Comparison Between Greek and Czech Fashion

ESSAY:

“COMPARISON BETWEEN GREEK AND CZECH FASHION”

COMMENTS

The aim of this essay is to see through the Czech and the Greek fashion. How the two sides understand fashion in their life. First, let me introduce myself. My name is Sofia Chatzopoulou. I am a Greek student studying for an academic year in Czech Republic, Liberec in the department of Design by Erasmus-Socrates program. After eight months of living here, I think that I am ready to have an opinion between the two countries in fashion matters. I will try to be objective. Still I have to admit that I am staying in the town of Liberec, when back to Greece I live in the second capital city, Thessaloniki. What I mean is that Liberec counts 100,000 citizens, when in Thessaloniki about 1,000,000. Therefore, to understand the lifestyle and the reactions on a smaller place was a bit more complicated.

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION

If we want to think on an international basis will realize the same moment the differences all over the world. There are no limits to taste in the world of fashion. Consumers are acting on another way in proportion of their nationality and other times the same. Over the turn of the century, such changes have been extremely important in shaping fashion. The birth of the internationalization on this sector in trade and production fields has created new streams and an overall revolution in the production of clothes. Moreover, there has been a massive influx of investment in commercial brands and up to that image, like never before.

However, what is fashion? It is a social phenomenon, a product, a work, in which no matter where we are, everybody will pay attention, more or less. Especially women even if are living in the metropolis of the world or in the middle class of a village, everybody is dealing with fashion in social and cultural ways.

Garment is the revolution. It is the status symbol. It is civilization. The lifestyle and all the changes that are coming to all the above are giving to garment the life, the figure, the image that it needs. Fashion has not only to do with the protection of the human body. It reflects the expression and tradition of every single person.

Likewise, let us consider the word modern or classic. It gives an uncertain value of the taste of the person. It puts a label… explaining what? Nobody can claim what is modern or not. Moreover, none of us has the right to judge it.

The phenomenon of fashion goes back to ancient years. Taboos, wars, discoveries, and worldwide trade added in these story legends. Cotton and its techniques came straight from India. In England, muslin was invented. Marco Polo introduces to Europe the silk.

The revolution in garments has an erotic- sexual character, also. Fashion characterizes the sex, like in ancient Crete. Women were letting their breasts uncovered and later we face the same in the French Revolution.

Today, Muslims use yashman in order to cover their bodies. When, meanwhile, in Paris’s catwalks models are walking naked. Always, according to the fashion terminology... They follow an “undressed look”!

Of course, the social identity is being recognized by the way that we are dressing ourselves. Through fashion our spirituality and the character of each person is shown clearly.

Fashion is the reflection of all the non-stop evolutions that we are living every day. These evolutions can be social, political, cultural, and emotional. Garment of all ages are presented as “status symbol”. A social symbol sends economical and sexual messages. It expresses our emotional world, giving more shapes and color, while it is being influenced from famous fashion designers, international catwalks, magazines, cinema, and stars. Street fashion, sports, or even youth’s movements could also inspire it.

Giorgio Armani explained the reason that he created the costume combined to pants for women. He said, “I believed that a nowadays woman, who works, is allowed to wear the same kind of clothes that always represents a menswear. The new elements that I used are used in order to fit the woman analogy and aesthetic”.

Similarly, back to ‘70’s, Y.S.L. proposes the “manager style” for women. Blazers, anoraks, pants using some men features became for women the ideal dress.

One more example meets Ungaro. This fashion designer of haute couture and prêt-a-porter took some elements from army uniforms and dandy style of 18th century. These styles transformed properly by the help of a great variety of luxurious textiles and turned into a sexuality symbol of super women clothing. That is how a very new, avant-garde, contemporary style was up to.

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE COUNTRIES

Fashion is lifestyle. Thus, observing the everyday life in Czech Republic several thoughts passed through my mind. I was trying to compare it somehow with the Greek one. Finally, I realized that a comparison based on the influence that each place faced on the latest years would ring more true.

At first, I focused on political facts, which in my point of view, are the main reason that sets Czechs in a low taste level referring to clothing. The brief period between 1945 and 1948 was marked by an attempt to quickly return to pre-war standards of clothing and fashion. Czech fashion developed under the influence of a totalitarian Communist regime that wanted to create a distinctive fashion independent of the outside fashion world. New fashion magazines that were published those days provided information about fashion but that were also designed to “reeducate” the citizenry. Clothing and fashion were under strict ideological control. As a result, exchange of beliefs, thoughts, and ideas were impossible. Sealed borders rejected any kind of imports. Consequently, there could be no further information in all matters. Acknowledge. While people were living under these particular conditions,