Fashion is a term which means ‘an ongoing trend ‘. It refers to how people dress and what kind of external getup most people think is making them look stylish, up-to-date and sophisticated. While etiquettes and manner also somehow comes into the count but it comparatively more superficial and dynamic. It changes with winds of time very fast. This can be seen from the vast difference between how people used to dress before and now.
In the 21st century, the style trends of the fashion industry dominate the world more than they ever did, and control not only the way people dress but also trends in home ware design, makeup fashion and people’s overall attitudes.
In the 60s flower power did not only mean flares and tunics, it summed up the whole attitude of a generation, and this is even more prominent today.
Nowadays, fashion is bold and daring, and this reflects a generation that is not afraid to say what they think, or wear what they want. Fashion is not just a means of clothing your body, it is the essence of your personality and beliefs, and designers are well aware of the power they hold.
Designers’ predictions and designs for the coming season are more hotly anticipated than any other revelation in the world. Especially when in college, girls think a lot about it. Not only women, men’s fashion market have also gone up. Shopping sites make available most of the branded clothes at lower prices than the real market and this is the reason man and women both are going after new trends.
Trends in fashion unify women and men around the world, yet they still allow people the ability to portray their own individual style at the same time. A period of time portrayed in a picture can be identified immediately just by the style of clothes the people are wearing, and this sums up just how powerful and all-encompassing fashion is.
Fashion can change from one second to the next, but what never changes is the hold it has over society, and the role it plays in the modern world. While it is a good thing to be trendy and follow the latest innovations in designs, fabrics and others, one thing to be careful is to decide carefully whether it fits us and the place we live in. We should maintain the decorum of the place where we are living and not go against it. Blending in and deciding what to wear will be more acceptable without gaining negative attention. Also it must suit us. That’s a very important thing. If it is not suiting us but we are following it because it is the latest trend that is the worst thing we can do to how we look. We must be comfortable and when all these are kept in mind, we look our best.
Westernized dressing style is not a bad thing but it must be decent. Our societies are still conservative and that is why we must be sensitive towards it. Moreover we have our own cultural heritage. We must therefore be proud of our ethnicity. Good thing is that our ethnic fashion have also evolved a lot and popularization of innovated designs have also attracted lot of attention and acceptance. Dressing in our cultural attires symbolise our various culture and how diverse we are in portraying such cultures, while other’s have similar ways of portraying their cultures others have dissimilar ways if doing so. But due to the fashion style of today’s world we can even add a little touch of western culture to out cultural attires.
Fashion hasn’t not just made our looks and personality different it has also contributed in making the world a unified place due to the various kinds of fashion trends and how people portrays others culture like their own.
– Emmanuel Charity Ojonugwa
300Level Mass Communications Department, Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba, Kogi State.
