James Laver's Law of Fashion

FASHION - James Laver was a museum curator for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from the 1930s through the 1950s. Laver was also a fashion theorist and historian and having no other claim to fame he conceived of Laver’s Law — an attempt to make sense of the "fashion trend life cycle".

Here is James Laver's Law of Fashion:

Indecent	10 years before its time
Shameless	5 years before its time
Outré (Daring)	1 year before its time
Smart	Current Fashion
Dowdy	1 year after its time
Hideous	10 years after its time
Ridiculous	20 years after its time
Amusing	30 years after its time
Quaint	50 years after its time
Charming	70 years after its time
Romantic	100 years after its time
Beautiful	150 years after its time

What is interesting is that James Laver's Law of Fashion's has become the standard by which clothes buyers now operate. ie. Stanley Marcus, the former president of Neiman Marcus, recounts in his rather boring memoir titled "Minding the Store" how Laver’s Law was used by Neiman Marcus clothes buyers in the late 1960’s.

At the time there was a heated debate on whether the trend for the next year would still be the mini skirt (which was the current fashion) or the longer midi skirt. Marcus recalls asking Laver point blank if the mini skirt was dead. Laver told him that the mini skirt had at least another 2 years to go... whereas other experts were saying the time for the midi skirt would be soon.

His forecast was right, the midi was a complete flop, many women continued to wear the miniskirt, and those who couldn’t or wouldn’t make up their minds went into the pants suit. Pants were bound to come, but the skirt-length controversy made pants acceptable at an accelerated rate.

The real and sheer brilliance of James Laver's Law of Fashion's timeline is that it can be applied to nearly all creative mediums — not just fashion but also art, design, architecture and even music. So called Smart or Current Fashion, doesn’t have a particular time frame attached to it. Something can be smart for 1 year or a even few years. It might not even be a trend, but a wave lasting generations, such as when bikinis were first introduced and became popular.

Now think back to some of the trendy things of the past and you’ll see how it applies: Brightly colored iMacs, Victorian wallpaper, Disco, Preppy clothes, stainless steel art deco appliances...

Hitting that sweet spot around Daring and Smart is what fashion designers are trying to design... because obviously they want to make a product that everyone will want to buy and it can be mass produced. Go shopping and look at all the stuff that in a few years will start to look bad.

In 10 years it will look horrible.

And then eventually your kids will raid your closet or attic and it will be hip again.

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Spring 2011’s Most Wearable Fashion Trends

The good news: There were more pretty, flattering spring styles on the Fashion Week runways this season than we can count. The bad news: It’s hard to pick just one favorite dress, jacket or flirty print—that’s why we’ve got this looooong list of omgicantwaittowearthat fashion trends. When we first started collating the fashion trends of spring / summer 2011, the season was way off on the horizon.

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Guide to Fashion Sketches

FASHION - The intense competition in the fashion industry makes it important for any fashion designer to showcase the designs to a larger audience. This can be done by creating fashion sketches and displaying them on the Internet.

The sketches give an insight to the fashion fraternity and also to the common audience on the concept behind a particular fashion design. It is a way of communicating the theme to the people associated with the apparel industry. Hence, they are extremely important for any fashion designer.

Fashion sketches are illustrations made by professional artists and designed in a way that they can be easily displayed on the Internet. They portray the true creative genius of the designer. These can be considered a blue print of the final product.

The perfection in making sketches is a prerequisite as they serve as the main marketing tool of the fashion professionals. The sketches reflect trends and the value added features of the design. They can also be used to evaluate the various patters used by different designers.

Fashion sketches are important, since they are the preliminary designs that have to be taken to the different apparel manufacturers in the market. The sketches are then used to select the different fabric samples from the wide range on offer.

Computers are increasingly being used for the purpose of making fashion design sketches. Several software are now available that assist the designers in making the drawings. While some still prefer the traditional hand-drawn sketches, others choose to opt for the speed and convenience of computer-aided designing. Hand-drawn sketches can also be fed into the computer with the help of a scanner.

The art of making fashion design sketches is important for creating a niche in the highly competitive fashion industry. Fashion designers can make their presence felt only if their sketches are different and original. Good quality sketches are the only means of establishing a firm foothold in the fashion industry.

Is Fashion Design an Art Form?

The question of what constitutes "Art" with a capital T has been around for a long time. People pretty much agree that making a good cup of coffee is not an art form but there is still a lot of dissent about certain modes of expression like writing, movie making and fashion.

There is the idea that fashion cannot be an art because it evolved from sewing and tailoring which is a craft even though tailoring has been referred to as "architecture" and the draping of fabric across the body as being "sculptural".

Many designers make references to art and artistic theories and concepts in their work yet are nevertheless relegated to the ranks of the frivolous where haute couture is viewed as the fetish of the financially well-to-do. And once haute couture and runway collections have been watered down for consumption by the general public then they are seen as nothing more than financial commodities and functional apparel in the marketplace.

Another reason why fashion is not considered to be art is because, as with film making, a number of people performing different functions take part in the creation of a garment, such as the designer, fabric producer, pattern cutter and seamstress to name but a few. Because designers often don't work alone to produce a garment, they don't fit with the traditional view of the artist as a solitary genius and are therefore not considered artists even though their vision of what the garment will look like is their own.

In short, there is no clear-cut answer as to whether fashion is Art or not because there are so many ways to interpret and use an individual garment. It can be seen as protection from the elements, an expression of belonging to a particular socio-cultural group, as a personal form of expression when it is worn, or in its purest sense, as the embodiment of the vision of its creator, the designer. Because fashion is so fluid and open to interpretation, it fits in with the theories of many disciplines and forms of expression, of which Art is only one.