'Fashion & Marketing – Individuality vs Conformity Essay\r'

'A seemingly intractcap fitted problem underlies western hemisphereerners prize of expressive sprint in the 21st century. On the championness hand, the representative and well-disposed progress desexualize in the West in the past litre years has take to radical revaluations of, and profound r invariablysals of attitudes towards, issues such as g residuumer, figure, race, social stereo geeksetters cases, heathenish identity and so on: in short, the westerly citizen of 2005 has far biger in the flesh(predicate) liberty for structure than could consecrate been conceivable for a occidental in 1905 or even 2005 (Craik, 1994).\r\nThe current- vogueed scholar of occidental mood trends energy therefore passably be project to add-in in the travailing choices and styles of twenty-first Westerners perpetually greater miscellanea and personal identity †to nonice a kaleidoscopic and multi-coloured blossom of personal e patchcipation in fabric and clo th. And, then, in many instances in Western society there is a prodigality of individual styles mirroring newly liberated individual personalities.\r\nYet, on the different hand, despite this capability for individuality, the demeanor student nonices, falsely, that Westerners argon exhibiting an ever greater homogeneousness and proportion in their turn choice †for instance, the ubiquitous presence, amongst authorized definable social groups, of trendy brands corresponding Tommy Hilfiger, Zara and FCUK. The tip force behind this homogeneity is argued to be (Miles, 1998 & group A; Radford, 1998) the cumulusive and all-consuming precedent of giant global counterfeit houses and their resources for loudness branding and advertising.\r\nTo many vogue critics and scholars these staggeringly powerful companies hurt come to sw deoxyadenosine monophosphate the potential for personal and individual convention that was made realistic by social changes in Europe and t he States in the past fifty years. In a further paradox, it was these in truth changes themselves, and the liberation and emancipation of consumer power and choice which they released, which provides the consumer market places and spending-power which make these coarse companies possible.\r\nIn other words, for the gender, class, and social revolutions of the twentieth century to happen this involve the protests and emancipation of Western masses; but this very emancipation itself-importance created a mass homogeneous market that could be exploited by expressive style corporations themselves made possible by these changes. In a last-place paradox, Rosenfeld (1997) and Davis (1993) argue that forward-looking man is free to aim the wearing app bel he wears and so is himself responsible for submitting himself and his individuality to temptations of mass production and consumerism that surround him.\r\nThe enrapturing distrust before this lit review is then: wherefore is it that Westerners, granted at last a erect measure of personal license for conceptualization, ‘choose’ thus far to submit themselves to mass trends and to enslave themselves to perhaps an ever greater extent than when such freedom was not obtainable? Of further interest is the dubiety: how hold back ill-tempered cultural groups, and musical mode trends, resisted mass consumerism of port, and kaput(p) on to use these new freedoms to establish provoke and original contemplations of their personalities? Section 2: Sources\r\nA fewer words or so the origin and federal agency of the sources apply for this literature review argon perhaps obligatory before turning to the main themes of the review. The straits attribute of source discussed in this literature review ar pedantic books and journals; in addition, some internet sources atomic number 18 employed as well as. The academic books referred to in this review are amongst the seminal textbooks in th e literature of direction and trade, their authors beginning(a) experts in their fields, and therefore the reliability and authority of their cloth is extremely lavishly.\r\nThe air student can have exalted, if not complete, confidence in his employ ment of these sources to instance his themes and arguments. Likewise, those texts from other fields in this review, such as Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900) or Lacan’s quarrel of the Self (Lacan, 1998), are usually included by critics and scholars in their lists of the most important works of the twentieth-century. They in any case then may be employ by the fashion student with a high layer of trust in their authority and reliability. A check off of caution might be sounded however about the employment of internet sources in any literature review.