History of Dress Design

The history of dress design dates back several centuries from the present day. As centuries have passed the concept and design of dress has change in order to meet consumer needs and also to create new trends. From the nineteenth century the UK was very influential in the design of dress throughout the United State. The work of the author Charles Dickens had considerable and notable influences on womens dress. His work influenced the role of women in society as being below men; fashion was not seen as important. This can be directly compared to the present day where men and women are viewed as equal, along with fashion being majorly important. He also stated that America tended to follow the trends of Britain in relation to dress design; potential role reversal can now be seen in present day where the Hollywood cat walks tend to dictate the fashion trends throughout the UK.
In the early 20th century the majority of fashion came from the style houses of Paris in France, who to this day still have a major influence over the fashion world. Buyers of organisations were sent from all over the world to buy the latest fashion wear and to capture the latest trends in what was believed the consumer wanted. This was the era in which famous fashion magazines began to include large amount of photographs which had much more influence on the fashion world than anybody could believe.
During war time in the early 90s fashion had numerous radical changed in which women fluttered between extremely revealing outfits to outfits which totally covered their figures. The fashion houses found the war periods extremely difficult as quite obviously fashion was not of high importance to many people, a number of previously large named fashion providers faced tough times, some even shutting down.
The mid-twentieth century saw the influence of Paris on the fashion industry dwelling as consumer requirements changed drastically. A move away from individual unique pieces was made; the move went towards mass production of the same item which appealed to the majority of the public. This was the era in which central heating became available and due to this new fabrics and different styles were introduced. This culture of mass production dress design meant that fashion was lasting much longer than previously; trends went from lasting several week to considerable amounts of months.
The current times present a revolutionary method of fashion with fashion trends lasting from four to six weeks. As well as there being unique designers, there are also mass produced stores which aim to make catwalk clothing affordable such as Primark and H & M. Different styles come frequently, sometimes focusing n bright colours and sometimes on quite the opposite. As well as womens fashion being very important, mens fashion is also incredibly large business with top named designers including Georgio Armani and Hugo Boss.