During this semester, I have learned, by blogging, about fashion, styling, and their impact on society. I learned the deeper meaning of fashion and how there are many ways to dress and how to promote yourself.  I learned how fashion has a complete look and effect that starts from hairstyles, clothing, shoes, and accessories like jewelry and purses. My new thoughts about fashion are how it affects identity, expresses moods, and conveys social status. For example, seeing a person wearing expensive clothing such as leather or jewelry, you will think they have a high social status. I also see how fashion transcends how a person feels.  The right clothing and colors can make a person feel great about themselves while also being fashionable. Designer logos were interesting to learn about this semester and I had some ideas for designing a logo for myself when I’m in the fashion industry.  I plan to maintain my blog and post to it every week provided I have free time. I find blogging gives me new information and I can discuss other ideas in a blog and get feedback from other people who are interested in fashion as I am. I intend to discuss other topics like fabric, patterns, leather, and snake skins because they get my attention and they are comfortable to wear. I also want to investigate and blog about accessories such as watches, chokers, and precious stones like diamonds. I would like to look more into the precious stones in watches like Richard Milly, Frank Muller, and Patek.

One of the big issues in my project is the Power of Jordan Brand. Branding radiates information about us and it  identifies a time period. It has a huge impact on us culturally and economically. In the 1940s people had to wear suits and ties around town and on college campuses. Culturally that was the correct thing to do. Today’s college campus attire is free of formal and business attire. Today people wearing sports attire, t-shirts, or sneakers, often with the Jordan logo on them. Culturally, this makes a statement, and it is acceptable to be informal and casual. Branding with a logo is popular and gives a person an identity. For example, the Jordan logo is athleticism. But sometimes branding divides us. For example, it divides us sports wise if someone plays a sport with a logo and different uniform color on people will know who is on their team and who is the opposition. For people with logos, they can unite us or divide us. If a person wears a Jordan shirt, we see someone who has taste, class, and money. If we see someone is wearing a Fruit-of-the-Loom, plain white t-shirt, it makes a statement that they have no fashion taste or they don’t have money. In the music culture, we see artists with classy fashion and expensive clothing too. For example, Playboi Carti is a rapper who influences people today music wise and fashion wise by wearing expensive colorful clothing. Wearing different clothing the majority of the time is his branding. The rapper makes the statement that anything goes even if it is tacky. Playboi Carti can make tacky outfits stand out and look good. Some people might make the same claims about the Jordan Brand in that some of his designs are flashy or edgy. Still, people buy them because Jordan’s name and logo are on them. Jordan’s brand is a cultural success and popular socially. As I work on my project, I want to learn more about how Jordan built his brand and how he has maintained it even with a lot of competition. 

Fur has been a popular style in accessories and fashion for over 70 years. Fur has been acceptable for fashion,but now people are questioning it. Fur as fashion has had effects on style, industries, and society.

When fur was added to different clothing styles sometimes it was a small portion, and other times, it was a full-length coat or an entire accessory, like a purse. A small touch of fur made people feel like they were in style. For example, when I first got a designer belt, I felt like I was in style because everyone else had one. Being in style makes a person feel special, accepted, and part of a group. When someone wore a full length fur coat, it transmitted that they were a wealthy person and were stylish. Today, if you see a rapper or celebrity wear a full length coat, you’ll consider them famous. Fur projects status and success because it is expensive and had to come by. Wearing a fur coat means you have the resources to afford it.

In the last decade or two, the fur industry has changed. Designers started making fewer fur items as people fashion objected to using animals as fashion fur. They used to have real fur from lions, beavers, tigers, and minks, but the changes caused the fur industry to matter less. Technology saved numerous animals and may be the fashion industry itself by making fake fur look real. This shows that designers are forced to react when the public changes, its view on something like fur.

Today, fashion has changed. Status can be gained by jewelry and other items like cell phones. People are aware that fur was making animals extinct and that it was so cruel to the animals. People are conscious today of the impact of their choices. Status is something that many people still seek. I want to look good, show off, and claim status too. But I won’t do it by wearing real fur and many others agree with me too. Fur status is no longer valued by much of society. 

