Formal clothing options have always been geared towards one particular choice for men – the suit. On first impressions, many people would argue that the suit is a rather plain and boring piece of attire. However, its long and fascinating history says otherwise. From the initial concept of court dress in the 17th century through […]
Category: Culture
When browsing through fashion publications, watching fashion videos and going through stores, one will often hear words like “vintage” or “retro” to describe items of clothing and accessories. However, to many people, it is not entirely clear what these terms mean. And that is for quite a good reason, since the definitions or understandings of […]
In the world, there are very many collectors of fashion. These range from people who own more pieces than one can imagine, like Iris Apfel, who has rooms upon rooms filled with clothes to smaller collectors. Fashion – in all its forms, may be interesting to collect, but the question that may be of the […]
Fashion is a fascinating field. The history of fashion and the resulting culture are extremely interesting and contain many oddities that one may not necessarily expect. Here is a list of 18 fascinating fashion curiosities that will make you be surprised, giggle and raise an eyebrow. #1 The world’s longest wedding dress had a […]
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What are Chatelaines?
Chatelaines were a type of very popular jewelry item in the past, but have taken a back seat (to put it mildly) as purses and other items appeared. A chatelaine is described as a decorative belt hook or clasp that was worn by both men and women at the waist and featured a series of […]
The Schembart Carnival (lit. bearded-mask carnival) began in 1499 in Nuremberg, Germany. Soon after, it became very popular and a strong draw until 1539, when it ended. The event was canceled due to the complaints of a preacher who had a strong influence in the community. Osiander was offended by the fact that his effigy […]
A trend can be defined as a general direction in which something is and as a point of view that is held by many. Fashion is of course, the best examples of what trends are. We can clearly see style trends if we look at any era from the past. During the 1970s, flower prints […]
The Mechanical Curator of the British Library is a tool that was designed to extract images from old books that have been digitized. The software was created a few years ago and, soon after it was put to work, it has extracted over 1 million images. These images feature everything and anything from maps and […]
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How to Analyze Fashion
You don’t have to be a fashion expert to enjoy fashion. Watching runway shows and collections can be a great hobby and passion. Many people are really taken by the idea of communicating ideas and notions through clothes but don’t really have a framework on how to go about interpreting and understanding fashion. Experienced essay […]
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Fashion and Cultural Education
In fashion, the concept of “cultural reference” is a very common one. Almost every other collection, especially these days, references an old culture or takes inspiration from traditions and established aesthetics. Thus, when one learns about fashion and style, it is extremely important to learn about visual culture and to make sure that one adds […]
The 18th century saw the peak of the Age of Enlightenment. This was focused very much on reason (in various forms, some of which we don’t really use today), but also on values such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity and more. These values were all based on the (re)discovered idea that humans had power over […]
The phrase “dress to impress” has taken on a different meaning in the days of online dating. Whereas in the past, the goal used to be to catch someone’s eye from across the bar, the trick now is to earn a click from someone scrolling down a seemingly endless page of dating profiles. Oddly enough, […]