Fashion Industry History
For centuries, clothing design and production were under the purview of mostly anonymous dressmakers and seamstresses, and were not yet dictated by the proclamations of famous, individual designers. In the 18th and 19th centuries in the U.S. and Europe, clothes had not only symbolic influence but also economic currency. For many working-class families, clothing comprised a significant percentage of their material worth. In France, a suit purchased at the time of a young working-class man's marriage literally was expected to last a lifetime, and worn to church, weddings and funerals. In England, clothing was somewhat limited to the working classes, and low income families formed clubs to save enough money to purchase clothes.40
Until the 18th century, fashion was the province of the upper class, and production was done by hand. Advances in technology and industrial manufacturing in mid-18th century Europe engendered the rise of the textile and apparel industries. The industrial revolution also meant a rising standard of living for the working and middle classes, suddenly allowing them to buy much less expensive, mass-produced versions of Parisian haute couture.At the end of the 19th century, with the advent of mass production, clothes became even cheaper and more accessible to the working classes. As a result, clothing and fashion first became democratized, and, as Diane Crane argues, this evolution was most evident in the United States because of its fluid social structure.41 By the early 20th century in America, consumers were buying haute couture copies in the recently founded department stores and retail catalogs. Some were sold as approved "reproductions" of European designs but the majority consisted of unauthorized knockoffs.Despite France's dominance in the decorative arts (e.g., furniture, porcelain and silver), it was Charles Frederick Worth, an Englishman living in Paris in the mid-19th century, who first established the concept of the fashion designer as an autonomous artist. Worth founded his maison couture, the House of Worth, a name that simultaneously established the centrality of the designer to fashion and conferred brand-name status on the designer himself.Succeeding Worth at the forefront of fashion design was Paul Poiret, who not only waged war against the corset but also established what is now thought of as haute couture. In the 20th century, many of today's most famous and most expensive brands were established, including Chanel, Balenciaga and Dior. As with Worth and Poiret, these brands almost were inseparable from the designers, who often expanded beyond haute couture into other artistic disciplines and entertainment endeavors. For example, Coco Chanel often dabbled in costume design. She designed the costumes for Jean Cocteau's 1924 operette-danse, Le Train bleu, and again for Gloria Swanson in the 1931 film Tonight or Never. She also collaborated with Jean Renoir in 1938, designing the costumes for La Marseillaise.Thus, like music, fashion design is an aesthetic practice taking place within artistic communities. However, unlike most music, fashion must meet the added requirement of functionality.42 Over the past century, fashion has undergone a transformation in everything but name. The history of the fashion industry in the U.S., in contrast to that of music, reflects a continuing resistance to oligopolistic control and strict intellectual property controls. While there is a widening gap between music's social origins and its commercial role, in fashion the two coexist in relative peace.
Until the 18th century, fashion was the province of the upper class, and production was done by hand. Advances in technology and industrial manufacturing in mid-18th century Europe engendered the rise of the textile and apparel industries. The industrial revolution also meant a rising standard of living for the working and middle classes, suddenly allowing them to buy much less expensive, mass-produced versions of Parisian haute couture.At the end of the 19th century, with the advent of mass production, clothes became even cheaper and more accessible to the working classes. As a result, clothing and fashion first became democratized, and, as Diane Crane argues, this evolution was most evident in the United States because of its fluid social structure.41 By the early 20th century in America, consumers were buying haute couture copies in the recently founded department stores and retail catalogs. Some were sold as approved "reproductions" of European designs but the majority consisted of unauthorized knockoffs.Despite France's dominance in the decorative arts (e.g., furniture, porcelain and silver), it was Charles Frederick Worth, an Englishman living in Paris in the mid-19th century, who first established the concept of the fashion designer as an autonomous artist. Worth founded his maison couture, the House of Worth, a name that simultaneously established the centrality of the designer to fashion and conferred brand-name status on the designer himself.Succeeding Worth at the forefront of fashion design was Paul Poiret, who not only waged war against the corset but also established what is now thought of as haute couture. In the 20th century, many of today's most famous and most expensive brands were established, including Chanel, Balenciaga and Dior. As with Worth and Poiret, these brands almost were inseparable from the designers, who often expanded beyond haute couture into other artistic disciplines and entertainment endeavors. For example, Coco Chanel often dabbled in costume design. She designed the costumes for Jean Cocteau's 1924 operette-danse, Le Train bleu, and again for Gloria Swanson in the 1931 film Tonight or Never. She also collaborated with Jean Renoir in 1938, designing the costumes for La Marseillaise.Thus, like music, fashion design is an aesthetic practice taking place within artistic communities. However, unlike most music, fashion must meet the added requirement of functionality.42 Over the past century, fashion has undergone a transformation in everything but name. The history of the fashion industry in the U.S., in contrast to that of music, reflects a continuing resistance to oligopolistic control and strict intellectual property controls. While there is a widening gap between music's social origins and its commercial role, in fashion the two coexist in relative peace.
