WHAT IS FASHION

      Fashion and fashion trends mainly refers to anything which is popular in a culture at any given time. It is inclusive of areas such as; style of dress, cuisine, literature, art, architecture, fashion trends and many other popular factors. Fashion trends often change rapidly, and "fashion" is often used to describe the latest version of these trends.

The terms "fashionable" and "unfashionable" are used to illustrate whether or not someone or something fits in with the current fashion trend or even a certain type of popular mode of expression. The term "fashion" is often used in a positively as a synonym for style, glamour and beauty. However the term "fashion" can have negative connotations of fads and trends, and materialism. Popular fashion trend centres include New York, London, Milan and Paris.

    Fashions trends change constantly. Changes in fashion tends often occur more often than in other fields of human activity, such as that of language. The modern fast-paced changes in fashion trends often emerge the negative aspects of capitalism: Some people see materialism and consumerism combined with wastage, as the negative connotations of fashion. Yet others enjoy the diversity that changing fashion trends can provide, the constant changes are there to feed their desires to experience the new and the interesting. Fashions trends can also change and enforce uniformity, this is apparent in the situation where Mao suits became the national uniform of mainland China.

     Fashion journalism is now an extremely important part of modern fashion. Such editorial critique and commentary can be found in all types of media from; newspapers, magazines, and television to the more modern; fashion websites, social networks and also fashion blogs.

From the start of the 20th century, fashion magazines were able to use photographs thus they became even more influential than ever before. These magazines became very sought after, and had a major effect on public taste. The magazines saw talented illustrators drawing fashion plates for the publications, which covered all the recent and up to date developments in the area of fashion trends. A famous magazine was La Gazette du Bon Ton founded in 1912, it regularly published until 1925.

Vogue was founded in 1902. It the longest-lasting and one of the most successful of fashion trends magazines. With the emergence of cheap color printing in the 1960s Vogue had a major boost in sales. Vogue saw coverage of fashion trends in women's magazines, and then by the 1990s saw coverage of men's fashion trends

     The fashion industry does not enforce the intellectual property as much as the film and music industry. Whilst logos and brand names are protected the designs are not. Designers often lose revenue because their designs, and fashion trends are taken and marketed by businesses with more resource. Tempting consumers to buy clothing by establishing and emerging new fashion trends can be seen as major part of the industry's success, so intellectual property rules would therefore interfere with the process of fashion trends emerging, thus being counterproductive.