Fashionability Essay

At School Z, the principal, Mr. Anderson, chose to meet with me individually. I had offered for any and all administrators at the school to be interviewed, but he felt he dealt most specifically with the content of the interview. He greeted me at the front of the school and led me to his office, where we had a similar discussion to School A, followed by a viewing of students during passing period. Mr. Anderson was a tenured educator, having been in public schools for many decades, all of which were at locations with traditional dress codes. Initially, we discussed the numbers involved in dress codes: frequency of violations, how many, and what percentage were male and female. He said that throughout the year, only a handful were the average, but a majority of the violations took place within the first few months of the school term. It was during this time, he believed, that it was important to be strict with students to maintain order and compliance for the remainder of the school year. When I pushed for a number, even an estimate, of the number of referrals, he said he was unsure, but that over the course of the year, it would probably only amount to five percent of the overall totals. Of the referrals, he believed they were evenly split among male and female students, though he did believe that with boys, it was more difficult for them to violate because they did not attune themselves to fads the way female students did. “As Spring comes,

Renaissance shopping was “a key moment that brought people of different status, religion, and sex together” (Welch, 2005, p. 303). Through consumption and material culture, one can see the meaning behind both the individual and collective actions of consumers.

“Outlet shopping is perhaps luxury’s greatest ploy to get its goods into the hands of anyone and everyone,” (Thomas, Pg. 246). “But outlet shopping is the antithesis of the flagship, the antithesis in fact, of luxury itself.” (Thomas, 2007. Pg. 247) Columnist Karen Heller explained to Thomas after visiting Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in New York, “The clothes were marked down, picked over and repeatedly pawed, the opposite of how they were originally displayed. Their power to enchant seemed minimized, even at a third the price, smashed together like produce in a storage hold.” Thomas explains how luxury merchandise is purely just that, leftover “luxury” products: overproduction. No longer does luxury embody the experience of pampering nor does it signify class and wealth. Some

Recently I heard a story about a mother and child walking through a retail store when the child says to her mother “I want those shoes!” The mother asks “Why do you want those shoes?” to which her daughter responds “Because everyone else is wearing them.” The Mother asks, “Wouldn’t you want to get something different and be more original?” and the child says “No, then I wouldn’t be original like everyone else!” Between the 1920’s and the era of World War II America saw some of its most dramatic cultural shifts since the country’s beginnings. This story of a mother and child expresses the changes that took place in the early half of the 1900’s which made a lasting effect in creating the consumer society we know today. This consumer-centered society that we know was developed by multiple shifts in the American economy and lifestyle. In this essay I will discuss how each the “Roaring Twenties,” the “Great Depression” and the World War II Era each contributed in the way of accelerating or stalling the process of creating an American consumer society.

For generations, Americans has been brainwashed by the media to believe that what is displayed on television is the ideal perception of what real beauty have manipulated American citizens of what style looks like. Furthermore, with their many brainwashing strategies, that means more and more consumers spending beyond their budget. Our perspectives have been heavily influenced by what they believe is nice, but can we afford it all? With unrealistic combination of goods in store, plazas, and mall, consuming has become a bad behavior of some. In support of my argument of the “Overspending”, author Gladwell’s article “The Science of Shopping” also argues that stores adjust to fit the needs and wants of the shopper are evidently presented. With that being said, we have no idea when we are being manipulated into unrealistic shopping behavior that is influenced by the way the advertisement is presented in visual sight. Author Gladwell gets a “retail anthropologist” and “urban geographer” named Paco Underhill to give breakdown points of how he helps brand name stores influence consumers into persuasion of buying more. However, most of us fall short of that discipline, while being persuaded to overspend during our store visits.

Transactions at a local corner store, the purchase of a fresh cup of coffee in the morning, and the credit card debt accumulated through the buying of miscellaneous objects on the internet, are just a few contributors to the most powerful “ism” that powers America. From the 1920s to the present day America has been driven by consumerism. Consumerism- in its simplest form- is defined as the buying and selling of products. When tracing the evolution of consumerism in America, one must explore many factors that led up to today’s consumerist culture; the economic ups and downs of the 1920s through the 1950s, the anti-consumerist movement in the 1960s, and people’s obsession with material items in modern society.