\r\nWhereas the process of publishing work in an academic book or journal is a long unrivalled, requiring considerable cost and numerous stages of scrutiny by fellow scholars and experts, thus ensuring the quality of those sources, nonetheless, the standards required for military issue on the internet are often press down and less vigorous. The vast fertility material released chance(a) on the internet requires the conscientious student to strung-out the internet sources he employs to greater scrutiny and enquiry than might be the case with academic books or journals published in the traditional news report-based way.\r\nConsequently, the internet sources used in this literature review have been cleverly scrutinised and tested for their reliability in the fashion expound above. Section 3: Review The following literature review is discussed according to the following thematic lineation in five scatters: (1) The enigma of personal identity and Conformity, (2), Global Trends and World Markets, (3) Semiotic Theories of behavior advance & Visual Communication, (4) hot Cultures and Distinctive Identities, and, (5 ), sociological & Philosophical Views of Class, Gender, Social Stereotypes and Cultural identity operator.\r\nThe Paradox of Individuality and Conformity The contemporary situation in Western fashion and personal article of vesture choice is one of apparently irresolvable paradox: Westerners are right off endowed with ever greater personal freedoms, extending course to their choice of personal clothing and one would expect this freedom to lead to a plethora and profusion of individual styles and manners of dress: these freedoms should result in less accommodateity of style than was present in say 1905 when gender, class and social prejudices compelled and forced a person to dress in a particular way and style.\r\nYet, despite these abundant new-found freedoms, Western clothing choice in 2005 seems to display ever greater unison and homogeneity. That is, Westerners are ‘choosing’ to dress more and more alike one another †Westerners’ behavior of their personalities by dint of their choice of style is showing ever greater equalities to one another. How then could this be possible? This question is discussed at the general level in great depth by F. Davis (1993) hammer, apparel and Identity and by Fiske (1990) in base to Communications Studies.\r\nGlobal Trends & World Markets The most persuasive and frequently assumption answer to the above question is that the rise of huge fashion houses †such as Louis Vuitton, Tommy Hilfiger, Armani, Prada, Zara, amongst many others †on with their massive resources for branding and advertising, have drowned-out the recently bring home the bacon freedoms of Western individuals to reflect their personalities in their choice of clothing. This gratuity is strongly made in D. extend’s seminal text excogitate and the Social agendum: Class, Gender and Identity in Clothing. (Crane, 2004).\r\nCrane argues that only at the critical historical arcminute (the end of the 20th Century) when Westerners were finally endowed with greater personal freedoms in fashion and disposition bearing than ever before, that these freedoms were immediately smothered by forces such as globalization and capitalism which gave birth to vast fashion corporations whose financial resources and advertising capacity have stimulate too great and powerful for individual spirit to poke through and flower. This point is corroborated and reinforced by numerous other scholars and political science in fashion and marketing.\r\nF. Davis (1993) in Fashion, Culture and Identity, L. Rosenfeld (1997) in Clothing as Communication, and J. Craik (1994) in The await of Fashion; Cultural Studies in Fashion all endorse Crane’s central put in that individual freedom of reputation expression through clothing and style is suffocated by the capitally fuelled force of the major fashion brands to everywherewhelm this expression through relentless psychological pressure, carrie d by advertising, to adjust to the style and choice ‘imposed’ and ‘decided’ by these companies and not by individuals themselves.\r\nM. Barnard in Fashion as Communication (1996) makes an provoke refinement of this basic premise by declareing, in a further paradoxical statement, that it is the very freedom of gender, class, social status and so forth , of the past fifty years which has led to ever greater contour to popular styles and to an even greater cunning of style than existed before such freedoms were possible.\r\nIn other words, to echo a sentiment verbalised by Nietzsche in 1888 (Nietzsche, 1888) and Freud in 1900 (Freud, 1900) human being beings have natural herd instincts which are present whether stack are free or not, and these instincts generate the extremity for leadership and imposition from one source or another.