For many decades, haute couture dictated fashion trends as designers, on high, came down from the proverbial mountain twice a year to dictate to their upper-class customers, decreeing the height of their hemlines, the silhouette of their shoulders, and the appropriateness – or not – of pleats. Design houses usually were owned by their designers, clothes were still produced by craftspeople domestically and the fashion community was fairly small, centered in Paris. Thus, while styles changed from season to season, the fundamental structure of the business remained stable.By the 1960s, haute couture's stranglehold on fashion was beginning to weaken. Hollywood films, television, rock music, youth culture, the women's movement, revolutionary politics all served to destabilize the top-down fashion paradigm, with trends generated by consumers (particularly the younger ones) rather than the large couture houses. The further democratization of fashion during this time could be seen in the establishment of numerous casual wear companies such as the Gap (1969), Ann Taylor (1954) and J. Crew (1983). Such changes in the fashion industry were precipitated by the underlying cultural, political and social shifts following World War II. American consumers, finally liberated from the shackles of the Great Depression and infused with a sense of self-sufficiency and national pride, adopted a far more active role. They no longer were content simply to accept the dictates of Paris, Milan and New York. Consumers were usurping the autonomy of producers, and the relationship between the two has been complex and tenuous ever since.If these changes reflected social evolution, they also were enabled by legal developments. During the 1940s in the United States, several crucial legal decisions established the validity and value of knockoffs, sampling and reappropriation in the fashion industry in the name of healthy competition. For instance, in 1940 the Millinery Creators' Guild v. FTC decision determined that piracy in fashion triggers a downward force on pricing, making it a socially desirable form of competition. Similarly, a year later, the judge in Cheney Bros. v. Doris Silk Corp. rejected a request to prohibit design piracy on the grounds that such a prohibition would grant a de facto monopoly to designers, who formally are denied patent and copyright protection. Thus, the fashion industry consistently and intentionally has been denied the legal protections afforded to other design industries, in order to maintain a healthy creative ecosystem and the continuing availability of diverse, inexpensive products to the American consumer base.
The changes in the fashion industry during the mid-to-late 20th century contributed to a creative climate in which designers influence and draw influence from one another. Fashion is a chaotic if highly stratified industry, and the directional flow of aesthetics is now top-down, bottom-up and side-to-side. Ideas flow in every direction, so any attempt to pinpoint the creative forbears of any given garment (unless it is an exact copy) is an exercise in frustration and futility.
Thus, the music and fashion industries evolved quite differently, despite their similar origins. The music industry grew to exert ever more rigid and consolidated control over musical expression, to such a degree that the creative needs of musicians and music listeners have taken a back seat to the financial needs of the marketplace. The fashion industry, however, has evolved with a healthier balance between creative and economic demands, offering consumers and aspiring designers a greater degree of control and agency than they enjoyed a century ago. These divergent paths have produced significantly different legal, economic and organizational structures, which we will now examine.
