The Latest Fashion Trends and Cross-Cultural Fashion

The Latest Fashion Trends and Cross-Cultural Fashion: 5 Questions for Britannica Contributor Valerie Steele

    The fall Fashion week in New York kicked off today, and in celebration of it, Britannica published a brand-new article on the fashion industry by Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, editor-in-chief of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, and author of numerous books, including Gothic: Dark Glamour and Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now, and John S. Major, an independent scholar of Chinese history, former associate professor of East Asian history at Dartmouth College and director of the China Council of the Asia Society, and coauthor, with Steele, of China Chic: East Meets West. Steele kindly agreed to answer some questions on her work and the latest trends for the Britannica Blog from Britannica fashion editor Jeannette Nolen.

 

Britannica: What are some of the latest fashion trends that we should expect to see in the upcoming season?

Steele: Military style is an important trend, ranging from camouflage to “officers and gentlemen.” The fashionable color for the coming season will be camel not necessarily camel-hair fabric as such, but things like camel-colored cashmere. Also I expect to see lady-like looks recalling the 1950s, influenced by the television show Mad Men.

Britannica: In your article in Britannica, you state that the line between mass fashion (the apparel industry) and high fashion (the fashion industry) was blurred by the 1970s. What were the main positive and negative effects that this had on the fashion industry?

Steele: One positive effect of the blurring of the line between high fashion and mass fashion is that it demonstrated the continuing democratization of fashion. People have a wide range of affordable and good-looking clothes to choose from. From the industry’s point of view, a negative effect has been that consumers don’t need to buy expensive clothes to be in fashion.

Britannica: You wrote a cultural history of the corset (first published 2001). Which other garments or fashion trends do you think worthy of more detailed histories?

Steele: In addition to The Corset: A Cultural History, I’ve already done books on The Black Dress, Shoes, and Bags. I think that the high-heeled shoe in particular deserves a full-length study. Others have written detailed histories of blue jeans, which is certainly a topic worthy of attention.

Britannica: With John S. Major, you’ve produced China Chic: East Meets West. Do you intend to examine the fashions in other cultures as well?

I’ve just completed a book about contemporary Japanese fashion to accompany the exhibition “Japan Fashion Now” that is about to open at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. I’ve also written books on Paris fashion and Italian fashion.

Britannica: What are the aspects of fashion you’ve been thinking about lately?

Steele: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relation between fashion and art, and whether fashion qualifies as “art.” The definition of art is constantly evolving, and fashion seems to be in the process of being redefined as art.