Fashion Designing

Fashion is the accepted day-to-day way of dressing at a given time. Fashion is the total outlook of the individual today and only today. Though fashion evolves and some designs come back, it only apply for "now". Even the retro fashion is never the same.

Fashion is a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, body or furniture. Fashion is a distinctive and often constant trend in the style in which a person dresses. It is the prevailing styles in behaviour and the newest creations of textile designers. Because the more technical term costume is regularly linked to the term 'fashion', the use of the former has been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while 'fashion' generally means clothing, including the study of it. Although aspects of fashion can be feminine or masculine, some trends are androgynous.

Fashion design is the art of application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. Fashion design is influenced by cultural and social attitudes, and has varied over time and place. Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories such a bracelets and necklace. Because of the time required to bring a garment onto the market, designers must at times anticipate changes to consume tastes.

Fashion designers attempt to design clothes which re functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. They consider who is likely to wear a garment and the situations in which it will be worn. They have a wide range and combinations of materials to work with and a wide range of colours, patterns and styles to choose from. though most clothing worn for everyday wear falls within a narrow range of conventional styles, unusual garments are usually sought for special occasions such as evening wear or party dresses.

Some garments are made specifically for a individual, as in the case of haute couture or bespoke tailoring. Today, most clothing is designed for the mass market, especially casual and everyday wear are called ready-to-wear.

The garments produced by clothing manufacturers fall into three main categories, although these may be split up into additional, more specific categories too:

• Haute Couture - is French for "high sewing" or "high dressmaking" or "high fashion"; is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is high end fashion that is constructed by hand from start to finish, made from high quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable sewers, often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. Couture translates literally from French as "dressmaking" but may also refer to fashion, sewing or needle work.

• Pret-a-porter - or 'ready-to-wear' or 'off-the-rack', is the term for factory-made clothing, sold in finished condition, in standardised sizes, as distinct from made-to-measure or bespoke clothing tailored to a particular person's frame. 'Off-the-peg' is sometimes used for items other than clothing such as handbags. Ready-to-wear has rather different connotations in the spheres of fashion and classic clothing. In the fashion industry, designers produce ready-to-wear clothing, intended to be worn without significant alteration because clothing made to standard sizes fits most people. They use standard patterns, factory equipment, and faster construction techniques to keep costs low, compared to a custom-sewn version of the same time. 
• Mass market - is the largest group of end consumers for a product. The mass market is a group of end customers who occupy the overwhelming mass under a bell curve; i.e. they could be tagged as being average. Currently the fashion industry relies more on mass market sales. The mass market caters for a wide range of customers, producing ready-to-wear garments using trends set by the famous names in fashion. They often wait around a season to make sure a style is going to catch on before producing their own versions of the original look. In order to save money and time, they use cheaper fabrics and simpler production techniques which can easily be done by machine. The end product can therefore be sold much cheaper.

A fashion accessory is an item used to contribute, in a secondary manner, to the wearer's outfit, often used to complete an outfit and chosen to specifically complement the wearer's look. Fashion accessories can be loosely categorised into two general areas: those that are carried and those that are worn. Traditional carried accessories include purses and handbags, eye-wear, hand fans, parasols and umbrellas, wallets, canes and ceremonial swords. Accessories that are worn may include jackets, boots and shoes, cravats, ties, hats, bonnets, belts and suspenders, gloves, muffs, jewellery, watches, sashes, shawls, scarves, socks and stockings. 

The notion of a global fashion industry is a product of the modern age. Prior to the mid 19th century, most clothing was custom-made. It was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors. By the beginning of the 20th century - with the rise of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the rise of global capitalism and the development of the factory system of production, and the proliferation of retail outlets such as department stores - clothing had increasingly come to be mass-produces in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices.

The fashion industry consists of four levels:

1. The production of raw materials, principally fibres and textiles but also leather and fur.
2. The production of fashion goods by designers, manufacturers, contractors and others.
3. Retail sales.
4. Various forms of advertising and promotion.

These levels consist of many separate but interdependent sectors. These sectors are Textile Design and Production, Fashion Design and Manufacturing, Fashion Retailing, Marketing and Merchandising, Fashion Shows, and Media and Marketing. Each sector is devoted to the goal of satisfying consumer demand for apparel under conditions that enable participants in the industry to operate at a profit.