\r\n olibanum, whilst before the 1960’s style accord was forced upon Westerners by gender and class stereotypes, n onetheless, after the 1960’s when these stereotypes were lifted, Westerners became susceptible to a new ‘authority’, ‘imposition’ and ‘leadership’ in the form of vast fashion corporations whose choice of style and expression is propagated through intense branding and advertising.\r\nAccording to this philosophical view, endorsed by Bruce Stella and Pamela church Gibson (2000) in Fashion Cultures Theories: Explorations and Analysis, the personalities of Westerners today and their choice of expression of their personalities through clothing, is largely decided by fashion corporations and advertising companies †thus resulting in the uniformity of style and expression which is so evident from a occasional glance at our high-streets today.\r\nSemiotic Theories of Fashion promotion & Visual Communication A interesting example of the practice of a semiotic possible action of fashion promotion is that discussed in A. Rhodesâ€℠¢ and R. Zuloago’s paper ‘A Semiotic Analysis of High Fashion Advertising’ published in 2003. The chief root word of Rhodes’ and Zuloago’s work is that ‘Fashion advertising is an refined example of identity-image producing media’ (Rhodes & Zuloago, 2003: p8).\r\nThey state at the spring of their paper that ‘The nature of the product is tied directly to identity †those objects with which we encase our bodies for public display ­- and fashion is ack right offledged as a cultural oral communication of style’; a little further on they add ‘Taken as a whole, high fashion media and advertising describe a spectrum of identity, matching in general types of signifiers †young women, high status, high sexuality †and through the constant repetition and stochastic variable of images on these themes serve to create this identity spectrum. ’ (Rhodes and Zuloago, 2003, p1).\r\nThus, in their paper, Rhodes and Zuloago seek to define the symbiotic relationship betwixt high fashion and the cultural and social identity of one particular social group: young, blue and sexually confident women. Rhodes and Zuloago argue that the advertising campaigns of companies like Prada, Donna Karen, Armani, Dolce Gabanna and others like them, speak so powerfully and seductively to these women, and that the images employed penetrate so late into their consciousness and social orientation, that they come to identify their personalities near wholly with the product.\r\nRhodes and Zulago recognise, nonetheless, that whilst the influence of major fashion brands over social groups like the one mentioned above is broad that these groups too, by their social characteristics and newly liberated personalities, invariably force the fashion brands to invent new styles and designs that develop to reflect the changing consciousness of these particular and individual groups (Rhodes & Zuloago, 2003: p5).\r\nThe symbiosis is nearly total; and similar relationships between major brands and other social groups are evident throughout in advance(p) Western culture. Popular Cultures and Distinctive Identities R. Radford points out in Dangerous tie: Art, Fashion and Individualism (1998) that the mass conformity of modern fashion style and personality expression is not of course universal, and many original and fresh styles †punk, gothic, ethnic, and so forth\r\n, †have arisen from the social freedoms of recent decades, both in reaction to the preceding centuries of restricted expression and also in reaction to the monotonous uniformity of the mass-brand and consumer-based style. As suggested in the last sentence, Radford distinguishes between styles which are (1) a reaction to the restrictions of former centuries, (2) those which are defiances of the modern branded uniformity, and, (3), those which are a reaction to neither, but instead are healthy and original effloresce nces of cultural singularity and individual expression.\r\nIn the first category Radford places the stupefying growth in popularity of ‘gender-liberated’ products like bikinis, short-skirts and casual clothing which were, in other centuries, repress by the authorities either because of gender prejudices or inequalities, or because of ancient ideas about the morality or sexual imprudence of received items and styles of clothing. To take an instance of gender discrimination cited by Radford (Radford, 1998: pp. 142-148), it was not socially or morally tolerable for women in former times to wear margin attire (bikinis, swim-suits etcetera\r\n,) that revealed or celebrated anything of the sensuousness or beauty of the female figure; women were therefore universally condemned (in Western countries) to wear a single type plain, non-sexual beachwear. But since the lifting of this social prejudice and stigma, there has been a profusion of designers, from Gucci and Dolc e & Gabana to Zara and BHS, who have produced modern designs which allow women to celebrate the sensuality and beauty of the female figure.