile sensations.

Texture can also be termed as a pattern that has been scaled down where the individual elements that goes on to make the pattern not distinguishable. 

Hue:

Hue is also one of the three dimensions in some colour spaces along with saturation and brightness.

Usually, colours with the same hue are distinguished with adjectives referring to their lightness and saturation.

Value:

Value is a measure of where a particular colour lies along the lightness-darkness axis.

Stylist:

A stylist is either a person who co-ordinates the clothes, jewellery, and accessories used in fashion photographs and catwalk shows. 

He is a kind of designer whose designs are based on existing things, trends, and designer collections. 

Toile:

Toile is from a French word meaning “cloth” or “web” – particularly cloth or canvas for painting on.

A toile is a version of a garment made by fashion designers to test a pattern. 

They are usually made in cheap material, as multiple toiles may be made in the process of perfecting a design. 

Toiles may be called “muslins” in the United States. 

Grading:

Pattern grading is the scaling of a pattern to a different size by incrementing important points of the pattern in the clothing and footwear industry.

Pattern:

A pattern is a form, template, or a model which can be used to make or generate things or parts of a thing, especially if the things that are created have enough in common for the underlying pattern to be inferred, in which case the things are said to exhibit the pattern. 

Atelier:

An atelier is an artist’s studio or workroom. 

It is a place where the models are made and duplicated.