F L A U N T
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When the word fashion is used, our minds tend to jump to runways and designer names. It’s easy to forget that fashion refers to far more than this. It encompasses clothes from department stores, thrift stores, and designer brands alike. It impacts all of our lives, whether we consider ourselves fashionistas or not. Because of this enormous impact, fashion is incredibly important for many reasons. From its practicality and function to its cultural and social significance, here are some of the main reasons fashion is important.
Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay
Fashion may be an art form, but it’s also rooted in practicality and function. It keeps us warm when the weather gets cold, allows us to stay dry when it rains, protects us from the sun, and serves many other functions that enable us to go about our lives comfortably.
It’s not just the elements that fashion helps us deal with. It also allows us to take on different activities in comfort and style, like moisture-wicking clothing for working out, steel-toed boots and reflective vests for physical labour, or loungewear for restful days at home. These are all practical articles of clothing, but they have also relied on the evolution and work of the fashion industry to build functional items for different needs—even if they aren’t items typically seen on the runway.
What we wear signals many different things to the people around us, forming impressions and perceptions of who we are, whether at a job interview or a casino offering free cash when you sign up. These impressions can affect how others might act towards us. For instance, if we show up to a job interview looking hastily dressed in a wrinkly suit, people may make negative assumptions about our professionalism, time management, and organisation, hurting our chances of obtaining the role.
The clothing we wear every day has the potential to boost our confidence and self-esteem. Wearing pieces that make us feel good translates into being more confident and surer of ourselves. This effect doesn’t require expensive, perfectly tailored items. Even wearing things that signal strength or competency, like a Superman t-shirt or lab coat, can help us perform better. A 2012 study revealed that lab coats helped participants perform better than the control group, calling this phenomenon ‘enclothed cognition’.
How we dress, including both the look and feel of our clothing, can significantly impact our mental processes. When we take the time to prioritise styles that look and feel good, we can better perform the various tasks and activities we face in life.
The fashion industry is highly valuable, estimated to be worth over $770 billion in 2024. It creates jobs in everything from clothing production to marketing and distribution. Cycling fashion trends and the business concept of fast fashion, while criticised, encourage more shopping and more money flowing into the economy. In countries like France, fashion is such a significant part of the economy that the government plays a major role in regulating and supporting the industry.
Fashion is diverse across cultures and has been a marker of historical shifts. Clothing is often steeped in tradition that displays cultural values and ancestral heritages. Traditional fashions display the values and norms of different societies, and we can look at the evolution of clothing to note milestones in societies’ histories. Take the changes and evolution of saris (also spelt ‘saree’), the traditional Indian and Southeast Asian dress.
Saris began being worn for practical and religious purposes. They provide modesty, an important part of many Hindu and Muslim customs, and are well-suited to hot climates. Since its early days, the sari has shifted to become distinct in different regions and communities. It has evolved from an everyday, genderless garment to one primarily worn by women for significant events such as coming-of-age ceremonies or weddings.
When the British arrived in India, changes in how the sari was worn and used were also marked, with undershirts or layers added below the sari fabric. The sari even continues to change today as our societies become more connected. Each shift in the sari, big or small, speaks volumes about India, Southeast Asia, and their various cultural communities and traditions.
With fashion’s close ties to social and cultural norms, it has also become a powerful tool in social and political activism. The Black Panther Party dressed in all black, including leather jackets, sunglasses, and berets, as they fought for Black liberation in the United States. Their clothing choice celebrated their culture and visually defined them as a united front during protests. Women in the 1960s embraced miniskirts as a form of political rebellion. Suffragettes rejected ‘acceptable’ dress for women, forgoing corsets and embracing loose blouses, skirts, and eventually pants. They also donned sashes and symbolic colours to help identify themselves and what they fought for.
There are countless examples of people turning to their fashion and personal style to express themselves and fight for what they believe is right and just, pushing society to new levels of equality—and fashion continues to serve this purpose today.
From the jackets and shoes we put on before heading out the door to expressing our beliefs and values, fashion has proven to be crucial to our individual identities and greater communities. It’s a powerful way to make an impression on the world, one that can leave a lasting impact across generations.
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