\r\nWomen today enjoy the same rights as men to wear what they like either to the beach, to the disco or to work; thus, in this instance, despite the domination of the fashion brands, women like a shot have the opportunity to, and do indeed exhibit in practice, a greater expression of individuality of personality than was possible or permissible before the last decades. In the second category, Radford places fashion styles like punk and gothic: styles which rebel against the conformity of modern mass-consumer culture and relish in the arguing and upsetting of convention induced by the discordment of their style.\r\nStudded clothing, fluorescent coloured hair, male make-up, cross-dressing etc. , are rebellions against the usual fashion paradigm and make the personality statement that some people disagree with popular sentiment and conventi on and express this in clothing styles that are often shocking and opprobrious (Barthes, 1983). In the third category are individual styles, such as ethnic, which are neither reactions to historical repressions or to modern mass conformity, but which are rather healthy flourishing of individual personality or philosophical system.\r\nFor instance, contemporary Western style permits a greater exhibition of ethnic clothing or pride in national dress than was unimpeachable fifty years ago. F. Davis argued as early as 1988 in Clothing and Fashion Communication that clothing could be a vehicle for greater racial tolerance and for multi-culturalism and racial integration in modern Western society. A concomitant of this toleration is a celebration and pride in the wearing of clothes of national dress; clothes that display part of the person’s personality repressed for decades.\r\nsociological & Philosophical Views of Class, Gender, Social Stereotypes and Cultural Identity Ja cques Lacan in Language of the Self (Lacan, 1997) gives a fascinating philosophical and psychological interpretation of the individuality vs. conformity paradox, filtering it the prism of class, gender and social stereotypes, to argue that human beings are essentially language-animals and can be manipulated if one finds the key to the use of this language.\r\nLacan argues in his seminal text Language and the Self (1997) that the social freedoms attained by Westerners in the past half century have given them Westerners unprecedented opportunities to reflect their innermost ‘self’, their basic human constituency, through new cultural media such as television, the arts, and by derivation, fashion and our choice of media.\r\nLacan argues further that the ‘self’ of previously repressed groups such as women, homosexuals, African-Americans and so on is now able to manifest itself in cultural forms that had previously been repressed for centuries, and which are now bursting out in the diversity of artforms prevalent in our society today. Nonetheless, through his principal scientific and philosophical investigation into the language-animal, Lacan argues that Westerners have been seduced by the clever and innovative marketing campaigns of the major fashion brands, who use slogans and images to target specific social groups.\r\nThus Lacan explains the phenomenal seduction of modern Western man to the worded slogans of designer labels and celebrity endorsed products. Lacan suggests that the advertising campaigns of major fashion brands seduce the consumer’s unconscious directly and that this explains the phenomenon of mass conformity to such a homogeneous type of personal expression through fashion as is evident in our society. Section 4: consequence In the final analysis, the literature of the fashion and marketing texts on the subject of individuality vs.\r\nconformity, and the influence of branding upon this relationship, reveals the f ollowing points. Firstly, that a curious and complex paradox deeply underpins the dynamics between individuality and conformity. To the one side, the liberation of women, homosexuals, formerly repressed racial groups, disadvantaged classes and others, in the second half of the twentieth-century, has led to a huge mass of people in Western society who have previously unimaginable freedom to wear whatever styles and types of clothing they believe scoop express their individuality and uniqueness.\r\nFor instance, gender prejudices removed, women can now wear trousers ; race prejudices declining, repressed groups can wear a city suit or opera tuxedo; in many other instances Westerners are free to dress as however their mood, philosophy and occupation inclines them. On the other hand, the ceaseless wage increase to prominence and immense power of the great fashion houses and fashion brands has led to a blanket of homogeneity being spread over the personal expression of many Western co nsumers.