Fashion

The terms "fashionable" and "unfashionable" were employed to describe whether someone or something fits in with the current or even not so current, popular mode of expression. However, more so in the modern era items termed 'not so current' may indeed fit into the term 'Retro.' Retro fashion allows rule shifts, such as 'old is suddenly new,' thus fashionable.

The term "fashion" is frequently used in a positive sense, as a synonym for glamour, beauty and style. In this sense, fashions are a sort of communal art, through which a culture examines its notions of beauty and goodness. The term "fashion" is also sometimes used in a negative sense, as a synonym for fads and trends, and materialism. A number of cities are recognized as global fashion centers and are recognized for their fashion weeks, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences.

The habit of people continually changing the style of clothing worn, which is now worldwide, at least among urban populations, is generally held by historians to be a distinctively Western one. At other periods in Ancient Rome and other cultures changes in costume occurred, often at times of economic or social change, but then a long period without large changes followed. In 8th century Cordoba, Spain, Ziryab, a famous musician - a star in modern terms - is said to have introduced sophisticated clothing styles based on seasonal and daily timings from his native Baghdad and his own inspiration.

The beginnings of the habit in Europe of continual and increasingly rapid change in styles can be fairly reliably dated to the middle of the 14th century, to which historians including James Laver and Fernand Braudel date the start of Western fashion in clothing.The most dramatic manifestation was a sudden drastic shortening and tightening of the male over-garment, from calf-length to barely covering the buttocks, sometimes accompanied with stuffing on the chest to look bigger. This created the distinctive Western male outline of a tailored top worn over leggings or trousers which is still with us today.