The six functions of dress

Nowadays, in order to supply people's demand, there are all kinds of clothes which are being designed. Clothing has become a culture in every country in the world. Every country has its specific style of clothing and its particular culture traditionally. For example, the kimono has already become a symbol of Japanese traditional dress. Actually, designers create their clothes according to achieve different functions. Moreover, we can classify clothes into 6 functions. They are environmental protection, decoration, gender differentiation, group membership, ceremony, and sexual enhancement. Let me show some photos to talk more.

1. Environmental Protection: Trench coat may be the best example of this function. It is very helpful to make people resist chilly and rainy weather. It is waterproof.

2009, Burberry trench coat

2. Decoration: Designers like to use some trims, beads, and accessories to decorate their clothes. For example, Ralph Lauren used laces to design his womenswear in 2011 RTW collection. Besides, he used a belt to decorate it.

2011 Spring RTW, Ralph Lauren

3. Gender Differentiation: Clothes are also an easy way to make people distinguish the gender. For example, a basic dress can show the beauty of women.

2011 Spring RTW, Lacoste, Christophe Lemaire

4. Group membership: Clothes sometimes are designed to express a perfect union and harmony, especially sport teams have the same purpose. The photo is Japanese national baseball team.

Japanese national baseball team

5. Ceremony: In a special festival, it is common to see all kinds of traditional clothes, and it obviously shows their local culture in every country. The photo was a traditionally formal dress of a bride for Chinese in the past.

Chinese bride

6. Sexual Enhancement: Gil Sander, a German designer, created this sheath dress in his 2011 spring collection. Although this sheath dress is a little different as usual, it is very appealing that it show the model’s sexy body curve easily.

2011 Spring RTW, Jil Sander

Finally, as we know, sometimes, there are not only one function for clothing. Clothes can be designer in order to match several functions.

Environmental Protection- a short leather jacket and scarf can keep her body warm.
Decoration- A belt with a silver buckle on the bottom becomes a decoration of this jacket.
Gender Differentiation- A sexy dress can be easily expressed as an urban modern woman.
Group Membership- It is a very popular style of a street style, so it is a group of younger female street style.
Ceremonialism- It is suitable to go to a party on a certain night, or for some casual activities, such as a preview of movie.
Sexual Enhancement- A very fabulous dress inside the jacket is very appealing.

Tailor mades

Fashion trends always change. However, we still find the past influence of clothing style on today’s designer collections. The beginning of 20th century is very important to make some innovations and changes in fashion. During Edwardian age, I would like to particularly mention “tailor mades”, which were suits for women. In this 2011 Spring NY fashion week, I was inspired by Ralph Lauren’s collection. In this season, he used a lot of white in the ready-to-wear, and I like his design because it is so elegant and fabulous in womenswear. His idea is kind of western. I think some of them looks great without too edgy design and are very suitable for professional office lady. In fact, in his collection, I also can find the trace of “tailor mades”. The model wore an elegant white suit and a dark brown hat. Although it has a different look from the past “tailor mades”, it indeed appeared a nice style in this season. Also, it made me to think the equality of men and women, and suit is not just designed for male. It still looked gorgeous in the female model.

Outlandish creativity on Vogue

What is my fashion source book? In my opinion, it will be a fabulous place that I would share my idea and experience for the fashion world with friends all over the world. Also, it is a place that I could inspire my creativity of fashion, and discuss new trends or news in fashion. Nowadays, we can find fashion is in everywhere. All kinds of distribution channels make us easily contact the information of fashion, such as TV, online website, or magazines. Recently, my classmates and I discussed some concepts of ideal body type. Hence, as my first post of online fashion source book, I would like to share an interesting cover of Vogue. Lady Gaga was trying to shock on the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan by wearing a special bikini which was made from nothing but red meat. While I saw the phot at first, I don't really find the bikini was made from meat. Then, I felt suprised to the cover of combination between Lady Gaga and meat. Moreover, as we know, Lady Gaga has a very special, outlandish, and personal style. However, I never thought that she can express such a direct visual impact through the cover on Vogue. Due to all kinds of creativity, I think that is why fashion is so interesting and fascinating.