Fashion victim
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A fashion victim is a term coined by Oscar de la Renta[1] that is used to identify a person who is unable to identify commonly recognised boundaries of style. According to Giorgio Armani, "When a woman alters her look too much from season to season, she becomes a fashion victim."[2]
Fashion victims are vulnerable to faddishness and materialism, two of the widely recognised excesses of fashion.
[edit] Faddishness
A fad is an intense but short-lived fashion. A fashion victim will not be able to identify that a fad has run its course, and will often come in on the fad at the exact moment when it is going out.[citation needed] Fads are also by their nature at the extreme range of currently acceptable style, which means they commonly cross the line from the sublime to the ridiculous. A fashion victim will be unable to identify this boundary.[citation needed]
[edit] Materialism
Keeping up with fashion is often very expensive. Expensive clothes signal that the wearer is financially successful, but they are not necessarily stylish or fashionable.[3]
Designer branding has come to form an essential part of our identification of style and fashion.[citation needed] We have all become accustomed to the social acceptance that comes with wearing the right brands. The labels have in many cases migrated from the inside of a garment to the outside and this has become quite acceptable.[citation needed] Common examples of this types of branding are Nike, Kappa, and other sports and leisurewear manufacturers. A fashion victim, able to recognise this phenomenon but unable to determine its boundary, may become a ‘walking billboard’.
Designer labels are associated with a higher quality of manufacture and a more expensive price. Owning and displaying such products of quality is seen to reflect that the wearer also embodies a personal characteristic of quality.[citation needed] Designers have identified this fact and in some cases are able to exploit this to the extent that prices can be escalated to surprising proportions without reference to the cost of manufacture. Extreme examples of this type of branding are found among accessory manufacturers such as Versace, Gucci and Burberry, scent manufacturers such as Chanel and Guerlain and watch manufacturers such as Rolex and Bvlgari.[citation needed]
Fashion victims, by their characteristic inability to recognise boundaries, may aspire to the extreme end of what is available, seeking expensive products (or copies of these products), believing that the outward display of such items will draw admiration in proportion to their actual or apparent cost. Because of this, "the term 'fashion victim' became the ultimate insult to the aspirational."[4]
[edit] References
- ^ According to John Fairchild, "[Oscar and I] were sitting at the Caravelle and Oscar looked around and said, 'These people are absolute hell, they look like fashion victims,' and that was the first time anyone had used that expression." Coleridge, Nicholas (1989). The Fashion Conspiracy. Harpercollins. 0060916362.
- ^ Agins, Teri (2000). The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business Forever. Harper Paperbacks, 116. 0060958200.
- ^ Michelle Lee notes that in order to appear casually well-dressed, shoppers pay extra for designers to "sew on decorative patches, slash gaping holes into the knees of jeans and fray the hems." Lee, Michelle (2003). Fashion Victim: Our Love-Hate Relationship with Dressing, Shopping, and the Cost of Style. Broadway. 0767910486.
- ^ Arnold, Rebecca (2001). Fashion, Desire, and Anxiety. I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 10. 1860645550.
