Fashion

Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person. The more technical term, costume, has become so linked in the public eye with the term “fashion” that the more general term “costume” has in popular use mostly been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while the term “fashion” means clothing generally, and the study of it. For a broad cross-cultural look at clothing and its place in society, refer to the entries for clothing, costume, and fabrics. The remainder of this article deals with clothing fashions in the Western world.
For detailed historical articles by period, see History of Western fashion.
Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey or China frequently remark on the absence of changes in fashion there, and observers from these other cultures comment on the unseemly pace of Western…