The word fashion It has an evident shared root with the Latin voice modus, although its meaning is slightly different. While the latter refers to a method or the way of doing something (as in the expression modus operandi), the first has to do with something changing, which is accepted at a certain moment and then, for various reasons, stops arousing interest.
Both are connected, however, by the idea of how to do a certain thing. In the case of the fashionit would have to do with the way of acting, speaking or dressing, with the aim of fitting in with a certain group
Currently, the word fashion It is closely linked to the clothing industry. That, strictly, is what we refer to when we talk about the “world of fashion.” But… Since when has it existed? In this article we will take a tour of the origins and evolution of this phenomenon that we call fashion which now seems to us something inherent to our society.
Although it is true that fashion as a social and mass phenomenon is very recent, the first human communities already showed tendencies towards certain customs and social “brands” in clothing. Let’s see it below.
In Prehistory it was already “fashion” The statement may seem exaggerated, and that is why we put the word in quotes. Because although it is true that in Prehistory it is still early to talk about fashion, it is no less true that the men and women of the Paleolithic were already adorned with necklaces and bracelets, which they made with stones, shells and small bones. It has been demonstrated, based on archaeological sites, that even our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, already made similar objects; apparently with ritual use. However, can we talk about an emerging fashion?
The first human beings lived during the ice ages, so they had to start covering their bodies to protect themselves from the cold. The only possibility was to take advantage of the skins of the animals they hunted, whose thickness and thick hair guaranteed safe protection against frost. Now, the skin of an animal dries quickly after death, so those men and women had to begin to develop techniques that would allow them to preserve the flexibility of the skins. These were the first treatments that were applied to a material intended to cover the body.
When the weather became warm again, those skins that had served humans so well during the ice ages ceased to make sense. However, there was no going back; humans of the late Paleolithic continued to cover themselves with pieces of clothing, which became increasingly elaborate The invention of the sewing needle, whose oldest preserved specimens date back more than 40,000 years, had a lot to do with this.
The question is: why did women and men continue to dress, and in increasingly sophisticated ways? There are two possibilities in this regard, not counting its use against the cold, which was obviously still in force. One of them is the birth of morality, according to which some parts of the body began to be seen as shameful or intimate; the second, the marking of a specific social status. In increasingly hierarchical human groups (partly due to the appearance of agriculture and the exchange of surpluses) it was highly necessary to visually establish to which social stratum the individual belonged, and this was achieved, in part, with clothing.
Fashion, beauty and modesty
Social differentiation through fashion continued to be present in the history of humanity, and has even reached the present day. However, we must not forget two of the factors that led to the appearance of changes in clothing: one, the desire to be liked and beautiful, and two, modesty when showing one’s body
The taste for beauty is almost as old as human beings. Already in Ancient Egypt, cosmetics (which were applied by both men and women) were a tool to beautify the face; also, of course, the decorations and the dress. These were made of linen, the material par excellence of the Nile Valley and, apparently, their use was not motivated by any type of modesty; he kalasiris For women, a kind of long tunic reaching to the feet was so thin that their breasts were often visible. Children and slaves often performed their chores completely naked, which undoubtedly means that the ancient Egyptians did not live modestly like we do.
In contrast to the transparent Egyptian fashion, we have, for example, Byzantine fashion, separated from the first by more than a millennium. In the 6th century, the inhabitants of Justinian’s empire developed a fashion aimed at not showing even an inch of the body We are, of course, within the framework of another mentality and another culture: the Byzantine Empire is already an empire imbued with Judeo-Christian morality. Fashion in Byzantium is not so much linked to beauty as it is to status: depending on which garments were limited to certain hierarchies, especially the famous purple color, reserved exclusively for the emperor.
We cannot summarize the entire history of fashion here, but we do want to emphasize these three factors that, together, dictated the clothing guidelines in one way or another: beauty, status and morality. Without taking these factors into account we cannot understand the evolution of fashion in history.
But when exactly is fashion born?
Up to this point, we have talked about certain uses and customs that mark a hierarchy and an ideal of beauty, but can we refer to this as fashion in our current meaning? If we consider that fashion is a cultural manifestation, of course we would be talking about fashion. Now, if we take the word with the meaning that we currently give it, that is, that of a mass phenomenon worldwide, then we will have to limit its appearance to much more recent times.
Some historians place the 14th century as the birth of the world of fashion, based on the fact that it is from this century onwards that changes in tastes occur more and more frenetically We would be talking, of course, about a Europeanizing concept, since someone from the 14th century in Europe was not the same as, for example, in China or Mesoamerica.
From the end of the Middle Ages onwards, changes will go faster and faster, and fashions will go from prevailing for a century to succumbing in just a couple of decades. But we cannot yet talk about “universal” fashions; not only because of what we have mentioned above, but because, in fact, these are not even uniform fashions in all European countries. It will not be the same fashion that prevails in England as that worn by the inhabitants of northern Italy, for example.
We will have to wait until the 18th century to find a more or less homogeneous fashion throughout the continent, spurred by the appearance of fashion magazines. One of the first publications of this type was the Ladies’ Mercurywhich dates its appearance in England to 1693. Later, in the mid-18th century, France took over and was at the forefront of European fashion, with publications such as Journal des Dames and Messager des Dames. These types of magazines helped the changes in clothing to become known quickly and spread rapidly throughout all countries.
The real revolution
From then on, fashion was unstoppable, with a tendency to become universal. First, all Western countries adopted the same styles at each historical moment and, later, These same European styles spread to other continents to the detriment, of course, of the indigenous demonstrations.
The Industrial Revolution was a powerful push for the development of fashion, since it allowed the mass production of fabrics and lowered prices. And, already in the 20th century, we can mention a specific person, with name and surname, who marked a turning point in the history of fashion: Coco Chanel.
With it, modern fashion was undoubtedly born, at least in its feminine aspect. Chanel imposed a much simpler and more comfortable fashion for women, without neglecting elegance and glamour, and she laid the foundations for the subsequent fashion market and its industrialization.
