Tuesday 9 August 2011

Youth Hip Hop Fashion

                  
                                                         WOMEN HIP HOP STYLE



                         Along with the turning of the tide by select female hip-hop artists came the emergence of promoting sex appeal through fashion. Female artists have faced a number of pressures ranging from gaining exposure to further their careers as well as conforming with certain images to remain in demand and relevant. The alignment of Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music with hip-hop music (with collaborations being more and more prevalent) placed a whole new category of females within the categorization of what constituted a hip-hop artist. As referenced above, the nineties decade centered around women's senses of style revolving around that of men in that they'd adopted the use of oversized t-shirts and baggy pants. Also listed above are Aaliyah, TLC, and Da' Brat as conformists to that trend. Female rap group Salt-N-Pepa are considered amongst the frontrunners in leading the transition of moving away from the male alignment and asserting feminism in creating a new sense of dress. They are said to have "wowed fans while wearing hot pants, cut-off denim shorts and Lycra body suits". "Black women's relationships to their bodies occur within overlapping cultural contexts that offer contradictory messages about their value and function". In a male dominated society, it is no wonder that women used to work hard to align themselves with male images including how they'd dressed. As women generally gained access to and exposure within the offerings of several sectors of society, for example music, movies and television, we saw more images of what constituted attractiveness emerge. Following this came the perception of freedom to express oneself through several avenues including apparel. Rappers Lil' Kim and Eve are known for resorting to trends surrounding being scantily clad with provocative tattoos and being perceived as attractive in the process. Not all female rappers, or female artists in general have resorted to these methods within their careers. "..the recent appearance of Black women performers, songwriters, and producers in Black popular culture has called attention to the ways in which young Black women use popular culture to negotiate social existence and attempt to express independence, self-reliance, and agency".

Monday 8 August 2011

World Of Fashion

                
                     World Of Fashion


               I, you we all live in a world that keeps on changing randomly. I was thinking of writing down a topic on Fashion that can describe this change perfectly. Fashion, is a a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear or accessories anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person. The more technical term, costume, has become so linked in the public eye with the term "fashion" that the more general term "costume" has in popular use mostly been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while the term "fashion" means clothing generally, and the study of it. For a broad cross-cultural look at clothing and its place in society, refer to the entries for clothing, costume and fabrics.
                    Initially changes in fashion led to a fragmentation of what had previously been very similar styles of dressing across the upper classes of Europe, and the development of distinctive national styles. These remained very different until a counter-movement in the 17th to 18th centuries imposed similar styles once again, mostly originating from Ancien RĂ©gime France. Though the rich usually led fashion, the increasing affluence of early modern Europe led to the bourgeoisie and even peasants following trends at a distance sometimes uncomfortably close for the elites—a factor Braudel regards as one of the main motors of changing fashion.
                   The pace of change picked up in the 1780s with the increased publication of French engravings that showed the latest Paris styles; though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France as patterns since the 16th century, and Abraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion from the 1620s. By 1800, all Western Europeans were dressing alike (or thought they were): local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and then a badge of the conservative peasant.
                      For women the flapper styles of the 1920s marked the most major alteration in styles for several centuries, with a drastic shortening of skirt lengths, and much looser-fitting clothes; with occasional revivals of long skirts forms of the shorter length have remained dominant ever since. The four major current fashion capitals are acknowledged to be Milan, New York City, Paris, and London. Fashion weeks are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences, and which are all headquarters to the greatest fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion.
                   Modern Westerners have a wide choice available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that person's personality or likes. When people who have cultural status start to wear new or different clothes a fashion trend may start. People who like or respect them may start to wear clothes of a similar style.
                   The fashion industry consists of four levels: the production of raw materials, principally fibres and textiles but also leather and fur; the production of fashion goods by designers, manufacturers, contractors, and others; retail sales; and various forms of advertising and promotion. These levels consist of many separate but interdependent sectors, all of which are devoted to the goal of satisfying consumer demand for apparel under conditions that enable participants in the industry to operate at a profit.
                  An important part of fashion is fashion journalism. Editorial critique, guidelines and commentary can be found in magazines, newspapers, on television, fashion websites, social networks and infashion blogs.
At the beginning of the 20th century, fashion magazines began to include photographs of various fashion designs and became even more influential on people than in the past. In cities throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public clothing taste. Talented illustrators drew exquisite fashion plates for the publications which covered the most recent developments in fashion and beauty. Perhaps the most famous of these magazines was La Gazette du Bon Ton which was founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel and regularly published until 1925 (with the exception of the war years).
                                 However, over the past several years, fashion websites have developed that merge traditional editorial writing with user-generated content. Online magazines like iFashion Network, and Runway magazine, led by Nole Marin from America's Next Top Model, have begun to dom
                So this is all about the world of fashion I can share and it’s a world that always sets new trends to follow and look into and which dominates everywhere. Mainly in late night parties it starts. But from there it goes knocking the doors of the worlds of sports, business entertainment and so on. It’s a world that just keeps on expanding daily reaching out its wide arms in all sectors.