From a young age, I knew that pursuing a professional career in the fashion industry was precisely what I wanted to dedicate my life to. I am currently on the path to majoring in fashion media. Once graduating from college, I plan to further explore creative outlets within the fashion industry. In the beginning stages of creating this new fashion column, the ”why” had never been more apparent to me. Why does this matter to me and why does it matter to others?
A few weeks ago, my friend and I were talking in the car when the topic of fashion came up. I explained to her the current news of recent fashion creative director appointments such as Demna Gvasalia’s departure from Balenciaga and his appointment as artistic director at Gucci. I quickly realized that both my friend and I were equally confused.
Though our confusion stemmed from different roots, she was both confused and amazed as to how for the last couple minutes of our drive I had managed to fall down the never-ending rabbit hole of fashion news.
She asked, “How do you know about this?” I responded with a slight giggle because, yes, I can imagine how confusing and, well, odd it all might sound.
Although I do follow fashion news as much as I can, there is still so much more contributing to the little snippets of information that I pick up, I mentioned to her.
As we continued driving, I pointed out the question that seemed to be underlying throughout our entire conversation. I began to question how I knew all of this and, well, Why did any of it matter?
We live in a world with so much conflict, constant change and political division. So often when conversation about the fashion industry arises, it may seem unimportant or simply not as important as other pressing issues.
Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand this view, but I’ve come to see how important the fashion industry is and our role in it. Before seeing fashion as a professional career, my admiration and love for fashion and its industry grew within me at quite an early age.
One of my biggest obsessions (one of which I am slightly embarrassed to share) was Tony Hawks’ clothing collection with the department store Kohl’s. I was determined to own the entire collection. As I began to grow up, my admiration shifted from Hawk’s graphic T-shirts to luxury fashion and haute couture, spanning from fashion houses such as Schiaparelli, Valentino and Maison Margiela.
The fashion industry is near to a multitrillion-dollar global industry. Countries such as the United States and China are yielding hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Recently, within the luxury fashion sector, Prada bought the Versace fashion house for roughly $1.4 billion.
This allows us to begin to understand how much capital is being circulated globally within the fashion industry. This news can very understandably make the fashion industry feel unimportant or distant from us but the fashion industry isn’t as distant as we may think.
The fashion industry is connected to the shipping, agricultural, manufacturing and retail industries to name a few. Because of this, the hundreds of millions of jobs the fashion industry creates can, and sometimes does, affect us directly as individuals.
Fashion plays a role in everyone’s day-to-day lives. Whether one cares about the clothing they wear or not, acknowledging the impact we each have in the global fashion industry is important.
Fashion is a platform for people to express their creativity, mark special celebrations, make political statements and to empower oneself. The possibilities the fashion industry has and continues to present are truly endless.
So why does this all matter? A generalization I would make is that we all do (to some extent) care about the clothing we wear. Be it haute couture, amazing vintage and thrift finds or simply clothing we may purchase at a department store, fashion is always telling a story. Not only in our personal stories but within the cultural stories of society at large.
