Fruition of trend representation from the past: Fashion Icons

(Introduction: Fashion is quite a run to get it right but at the same time, it’s a book open plain and wide… Whether it’s the fashion or the fashion icons themselves, the history dates way back than our understanding. This piece is a start of a mini-series (sort of attempt) trying to walk around Fashion, from the time humans molded leaf ornaments to the present realism where you don’t even have step out for a purchase…)

The search for things striking has always been an endemic of human life (even when the species of our forefathers were in the evolution stage). Although there is no concrete confirmation showing that our pre-historic fathers had gained the idea of shopping (or even if there was any of trading line in those times), there have been hint and bits of specified instances. The cave paintings and ancient artifacts, in particular those unearthed from certain places are said to have an absorption of indication suggesting that, trade have been at least a partial fact of daily life in those times. When we speak of deal and swap here, it most probably might have been an ancient form of ‘barter style specialty’ where one could bring in an object(s) that they had (in superfluous or were less in need) to exchange with something that they needed more in preference. When these types of arrangements caught the demand, we can assume that more and more objects came into exchange and thus little (or more) items of beautification and presumably fashion had an introduction. There people began to notice and be inspired by the first fashion icons (sort of) who presented themselves better than others.

It is really justified to state that, in daily application our predecessors in the earlier stages of human species were a zero in fashion and its awareness. But when the lives became a part of social groups and formations (rather made to structure more of a resistance and survival tactic at that time), ideas of self adornment came to be a fact of acceptance (thus the concept of fashion began unknowingly creeping into their lives and thought process).From tiny stones and rocks of attention; to the feathers of hunted down birds that bore an inquisitiveness; from the pull of flowers with attraction and so on, these charms slowly but steadily became an ingredient of social repute and respect. Not only they had a measured boost in the ranks of accolade but they became a fashion proclamation for whoever bedecked them. Also, it’s worth assuming here that they became a type of a fashion icon to others. And the lives of people where on a constant race in transformation of development (socially, economically, psychologically, mentally etc.) and every part of their day to day life thus changed.

Making the above statement, it is also widely established that earlier in ancient times man had no awareness of clothing and was in their stark nakedness every day. Then came the time when people started to understand the necessity of being covered- to have a protection against at least certain factors that were causing them harm like whether, insects and other attributes. So then came into the reality, the first form of clothing (supposedly) that might have been definite leaves strung with vines to hold them together to have the lower body covered.  In a while, singular enhancements started to slink in- like particular shaped twigs or distinct blooms of interest and then into more complex of the stuff (in those times) like stones and shells.

Their influential pack-leaders were given the reverence of being festooned with rare feathers and other charms as imagery of command and power (and at the same time presenting a ray of fashion logic too). In this progress, barks of trees that were pliable in nature, innate fibers like cotton, flax and other filaments etc., animal hides and so on were also credited into strengthening the concept of clothing and covering the body. This then doubled into ideas of growth in the fashion perceptions, impersonations and looking up to a certain fashion icon image.

Unhurriedly by gradually, the idea of using clothing (then in its primal form) to be a covering for the human body changed with the shift of developments as a human race and as a civilization too. More and more methods of trials and styles started to materialize when the species of our ancestors advanced and developed whipping up the contemporary day individuals we are.

It is of significance to be reminded that while the hominid species were developing, there was a splintering of geological races and classes too. So it’s interesting to know that, the speck of fashion thoughts that they passed onward was to outline in diverse styles and arrangements (that is seen around us in this current date).

And in conclusion we have in this recent phase, a great assorted display of chronological as well as present-day foundations, aiding in the maturity of fashion. Interestingly, a life time of learning even can’t touch the essence of the surface on how ‘Fashion as a thought has evolved into this universal point of a social facet’.

Wrapping up this article, with the cultures and traditions that have weaved into this mode of experience and growth, human growth as a race is very interesting. It has also no fault in saying that the world as a whole family has had its verity-in-mix. Nevertheless, to assert that the trend and style abundance too have had a larger power in a constructive mode (and in a minuscule manner negatively) is true as-well in a wider perception and perspective. Fashion icons in India is giving participation in fashion evolution.