Monday, November 9, 2009

Commercial Trends

In my quest to find out why college students wear what they wear I have noticed that my original question has taken a shift. Week after week I continue to read fashion books and magazines, observe students around campus, post daily questions to my facebook and I realized that the real question is why do we as consumers buy what we buy? In my previous post I wanted to know who controls trends? Who is responsible for the decisions that we make when we walk into a store looking for a coat with buttons but instead they all have zippers. Are we forced to follow trends based on what is available in the store? In chapt. 3 of Breward's book "Fashion" which can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Oxford-History-Christopher-Breward/dp/0192840304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257780556&sr=1-1 he discussses fashion as a professional industry. Fashion is "a system of innovation engineered to meet and encourage seasonal consumer demands and fulfilling a cultural requirement to define ever shifting social identities and relationships"(pg. 70). In other words the designers are forced to acknowledge the demands of the market place. Latey, people are blaming the recession as an explanation for the choices they make when purchasing clothes and other items. Therefore in a sense the designer begins to design clothes which require cheaper materials and those in charge of purchasing clothes for the store shop based on what the consumer can afford. The designer as well as the store have to accomadate the consumer. Still all in all the consumer can only purchase what is available and is then forced into a system that does not leave much room for personal style but forces the consumer to follow trends.

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