My topic for this week is do designers have a responsibility to make their clothes affordable? It seems like they do. I think that it would be fair if high-end fashion designers and companies lowered their prices for all items. I say this because most people in the world do not have the same wealth to buy expensive clothes. For example, the price of a Ferragamo belt is about $300-$400. That amount for a belt is too expensive for most people, except for the people who are wealthy. A person who wants to dress up nice and good with friends may feel left out because his/ her friends who have on high-end designer clothes, and they don’t. 

There should be a change in the pricing of high-end brands to make it possible for everyone to wear nice fashionable clothes. Hopefully, in the near future, this will change. Everyone could be happy with access to these nice brands. High End designers such as Louis Vuttion and Ferragamo have nice expensive clothing wear, but I hope in the near future they could lower prices so everyone can wear their clothes. This is an issue that we see a lot in schools where poorer kids do not have nice clothes like their friends. If designers would make clothes for the kids and their families, they could do a lot to make their kids feel good about themselves. Everyone wants to look and feel nice. I feel like everyone should reach out to high fashion designers so they can lower the prices of their items.

The relationship between fashion and music is very strong. I think that fashion fits in with music artists, and their music. Musics artists tend to blow up and draw attention to others with the style of clothes they wear. For example, the rapper Young Thug is a very classy individual and has great music. If his music was not interesting, I believe he still would be noticed because of the style he has and the clothes he wears. As I see it, without fashion, music is not viewed and music videos would not be nearly as popular. The reason why I say this is because if you’re listening to a great music artist without any fashion in his music video, you probably won’t pay attention that much to it. The rapper Young Thug created a way for his music to be popular with his fashion. He styled himself in clothes that people would look at as funny, but as his fashion trended so did too his music also. Ever since Young Thug added fashion with his music, everyone started to do it as well and a lot of artist music careers jumped. Artists can expand their career, by having fashion and a sense of style. They can get noticed from their fashion and then their music will also get noticed. As I see it, fashion makes artists interesting and it creates a platform for them. It allows their music to become popular or very popular depending on how much talent they have. Fashion drives their music industry in many ways.

This week I chose to talk about how the new generation changed fashion. As we know, fashion has been around for years, and fashion has changed throughout the years. I feel like the new generation opened the doors for people to come out and dress however they like and feel comfortable about how they are dressing. What that means is that in the post if someone was afraid to dress a certain way, they did not dress how they wanted to, but now they see multiple people dressing a way they will feel comfortable dressing like that. For example, famous music artists wear tight, colorful, and ripped clothes. Several years ago, fashion was different than it is today. Back then, fashion to me was kind of plain at times and had very “little style”. Fashion today is creative, popular, noticeable, and people feel free to dress how they want to.

I think the expansion and creativity in fashion that the new generation created impacted fashion and the fashion industry in a positive way. People feel free to express themselves today. They are not forced to fit into a certain style of dress or fashion. They can take risks and be bold because of the new generation, and I see them as more in the right direction.

The brands that caught my attention in recent years are Louis Vuttion, Gucci, and Fendi. These brands are very familiar and popular to most people. I feel like these brands are the most worn and the brands sell out. For these brands, they market their items online and in their own stores and in Neiman Marcus, Sak Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf, Goodwin, and Nordstroms. Fashionable brands like Louis Vuttion, Gucci, and Fendi are expensive brands that the majority of wealthy people buy and wear. The quality of the items that are made by the brands are unique and designed creatively. For example, Louis Vuttion makes belts that are leather with “LV” on the buckle with a boxed pattern, Gucci makes shoes that have a snake on it and “GG” on the shoes, and Fendi designs scarfs with an F and an upside F printed all over the scarfs. These items are fairly expensive, for example, a Gucci Stuart Hughes Belt is priced at $250,000 and the Gucci biker jacket is priced $18,650. Another example is a Louis Vuttion bag costs $45,000 because it is a coated canvas fabric. They are so expensive because they are durable and wear well. These products have illusions to them because the items are made in France, so people will think they are stylish and they have a rich lifestyle. Their customer relations are great because they have lifetime guarantee of their products. These brands caught my attention because of the pricing of each item they have and to me it seems like items like these should not cost this much amount of money because they are selling the illusion of wealth.

