Fashion Design

1. Why is fashion so reflective, when it could be purely functional and behavioral? (Why do people feel an impulse to express and redefine themselves through their clothes?

Humans choose to redesign themselves with fashion (clothing, hairstyles, etc) because it is an easy, extremely visible way to make yourself unique. All of us want our sense of style to reflect things about us, what we do, with whom we friend ourselves. Fashion does that: it reflects and enhances our projected image to others.
Fashion makes it easy to express and redefine ourselves because of its variety and visual appeal. People make thousands of judgments based on appearance, and fashion is a tool that attempts to frame those judgments, to put them in a narrow field. Thus, fashion fills a desire manipulate others' view of us.

2. Jones discusses the importance of time as it relates to fashion--why does fashion change and evolve, instead of remaining static and functional?

Fashion's evolution is derived partly from our need to differentiate from others as discussed above. In our desire to be unique, we move beyond the fashions of our predecessors and create new "looks." Fashion changes to reflect cultural swings. Looking at the past two decades in women's fashion, we see marked changes to showcase strong, smart, independent women. This is a direct result of how women would like to be seen in the modern era.

3. Based on the reading, make a checklist of principles to consider when designing a garment.

Fashion Checklist1. Social context/affiliation: With regards to price, and style, in what class does this garment place a person? Does it denote authority or status? Does it say something about the wearer's background or preferences? About what they do in their spare time? About their status among peers?
2. Psychological self-enhancement: I think this is important because if fashion does not first convince the wearer of "self-enhancement," it fails to sell. I own many articles of clothing that lend me that sense of self enhancement, like some of my American Eagle shirts or my orange Nike shoes.
3. Fit: For some kinds of clothing, fit is everything. For instance, I will only purchase jeans with a very specific cut. There is a limited selection that match the style I wish to convey and feel good while doing it.