\r\nPhilosophers like Lacan, and psychologists like Freud and Nietzsche, suggest that man has an innate herd instinct that compels him to conform to the trends of the crowd and to seek a higher authority and leadership to decide and impose his personal expression upon him. According to this view, despite the newly attained freedom of Westerners, they have substituted for the old imposition of gender and class barriers the new authority of the mass product and the noted brand. Thus ‘personal choice’ and ‘freedom of expression of personality’ through clothing are scarcely illusions that do not correspond to modern reality.\r\nFurthermore, the conformity of modern Western dress is, according to D. Crane (Crane, 2004), even more intense today than in other centuries, since in 2005 particular styles and mass produced clothing items †Crane gives Levi’s jeans as an example †broadcast all classes and genders of society and therefore have a ‘total sphere of conformity and influence’; in other centuries a particular item or style of clothing would only dominate one social group; today brands like Nike, Zara, Levi’s, Armani and so on, can penetrate the personal expression of every social group from top to bottom.\r\nNonetheless, the flourishing of far-right and rebellious fashions expressions such as punk and gothic, as well as the profusion of small single designers and such styles as ethnic suggest that the mass produced fashion items have not and will not dominate totally and may even be forced back a little as personal expression is allowed to bloom in the new forms and clothing styles of the twenty-first century. Our final words might be these: that the question of conformity vs.\r\nindividuality now hangs in a delicate balance and equilibrium, that Western society pivots at a vital moment in the history of its ability to be able to define itself. The opportunity exists for Westerners to daz zle the world with an efflorescence of new styles of clothing that reflect the cultural diversity, racial integration, and class assimilation achieved in the past fifty years. The danger remains nonetheless that these achievements and potential expression will be swamped by the relentless bump into of mass consumer fashion and our seduction to it.\r\nSection 5: Bibliography Academic Books, Journals & Articles †Barnard, M. (1996) Fashion as Communication, Routledge †Barthes, R. (1967, 1983). The Fashion System, New York: Hill and Wang. †Bruzzi Stella & Church, P. G. (2000). Fashion Cultures Theories, Explorations and Analysis, Routledge †Craik, J. (1994) The Face of Fashion; Cultural Studies in Fashion, capital of the United Kingdom: Routledge. †Crane, D. (2004). Fashion and Its Social Agenda: Class, Gender and Identity in Clothing. Oxford University squash, Oxford. †Davis, F. (1985).\r\n‘Clothing and fashion as communication’, in Solomon, M. R. (ed. ) The Psychology of Fashion, Massachusetts: Lexington Books. †Davis, F. (1993). Fashion, Culture and Identity, boodle, IL: dough University Press. †Du Gay, P. (1996). Consumption and Identity at Work, London: Sage. †Fiske, J. (1990). Introduction to Communication Studies, London: Routledge †Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. Penguin, London. †Lacan, J. (Reprinted 1997). Language of the Self, Baltimore, MD. : Johns Hopkins University Press †Mead, G. H. (1934).\r\nMind, Self and Society, From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviourist, Chicago, IL. : University of Chicago Press †Miles, S. (1998). Consumerism as a Way of Life, London: Sage Publications †Nietzsche, F. (1888). Ecce Homo. Peter Gast Books, Basel. †Quirk, R. (Et al. ). (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford. †Radford, R. , ‘Dangerous involution: Art, Fashion and Individualism’, Fashion possiblene ss, vol. 2, issue 2, Oxford: Berg, 1998, pp. 151-64. †Rosenfeld, L. B. and Plax, T. G. (1997). ‘ Clothing as communication’, Journal of\r\nCommunication, 27: 24-31. †Smith, A. (1759/1976). The theory of the Moral Sentiments, Edinburgh. Internet Sources †Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, Self and Society, From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviourist, Chicago, IL. : University of Chicago Press http://www2. pfeiffer. edu/~lridener/DSS/Mead/MINDSELF. HTML †Smith, A. (1759/1976). The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, Edinburgh. http://www. adamsmith. org/smith/tms-intro. htm †Rhodes, A. & Zuloago, R. (2003). A semiotic Analysis of High Fashion Advertising. www. garhodes. com/Semiotics_of_Fashion. pdf\r\n'