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fashionIn Paris—the leading arbiter of fashion since the Renaissance—the fading influence of celebrities was coincident with the rise of designer-dressmakers in the mid-19th cent. Paris haute couture has remained preeminent in setting fashions for women's dress. Designers such as Charles Frederick Worth, Coco Chanel, Lucien Lelong, Elsa Schiaparelli, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent have had fashion houses in Paris. In the latter part of the 20th cent. such American designers as Norman Norell, Mainbocher, James Galanos, Bill Blass, and Pauline Trigère competed successfully with Parisian designers. London, in the early 19th cent., became the center for men's fashions under the leadership of Regency dandies such as Beau Brummell. In the mid-1960s, London was again for a time the center of fashion influence.
The 1970s and 80s saw the beginning of more divergent trends in fashion. This was the result of the increasing popularity of ready-to-wear collections by major designers, which made fashionable label-conscious dressing possible for the middle class. Ethnic-inspired looks and the punk style enjoyed a period of popularity. Successful clothing designers such as Ralph Lauren, Georgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Rei Kawakubo, and Geoffrey Beene widened their design horizons, licensed their names, and put their distinctive marks on objects ranging from furniture to cars, fabric, and perfumes. The look of luxuriance that emerged in the 1980s was countered in the 1990s with the production of classic understated clothes. Fashions are adapted for mass production by the garment industries of New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
BibliographySee F. C. C. Boucher, 20,000 Years of Fashion (tr. 1967); R. Lynam, An Illustrated History of the Great Paris Designers and Their Creations (1972); J. A. Black and M. Garland, A History of Fashion (1980); M. and A. Batterberry, Fashion: The Mirror of History, (1982); J. Laver, Costume and Fashion: A Concise History (1982); M. Tranquillo, Styles of Fashion (1984); A. Hollander, Sex and Suits (1994); Editors of Phaidon Press, The Fashion Book (1998); T. Agins, The End of Fashion: The Mass Marketing of the Clothing Business (1999); B. Cosgrave, ed., Sample: Cuttings from Contemporary Fashion (2005); V. Steele, ed., Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion (2005); C. Wilcox, ed., The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947–57 (2007).
The Columbia Encyclopedia. Copyright © 2001-09 Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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