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Fashion ⸤◻️⸥｜Definition｜1st｜20260209192444-00-⌔
Fashion
Examples under fashion’s umbrella: catwalks, mannequins, boutiques, models, and designers
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 (styles and trends) as signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term, fashion describes an industry, designs, aesthetics, and trends.
The term fashion originates from the Latin word facere, which means “to make”, and describes the manufacturing, mixing, and wearing of outfits adorned with specific cultural aesthetics, patterns, motifs, shapes, and cuts, allowing people to showcase their group belongings, values, meanings, beliefs, and ways of life. Given the rise in mass production of commodities and clothing at lower prices and global reach, reducing fashion’s environmental impact and improving sustainability has become an urgent issue among politicians, brands, and consumers.12
The world’s three top fashion capitals currently are acknowledged to be New York City (Manhattan), Paris, and Milan, which are all headquarters to the most significant fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion. The annual Met Gala held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is widely considered to be the world’s apex display of fashion’s power, wealth, and influence. In some fashion circles, Tokyo, London, and Los Angeles are additionally considered as second-tier fashion centers. Fashion weeks are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences. A study demonstrated that general proximity to Manhattan’s Garment District was important to participate in the American fashion ecosystem.3 However, fashion has also migrated online to a significant extent, such that the geographical iconization of cities as fashion capitals, while still centrally important, has become less so with the advent of artificial intelligence. Haute couture has now largely been spread alongside the sale of ready-to-wear collections and perfume using the same branding.
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
Environmental Audit Committee (19 February 2019). Fixing fashion: clothing consumption and sustainability (Report). UK Parliament. ↩
Fletcher, Kate (2012). Fashion & sustainability: design for change. Laurence King Pub. ISBN 978-1-78067-196-3. OCLC 866622248. ↩
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and Sarah Williams (February 10, 2014). “New York’s Fashion Industry Reveals a New Truth About Economic Clusters”. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved May 8, 2023. ↩
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