The first chapter of the book ‘Fashion Media, past and present’, is called ‘Taste, Fashion And The French Fashion Magazine’. It consists of a few topics, revolving mainly around attitudes of fashion during different periods and role of fashion magazines. One topic is about the emergence of a critic and how the concept of taste came about. The concept of taste was created by British Empinicist Philosophers. They believed that beauty should not be in the eye of the beholder and that actually there should be a standard. Another interesting topic is whether fashion is considered as art. For centuries fashion was not seen as equal to art. In 1912, Henry Bidou considered fashion worthy of the painter’s attention, however did not see it as equal. Another topic was whether, and how much fashion reflects politics, society, economy and culture of the time. According to this book the fashion magazines during the 17^th and 18^th century in France captured the revolution in the clothing and how the clothing changed due to the change in politics, society, economy and culture of the time.

One point I want to discuss is whether fashion reflects politics, society, economy and culture of the time. The ‘Fashion Media’ book believes it does massively. The book in particularly claims that the fashion magazine ‘Le Journal Des Dames et des Modes’ “captures an important moment in the turbulent history of France” (Sanda Miller, 2013). The magazine apparently captured the gruesome events that influenced the fashion. The book ‘Fashion, Culture, And Identity’ agrees with this point, as it says fashion “sources in culture and social structure” (Fred Davis, 1992). I also agree with these points. A good way to prove this is how fashion has changed over time, paticularly because of culture. ‘Fashion Media’ describes how the French magazines used to represent the outfits of aristocratic circles and captured the difference between clothes of different classes. This means that clothes represented social structure at that time, however in the other book, which is based on modern times, it claims that fashion masked “status anxiety”. This means that fashion in modern times does not represent status like it did in France in the 18^th century. This shows how fashion reflects culture.

Another point that interested me was whether or not fashion is art. In the book, Le Brun Tossa claimed that fashion and taste were connected and if fashion and taste were connected and art and taste were connected, fashion could be seen as a form of art. Before Le Brun Tossa introduced this concept, fashion was not equated with art. In 1912, Henry Bidou considered fashion worthy of the painter’s attention, however he still did not see it as equal to art. I believe fashion is equal to art, due to its similar purpose of expression. In the book ‘Fashion, Culture, And Identity’, the author has written about the meanings behind fashion and whether it is a ‘visual language’. Art is also considered as a visual language. In the book, Gans stated that fashion meanings are “more differentiated than in other expressive realms” (Gans, 1974). This is fundamentally stating that art is not equal to fashion. I do not believe this, however I find it interesting because fashion should be apreciated.

References:

Davis, F (1992) Fashion, Culture, And, Identity, Chicago: University of Chicago

Miller, S (2013) Fashion Media: Past and Present, New York: Bloomsbury