COP 2 / Research & First Readings

Richard and Global Fashion Brands both cited the importance of Georg Simmel's Fashion - found here - as an insight into the undercurrent of the class system within fashion.

We discussed the trickle down theory, a phenomenon that builds on Simmel's analysis of class within fashion. The 'high fashion' began in the realm of the higher classes and gradually worked its way down to the lower classes. 

While this theory is echoed in today's marketplace, with high end designer brands starting fashions which eventually end up on the high street, there is now much more crossover, with street style trickling up to high fashion.

This both ways crossover makes the whole situation much more interesting. Is high fashion solely for the high classes? Do true fashions now rise up from the 'street'?

I don't, however, want to get too bogged down with this, after all, I am focusing more squarely on branding within high fashion and how the high class lifestyle is portrayed to the high-street public.