Fashion Design: What Determines Trends?

Styles come and go out of fashion all the time, but there are some key elements as well as celebrities who play a role in their uprising and downfall. Trends are largely determined by fashion designers, celebrities, and elements that inspire, motivate, and help them carve a niche for themselves.

Learning how these trends work and the art of fashion is no easy feat, especially when you don’t have a mentor to help you, guide you and explain you the fundamentals. TAFE training in Applied Fashion Design and Technology will provide you with the skills and knowledge required for independent work in the fashion design and garment construction industries.

What Determines Fashion?

Fashion designers are inspired by a lot of elements like the four natural elements and weather. Summer is almost upon us and with it comes the summer collections. This means bright colours, light textures and printed designs on cotton fabrics.

In the same way, with the advent of fall, fashion designers last year brought with them cozy colours and faux fur vests. There is perhaps no bigger inspiration that nature in our lives. The winter collection last year saw metallic colours and tones such as copper, stainless steel, and even brass.

Sometimes it is the natural element that does the trick. In popular cultures and myths, the four elements form the basis of human existence and link us to the divine. These four elements are water, earth, fire and wind.

Red and orange are the official colours of fire, which also symbolizes the sun and volcanoes. Several fashion designers have successfully experimented with these colours and patterns to come up with unique and fiery designs that became trends in their respective times. Fire is also a symbol of desire, lust and at the same time it also symbolizes evil. A femme fatale dressed in red can be seen as dangerous or pernicious.

Water on the other hand is almost poetic. Mermaids with their golden tail and clear skin have inspired many over the centuries. Sparkling blue and white dresses are a great example. Models have donned the look of mermaids with golden flowing hair and clear blue designs to capture the imagination of the masses, turning it into a trend to follow.

Air, on the other hand, is one of the most versatile elements. It is a symbol of esotericism and purity. It came as a no surprise when designers were able to use this element and launch collections that went viral and became a trend. One of the coolest examples of the use of air in fashion was Sean Young as Rachel in Blade Runner. Her hair was done in a way that symbolized dark clouds covering the pure white and blue sky.

This brings us to our last element, which is off course earth. Earth represents a lot of things, like its wildlife, its balance and ecosystem, its greenery and toughness. It represents many colors like mud, clay, trees, and all the shades of animals that live on it.

Who Drive Trends?

We have always been influenced by the who’s who of the limelight world. Celebrities and powerful people have played an important role in not only influencing our thought process, but also our lifestyles and fashion sense.

Buying behaviour is largely inspired by popular chefs, athletes, actors and powerful businessmen. Fashion designers and companies use these celebrities to get the word out. This fuel in growth was also helped by social networking sites like Instagram and Facebook, which became one-stop fashion hunting grounds.

A-listers who regularly appear on the American Reality TV shows like Dancing with the Stars, X-Factor, So You Think You can Dance, and The Voice are influencing fans across the nation. Their dresses are designed by the top designers of the country who get an opportunity to showcase their talents and tastes.

Big fashion houses are known to gift important celebrities with their best items, which they wear to public events every season. It is important, however, to not only pay attention to the celebrities, but also the girl next door to get an idea of what is trending right now.

Like seasons, trends are also cyclical in nature–that is to say that fashion comes and goes out of trend every few decades. This is also sometimes referred to as retro fashion. It is important to have something that is evergreen in nature because they never go in or out of fashion, which only increases their appeal.

It is also critical to achieve and maintain a balance in your wardrobe. There are a lot of factors that determine this, such as your budget, your role model, tastes, the locality you live in and the celebrities you are influenced by.

Elements and celebrity power go hand in hand to determine trends in the fashion industry, which is then adopted by millions of people across the world. Fashion has no religion and knows no boundaries.