Luxury fashion items can be acquired via several different avenues, as well as at several different price points in today’s market. Previously, the only options consumers had for the acquisition of luxury fashion goods was to purchase directly from the retail store; however, now there are an enormous amount of resources for consumers to opt for a used product at a much lower price by shopping on websites like eBay, or by purchasing from the growing amount of high-end consignment stores. Another option that luxury fashion consumers can easily utilize is to buy the item new and at a cheaper price by shopping at outlet stores or discount department stores like Nordstrom Rack and T.J. Maxx. Finally, these consumers have the option to borrow. Websites like BagBorrowOrSteal.com have created hugely profitable businesses by making the latest luxury accessory available to be rented at a cost that is a fraction of what the item would cost if purchased new from the retailer. These options have granted a much larger array of people the opportunity to experience aspects of the luxury lifestyle and the luxury image than ever before.

I am honored to apply for the Master of Arts Luxury and Fashion Management program at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). I have not always known which professional career path was best for me however; I have always had a passion for the arts, fashion specifically. My desires were armored during my undergraduate curriculum and ignited an enthusiasm to further pursue and perfect my craft. I am confident attending SCAD will place me one step closer to my aspirations.

It would appear that fast fashion has had a detrimental effect on the role of the self and has perhaps lessened consumers’ levels of attachment to items; this will be a point of research within this dissertation as convincing consumers to value their clothing would be the initial stage in adapting disposal behaviours.

Here at William Chrisman there are inalienable rights that are here to stay. They are set for these students so they can achieve an enjoyable and fair high school experience. Without these rights students would be unprotected and unheard. We as the founding fathers of William Chrisman encourage students to absorb all they can ,then live long and prosper out in the world.

First, Baudrillard’ (1993, 1994, 1998) theory, symbolic consumption, as a focal notion of the study, is found to be a good foundation to understand consumers’ purchasing decisions for fashion brands. The findings show that consumers choose brands which have relevance or desired ‘symbolic value’ for them. Not only Baudrillard, the findings are also in line with the studies of Dittmar (1992, 1994, 2004, 2008), Elliott & Wattanasuwan (1998a) and Wattanasuwan (2003, 2005) regarding how consumers use fashion products; symbolic consumption is used to represent actual self-identity, and also to create ideal self-identity.

For this experiment, our hypothesis was that if we used sweatshirt fabric, then it will cause the UV bead to have the lightest color, opposed to having fabric from the middle part of a hat, and t-shirt fabric.

In our ever increasingly consumerist world, we are taught that extravagant spending on luxury clothing is a sign of being fashionable and stylish, but Macklemore and Ryan Lewis beg a differ in their hit song “Thrift Shop.” In the song, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis illstrustates that a person can still have a unique and individualistic sense of style while saving money by shopping at a secondhand or thrift store. During the course of the song, Macklemore and Lewis comically recount their time shopping together at thrift shops and recounts to audiences the unique and sometimes bizarre finds they come across, such as “flannel zebra jammies” or a “dookie brown leather jacket.” After successfully finding awesome secondhand ensembles, Macklemore

“Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. They have decided that it is entirely right and proper for men to fight for their liberties and their rights, but that it is not right and proper for women to fight for theirs.” (Emmeline Pankhurst). Throughout history, women have fought for their rights whether it was for political, social or economic reasons. These women were able to use fashion as a feminist tool in order to make a statement and change their rights for the better. The progression of women’s rights began with the Suffragettes in the late 1800s who fought for their political rights; in the 1920s the Flappers fought for societal equality and in the 1930s, Chanel broke fashion expectations by introducing an

Fashion is fuelled by conversion. Designers continually persuade the public that their new ideas, however shocking they may seem, are in fact everything that a stylish wardrobe requires. Next season, the same designers convince everyone to give up their allegiance to such out-modish designs and embrace instead the innovative visual trends of the latest collections. The same garments are successively dubbed ‘outlandish', ‘in fashion' and ‘out-dated' according to the apparent vagaries of prevailing fashionable sensibilities. Are we really duped by such duplicity? Or are we willing participants in the cycle of fashion? And perhaps more significantly, what relevance does the cycle have today in Western society's culture