Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into outfits that depict distinctive ways of dressing as signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term, fashion describes an industry, styles, aesthetics, and trends.
Minidress by John Bates, 1965
Woman's Bicycling Ensemble, 1898, LACMA
Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, was a leader of fashion. Her choices, such as this 1783 white muslin dress called a chemise a la Reine, were highly influential and widely worn.
Albrecht Dürer's drawing contrasts a well-turned out bourgeoise from Nuremberg (left) with her counterpart from Venice. The Venetian lady's high chopines make her look taller.
Clothing is any item worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural products found in the environment, put together. The wearing of clothing is mostly restricted to human beings and is a feature of all human societies. The amount and type of clothing worn depends on gender, body type, social factors, and geographic considerations. Garments cover the body, footwear covers the feet, gloves cover the hands, while hats and headgear cover the head, and underwear covers the private parts.
Clothing in history, showing (from top) Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Romans; Byzantines, Franks; and thirteenth through fifteenth century Europeans
A kanga, worn throughout the African Great Lakes region
Hindu lady wearing sari, one of the most ancient and popular pieces of clothing in the Indian subcontinent, painting by Raja Ravi Varma
A young woman wearing t-shirt and shorts at the warm summer in Åland
