Fashionista the Beginning

WHAT IS A FASHIONISTA

Photographers Fashion Editors, Art Directors, Make-up Artists/ Hair stylists, Fashion Assistants, and Models

Trying to define what fashionista means is like getting lost in the forest and not seeing the woods for the trees. Versions of the definitions vary from:

"A person devoted to fashion clothing particularly unique or high fashion"
"A person not to be called a fashionista would be someone who obsessively follows trends"

Then there are other variations that sound out to the understanding of the fashion world,

"Real fashionista do not believe in trends, that type of person would be more correctly labelled a fashion whore, one that criticises everything they consider to be out of style or tack in their own eyes of judgement.

What is your definition of a fashionista? I know there will be an urban dictionary definition or Wikipedia, but what is your interpretation you should be asking yourself?

Fashion Terms - Fashion terms of the 60's at its height

Way out - Something so far out there, it's almost unbelievable

Far out - Cool

Groovy - very pleasing, wonderful

Hip / with it - Aware of what's going on Knowledgeable." I'm hip to what's happening."  Something cool or groovy, "Those are the hippest love beads I've ever seen!"

Before that what Granny would have called it "the very latest thing my deer"

Modern Day Fashion Terms

Fashion - the currently accepted, prevailing style. (Vogue is defined the same way.)

Fad - a fashion that suddenly bursts into popularity

Style - a characteristic or distinctive form of dress that exists independent of fashion (hippie, Gothic, cowboy)

Classic - a fashion that retains general acceptance over an extended period of time

Design - a specific version of a style

Avant-garde - ahead of its time, comes straight off the runway

So where is this taking us? I have tried countless paths and felt I was travelling on a roundabout, finishing right back where I started. I did find another definition which gave a better clue as to what fashionista means.

A fashionista is a complimentary term used to describe an avid follower of fashion one working in or deeply involved with the high-fashion industry ( haute-couture - the creation of exclusive fashions), such as a fashion designer, fashion model, photographer, buyer, fashion writer, or wearer; a devotee to clothing trends and fashion.

So where is this taking us you might ask? Taking a trip back in time, the sixties was baptised as the period of Popular Arts (Pop Arts), which encapsulated great change in society due to the aftermath of the second world war, deprivation, shortage of material, textiles, housing shortages, the start of another war Vietnam and all the upheavals  that transcended the events of this period.

Such a great change, whether induced by war or natural change in society, there is always a visual record of this change, depicted perfectly by abstract art expression artists such as Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol. Both these artists revealed their images of breaking away from conformist classical ideals in a time when great change was upon us.

Change is always the title for wondrous things to happen in a period of great happenings. The sixties brought to us the evolution of change, Pop arts were the conduit, and the result of recording this was through Art, Music and Fashion. Inspirational people sparked great change as seen in the music industry of the sixties, youthful, energetic and cult like. 

Changes in fashion also sent out  a message of self expression, signalling an innovative representative, who broke the shackles of proper and prim attitudes of the 50's and brought forth the concept of thinking "out of the box" to the shock & horror of the traditionalists. 

Unfortunately though alongside these changes, you will always have consumerism fitting such individualistic attitudes and ideas into a pigeon slot and re-market it as a fashion style, a trend, a fad, and so on, until it's watered down to non-existence. The most powerful thing a fashionista does, is to drop an innovative idea like a bomb exploding its concept into the arena of the fashion world and to watch its rippling reaction spread with great cause and effect into the world of fashion.

Seeing people rushing around like, "leaves blowing in the wind" trying to encapsulate the latest fad, surprised by the reaction and the full force of something new being unfolded before their very eyes. The late seventies, eighties and nineties all had the same effect on people from the many ingenious innovators of the world of fashion. New music genres created by vocalist and bands. Paint artists taking the level of expression to new heights, with every passing year.

In its essence being a libertine in an already conforming society, needs one to change, to show what an eye for fashion is, to show the finer intricate designed detail, created in one's own image. To see what no other person can seen, to create an idea out of what is already available. But most of all to keep alive counter-culture fashion and idealism of self expression alive, because in the end it's all about attraction!

To coin a phrase "Fashionista" by Stephen Fried

To end this debate, I discovered the true owner of the birth name of Fashionista; his name Stephen Fried is an award-winning investigative journalist and essayist.

When Fried first used the tern fashionista on page 100 of his 1993 book Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia Carangi, he was referring to a specific group of fashion insiders - a.k.a. the 'non-famous people of Studio 54.

'I got tired of listing photographers, fashion editors, art directors, hairstylists, make-up artists, all their assistants, and models as the small army of people who descended on the scene,' Fried explained.

From that moment on as I mentioned previously, he dropped a proverbial pebble in the sea of the fashion world and created a monster of epic proportion.

Unknown at the time, he put in motion the wheels of the fashion world hierarchy as such the Fashion Councils to move quickly to own the outcome of defining the word Fashionista as it is know today. But the real originator should be credited its entirety form as knowing the real definition of the true fashion world entourage.

Official definition from the Fashion Council

The official definition of 'fashionista' reads ’a person employed in the creation or promotion of high fashion, such as a designer, photographer, model, fashion writer, etc. Also: a devotee of the fashion industry; a wearer of high-fashion clothing.'  

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