Fashion Trends

Malcolm Barnard says in his book Fashion as Communication, "Fashion and clothing have always been explained as forms of communication" (39). American teenagers use fashion to communicate their feelings and beliefs. Through out most decades teen fashion has proven to be a way of rebelling out how they feel and think about certain situations. They used fashion as a way of social contact with reference to scrutiny for all sorts of people. Fashion is a communication to use to convey with the world what their personality really says. Fashion and history go hand in hand, believe it or not. Historical events in a time period reflects the way people living in the time dress, especially with teenagers, but it would not have started with out the Woman's Rights Movement. If it were not for the movements, would it still be a male-dominated society? It is scary to think about, what might not have happened if it were not for those who fought for privileges? In the first part of the twentieth century, fashion was beginning to make a radical change. Because of the first wave of working women making their way into American society, Victorian styles were suddenly unfashionable and the skirt and blouse combination became more accepted. The advancing feminine cause influenced many trends. Women, and their desire to conform with and show that they could do the same job as men, brought about such as the Gibson Girl, with her hourglass figure, her expertly upswept hair, and her unquestionable upper-class air, was everything American women in 1900 wanted to be. Although women fought for the rights, in the 1950s teenagers started to take advantage of the fact they could express their feelings. Rock N Roll music made teenagers come out with their own since of style. They were more open with developing their own since of style, showing that they no longer wanted to dress like their parents. The girls now started to wear poodle skirts in every color you could imagine with tight sweaters

Cited: Barnard, Malcolm. Fashion as Communication. New York: Routledge, 1996. Laver, James. Costume and Fashion a Concise History. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002. Rubinstein, Ruth P. Dress Codes, Meanings and Messages in American Culture. Colorado: Westview Press, 1995. Rubinstein, Ruth P. Dress Codes, Meanings and Messages in American Culture, Second Edition. Colorado: Westview Press, 2001. Taylor, Lou. Establishing Dress History. Manchester: Manchester University Press: 2004.