Since when does the world of Fashion exist?

The word fashion has an obvious shared root with the Latin voice modus, although its meaning is slightly different. While the latter refers to a method or the way to do something (as in the expression modus operandi), the first has to do with something changeable, which is accepted at a given moment and then, for various reasons, ceases to arouse interest.

Both are connected, however, by the idea of ​​how to do a certain thing. In the case of the fashion, would have to see 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 speaking, is what we mean when we talk about the “world of fashion”. But... Since when does it exist? 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 in our society.

What are the origins of the world of fashion?

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 next.

In the Prehistory it was already “fashionable”. The statement may seem exaggerated, which is why we put the word in quotation marks. Because although it is true that in Prehistory it is still early to talk about fashion, it is no less so than men and Paleolithic women already adorned themselves with necklaces and bracelets, which they made with stones, shells and small bones. It has been possible to demonstrate, based on archaeological sites, that even our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, already made similar objects; Apparently, with a ritual use. However, can we speak of an incipient fashion?

The first human beings lived at the time of 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 allowed 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 turning back now; Late Paleolithic humans continued to cover themselves with pieces of clothing, which became increasingly elaborate. The invention of the sewing needle had a lot to do with it, the oldest preserved specimens of which date back more than 40,000 years.

The question is: why did women and men continue to dress, and each time in a more sophisticated way? There are two possibilities in this regard, not counting its use against the cold, which obviously was 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 became highly necessary to visually establish to which social stratum the individual belonged, and this was achieved, in part, with the attire.

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Fashion, beauty and modesty

Social differentiation through fashion continued to be present in the history of humanity, and has even reached our days. However, we must not forget two of the factors that led to the appearance of changes in clothing: one, the desire to like and be beautiful, and two, modesty when showing the body.

The taste for beauty is almost as old as the human being. Already in Ancient Egypt, cosmetics (applied by both men and women) were a tool to beautify the face; also, of course, the ornaments and the dress. These were made of linen, the quintessential material from the Nile Valley and, apparently, their use was not motivated by any kind of modesty; he kalasiris for women, a kind of long tunic down to the feet, it was so fine that the breasts often showed through. Children and slaves often went about their chores completely naked, which certainly means that the ancient Egyptians did not live in modesty like we do.

In contrast to the transparent Egyptian fashion, we have, for example, the Byzantine fashion, separated from the former by more than a millennium. In the sixth century, the inhabitants of Justinian's empire developed a fashion aimed at not showing 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 to status: depending on what clothes were circumscribed to certain hierarchies, especially the famous purple color, reserved exclusively for the emperor.

We cannot summarize here the entire history of fashion, but we do want to emphasize these three factors that, together, dictated in one way or another the dress guidelines: beauty, status and moral. Without taking these factors into account we cannot understand the evolution of fashion in history.

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But when exactly is fashion born?

So far, 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 its 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 we currently give it, that is to say, that of a mass phenomenon worldwide, then we will have to confine its appearance to much more recent times.

Some historians place the fourteenth century as the birth of the world of fashion, based on the fact that it is from this century that the changes in tastes are produced more and more frantically. We would, of course, be talking 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, 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 speak of "universal" fashions; not only because of what we have previously commented, but because, in fact, it is not even about uniform fashions in all the countries of Europe. It will not be the same fashion that is imposed in England as the one worn by the inhabitants of northern Italy, for example.

We will have to wait for the 18th century to find a more or less homogeneous fashion throughout the continent, spurred on by the appearance of fashion magazines. One of the first such publications was the Ladies' Mercury, which dates its appearance in England to 1693. Later, in the middle of the 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 make changes in dress quickly known and spread rapidly throughout all countries.

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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 the other continents, to the detriment, of course, of the autochthonous manifestations.

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 a name and surname, who marked a turning point in the history of fashion: Coco Chanel.

Undoubtedly, modern fashion was born with it, 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.