All New Fashionable Dresses Design 2020

 

Fashion design has been around for centuries, though it has only existed as we know and recognize it since the middle of the nineteenth century. Applying artistic design, aesthetics, and the natural beauty of materials to clothing is a booming and industry.

Before the Twentieth Century

According to Jacqueline Grant Kent, the author of Business Builders in Fashion, the first haute couture house to be fully recognized as such didn't open until 1858, in a location in Paris. The concept of fashion and the designer clothing industry dates back centuries earlier, though, to a time arguably no later than the fifteenth century. At this point, there were no design houses or designer dresses such as we might think of them, instead of women relied on dressmakers who made custom gowns to the specifications of the customer. There were always various trends related to women's hairstyles and clothing, it wasn't until the eighteenth century that fashion took off among the elite, to separate themselves from the peasants. 

As railroads and steamships made travel across Europe, wealthy women would regularly travel to Paris, a city considered the center of the fashion world, for purchases, and to use the services of Parisian dressmakers. Still, dressmakers were merely tailors under the directions of their customers, and there was very little design occurring on their end. That is, until the mid-nineteenth century, according to Claire B. Shaffer, in her book Couture Sewing Techniques, Charles Frederick Worth revolutionized dressmaking and created the designer-dress industry we know today. 

Considering the dressmaker to be an artist of clothing, he was the first to design his garments for customers to choose from and the first to dictate to his consumer base what they would wear, as well as initializing the inclusion of designer labels in clothing, according to the Gale Encyclopedia. Worth was the first-ever fashion designer, and his innovation led to countless designers following in his footsteps, such as Callot Soeurs, Patou, Poiret, Vionnet, Fortuny, Lanvin, Mainbocher, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, and Dior.

The Twentieth Century and Beyond

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the design world centered in Paris. From all over the world, fashion houses, magazines, and the newly developed department stores would send employees, editors, and buyers to Paris fashion shows. Their goal was to copy the elite, high designs, and trends of Paris for their customers, while tailoring them to the budget and needs of their base. As magazines at the start of the century began to include photographs, designers became even more influential and sought after. Concepts such as conspicuous waste and conspicuous consumption became the definition of the design world as garments grew more and more extravagant. During the Golden Age of French fashion, the decade of the 1920s, the design world only felt the growth of its influence and was thought to have no end in sight. But by the mid-twentieth century, particularly after the Second World War, France's spot as the center of the fashion world began to crumble. Ready-to-wear, factory-made clothing grew in popularity haute couture lost its strong-hold. 

The sixties brought about an international fashion world, causing Paris to forever lose its spot as the sole fashion center. The following decades have even changes and shift in the design world so that custom-made clothing is no longer a profitable endeavor, and attitudes against the elitism of previous haute couture houses have steadily caused a decline. The amount of remaining high-end design houses has immensely decreased and continues to do so.