Work Cited

Fashion is a cultural medium that transmits identity and we often see this in the medium when people wear T-shirts with logos. While T- shirts are casual dress they are publishing many things about a person. A T-shirt with a logo specifically states a person’s values, identity, and character. 

T-shirts project our value such as what institutions we like such as University teams, professional teams, and musical artists. For example, the University of Texas has a longhorn as its logo on shirts. Another example of projecting who we value is when we wear a T-shirt with a musician on it, like Drake. The emblem on the T-shirt could be a photograph of him or drawing such as an owl with the letters of his crew name “OVO”. 

T-shirts will also give us an Identity for example, it can tell us what geographic areas we have been in or that we visited. Sometimes, the logo on theT-shirt can identify the state or region from the United States that we like. The logo can also indicate what team we play for or what team we root for. A logo such as the Nike swoosh makes a statement about our social-economic level. When brands reach a certain statue that identifies how wealthy a person is. For example, if I wanted to buy Nike clothes I would not find it at a Dollar Store, I would have to go to a high end store like Hibbetts Sports or Foot Locker. Another example is a person wearing a Gucci blade shirt that is priced over a $1,000, you would identify that person as wealthy because he has money to buy a shirt that is over $1,000.

T-shirts can also indicate a person’s character because a logo can indicate culture from which they came. Wearing a T-shirt that is sports related indicates positive and wearing one with guns and violence indicates negativity of a person.

While logos on a T-shirt can appear simple, they transmit our standards in music, sports, and entertainment and they truly manifest our involvement in life. T-shirts are a part of our casual culture, our American democracy and American independence.

What is wrong with killing animals every year for fashion? Each year there are millions of animals killed not only for food, but for their skins and furs. Most people who kill animals for their fur and skin may think it is no big problem, but it is. They tend to kill these animals to use their skin and fur for fashion. Most animals are not going to let a person walk up on them and take their fur. They feel threatened about it and that gives humans a reason to kill them so the animals can not resist. Numbers indicate that there are millions of animals killed for their fur. According to an animal rights group,“Every year, millions of animals are killed for the clothing industry. Whether they come from Chinese fur farms, Indian slaughterhouses, or Australian outback, an immeasurable amount of suffering goes into every fur-trimmed jacket, leather belt, and wool sweater” (Peta). I think this is wrong because the animals will go extinct and it is cruel to raise an animal in a cage to kill for their fur.

Instead of killing animals for fashion, we can create other ways of keeping warm with technology. For example, people using technology can add a special fiber to fabrics. The fashion industry needs to take a stand against using animal furs and skins to make a profit, because we are killing animals and killing the environment. I believe the fashion industry can still make money for their companies without using animal skins and at the same time it can save the environment.

Works Cited

“The Fur Industry: Animals Used for Their Skins.” PETA, 21 June 2010, http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/fur/.

Fashion is very appealing to me, but there are some things in fashion that put me off or make me dislike it. Everyone has fashion, but everyone also has multiple things about fashion that put them off. What puts me off with fashion is the types of hairstyles and clothing people try hoping to look fashionable. The hairstyles put me off because people will try to cut their hair in a different way and dye it in different, crazy colors. This part of fashion is not appealing to me because I feel it looks goofy or silly. If I were to have a crazy hairstyle to try to look fashionable, I would at least try to make it look good and have the color of my hair be all the same color. I would want to look presentable, showing off how fashionable I can be in public. Another thing that puts me off with fashion is the way people wear their clothes. Some people think that fashion is about wearing baggy and tight clothes in this generation. To me, wearing baggy and tight clothes is not fashionable at all. It looks silly when someone wears clothes that are too big for them to try to make a statement. Wearing clothes that are too small for you makes it seem like you are not comfortable in the clothes you are wearing. This is another thing that puts me off when thinking about fashion because if I want to look fashionable, I will wear clothes that fit me. I would want to be comfortable in what I’m wearing. These are the things that are not appealing to me about fashion, and that put me off when I see others dressed this way.