Fashion is a hot topic in today’s era. Every moment some iconic figure is introducing something and the world is adopting it instantly and it is becoming fashion of that moment. Some other trend silently dies and it goes out of trend, often called retro.
Although we often use the terms interchangeably, we must realise that there is a big difference between fashion, style, fad and trend. In this article, we shall explore those differences.
Fashion, which we already described, is the way of dressing and presenting yourself like the world is doing right now. In 1960s, the side parted neatly combed hairs and bell bottom pants, along with striped jacket became the fashion all over the world. However, that fashion is dead for good now. Thus, fashion is very much contemporary. The same can be said about trends as well. In fact, many designers insist that fashion and trend are really the same with fashion being the trend of dressing.
Style, on the other hand is a different cup of tea. Firstly, it doesn’t depend on time, it depends on the person. A style is often called the permanent fashion of any individual. Continuing the example above, if someone decides to wear bell bottom and striped jackets all his life, starting from 1960s, irrespective of how the fashion has changed, then that way of dressing is his personal style. You might remember how Gregory Peck stayed stylish and denied to go fashionable all his life. Formal dress at work can also be called a style if the present trend is to wear jeans to work.
Finally, fad is a very short lived fashion. In a film, we see the lead actor wearing a flashy arm band and start wearing it till the next film came out three weeks later and we dropped that habit for another, then it is indeed a fad. Another characteristic of a fad is it is generally not the full way of dressing but a part of full dressing instead.
People generally look up to iconic figures to start a trend while really rich and high class people attend fashion shows to see what is the latest the fashion world has to offer. While the USA has managed to top in almost every segment of life, Italy and France has still managed to be the fashion capital of the world, especially the city of Paris and Venice.