Fashion?!?

          While getting my daily dose of pop culture through Yahoo.com, I stumbled across a link to check out the best and worst dressed of the CMAs.  Knowing that they regularly judge each iconic figure who walks the red carpet for major awards events, I asked myself the question, who has the professional opinion that constitutes what is fashion.  We as a society sit back, watch these shows, and read the critiques the next day to discover who was the ultimate best and worst dressed for the evening.  The impending questions are on what really is fashionable, and how can I get one that I can afford?

            Fashion is the style of hair, clothing, accessories, purses, and shoes that we choose to wear on any given day.  Why would be choose such an outfit?  Did we see it in a magazine, on television, is it our own unique twist on a current fashion?  It is the theory of some analysts that designers create the future of fashion.  These designers give their clothes away or pay celebs and models to wear certain outfits so the paparazzi will inevitably see them out and shoot photos of them.  We as consumers of pop culture and fashion goods will want to dress similar to the people we idolize and hope that this fashion looks just as good on us. This is what creates fashion in their minds.  Another idea is that the Color Marketing Group people help to develop fashion.  They are a group of professionals who design, market, and teach with color.  They hold forums to develop a palate of colors based on ones that are going to be used frequently throughout the year based on past trends and upcoming world events.  They sell these palates to designers and fashonistas across the globe and that is how designers decide which direction to go when designing their new line.  I can only suppose there is a panel of judges somewhere that has been clued in to the information of trending styles and colors that gets to make the official professional opinion in what’s in and what’s out or who’s hot and who’s not. 

            As for getting your hands on a little piece of fashion with a little more reasonably priced tag (I use reasonably priced loosely), well the internet can be your best friend.  These immediately popular looks that we all want to own but have nowhere to wear can all be found just by typing in the favorite designer of the evening.  The internet is full of plenty of designer knockoff styles the day after celebs hit the runway.  Sites such as Yahoo.com put the links to the dresses up with them occasionally, if not in the original article, in a follow up a few weeks later.  Is it easier to copy the style that has already been critiqued and refined than take the risk?  In my opinion, yes, for those of us who are not the visionary types, I thank the paparazzi for recording the styles I love but would not have had the guts to try!