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FIELD GUIDE: HOW TO BE A FASHION DESIGNER
of haute couture, became the show-
case of masculine power, transformed
into the bearers of the symbols of lux-
ury and seduction. In this way haute
couture came to be, in the democratic
world, a mechanism of social distinc-
tion, destined to continue generating
differences among the classes.
The father of haute couture was the
Englishman Charles Frederick Worth,
who in 1858 changed the rules of the
game. Until then, tailors and dressmak-
ers, in large part anonymous, worked
at the service of clients, who pro-
vided them with ideas, materials, and
adornments. Worth set forth his own
creations, produced beforehand with
fabric of his own choice. Moreover,
this new way of thinking about fashion
was accompanied by a new way of
communicating fashion: Worth was the
first to put a label bearing his name on
dresses, thus creating brand image,
and he presented his collections using
young women out of which the modern
fashion show would emerge.
OPEN FASHION
Consumer society, born in the wake
of World War II due to technological
advance and the increased availability
of labor, expanded the desire for fash-
ion to all social classes. This coincided
with the consolidation and develop-
ment of prêt-à-porter, or “ready to
wear,” which would definitively democ-
ratize fashion.
Consumer culture, oriented toward
the present and the new, gave rise
to a fresh phenomenon: the cult of
youth. The new principal of social
imitation was—and continues to be-
young, which, in turn, gave rise to the
cult of the body, ushering in fashion of
a less formal style (sportswear, casual-
wear, streetwear). Furthermore, in the
1960s, young people vindicated new
ways of being and appearing, sym-
bolizing the first crisis of masculine
identity, as men acquired a renewed
taste for fashion. Since then, fashion
no longer has had a single reference,
the dominant class, but has entered
the supermarket of styles where each
person invents their own image, their
own look, in a playful act of renewal.
In a society as individual and hedonis-
tic as ours, fashion answers increas-
ingly less to class significations and
more and more to signs of seduction,
as it represents not merely a way of
dressing but also, and more impor-
tant, a set of values, that is, a way
of life.
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THE WORLD OF FASHION
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