For centuries individuals or societies have used clothes and other body adornment as a form of nonverbal communication to indicate occupation, rank, gender, sexual availability, locality, class, wealth and group affiliation. Fashion is a form of free speech. It not only embraces clothing, but also accessories, jewellery, hairstyles, beauty and body art. What we wear and how and when we wear it, provides others with a shorthand to subtly read the surface of a social situation.
How did it begin?
Fashion design is the art dedicated to the creation of wearing apparel.
Centuries ago, for example, Kings and Queens had their personal clothes sewers to make them the best looking dresses with the finest products. These sewers could be considered to be the first fashion designers.
The boom of fashion designing, however, came after the World War II, a time where countries were brought closer by tourism, and thus people began to learn about other's costumes and cultures. People like Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (commonly known as Jackie Kennedy), her supposed love rival Marilyn Monroe and other movie stars such as Jayne Mansfield and their dresses became known world-wide, and so did the men and women who dressed them.During the 1960s the faces that wore the creation of fashion designers started to change, as they realized that there was money to be made among the more common people too and models like Twiggy became famous too.


Who dictates fashion?
Musicians and other cultural icons have always influenced what we're wearing, but so have political figures and royalty. Newspapers and magazines report on what Hillary Clinton wears. The recent death of Diana, the Princess of Wales, was a severe blow to the high fashion world, where her clothes were daily news. Even folks in the 1700s pored over fashion magazines to see the latest styles. Women and dressmakers outside the French court relied on sketches to see what was going on. The famous French King Louis XIV said that fashion is a mirror. Louis himself was renowned for his style, which tended towards extravagant laces and velvets.
Why does fashion separate people into groups?
Fashion is revealing. Clothes reveal what groups people are in. In high school, groups have names: "goths, skaters, preps, herbs." Styles show who you are, but they also create stereotypes and distance between groups. For instance, a businessman might look at a boy with green hair and multiple piercings as a freak and outsider. But to another person, the boy is a strict conformist. He dresses a certain way to deliver the message of rebellion and separation, but within that group, the look is uniform. Acceptance or rejection of a style is a reaction to the society we live in. Fashion is a language which tells a story about the person who wears it. "Clothes create a wordless means of communication that we all understand," according to Katherine Hamnett, a top British fashion designer. Hamnett became popular when her t-shirts with large messages like "Choose Life" were worn by several rock bands.
Why is fashion so important to us?
Fashion is something we deal with everyday. Even people who say they don't care what they wear choose clothes every morning that say a lot about them and how they feel that day.

Why do we wear fashion?
There are many reasons we wear what we wear.
• Protection from cold, rain and snow: mountain climbers wear high-tech outerwear to avoid frostbite and over-exposure.
• Physical attraction: many styles are worn to inspire "chemistry."
• Emotions: we dress "up" when we're happy and "down" when we're upset.
• Religious expression: Orthodox Jewish men wear long black suits and Islamic women cover every part of their body except their eyes.
• Identification and tradition: judges wear robes, people in the military wear uniforms, brides wear long white dresses.

What are some of the famous Australian designers?
Akira Isogawa
Billabong
Blundstone
Country Road
Cue Design
David Lawrence
Kookai
Lisa Ho
Peter Alexander
Rivers
Ripcurl
Roxy/quicksilver
Zimmerman

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