User:Seth castillo/sandbox

Street Fashion
Original article: Street fashion

Culture
Clothing is one of the biggest forms of consumption in society today. It plays a major role in the construction of many outlets today such as self-identity, Pop culture, and the cultural industry. Fashion now a days is highly associated with culture; fashion is influenced by many cultures from around the world but most importantly, it has created its own culture, especially among the youths of today. It has become a visible marker of social status, gender, and even symbolic boundaries.

The clothes you wear make a statement, it is a visual language with its own distinctive grammar and vocabulary. The clothes you wear resonate to other people and gives them a sense of who you are without speaking to them. In sociological interests, fashion communicates things about the person and this results in placing someone symbolically in a social status and attaching a certain lifestyle to them. New York is one of the most famous places known when it comes to street fashion and its culture. Gatekeepers spend most of their time in a social atmosphere and help give meaning to fashion culture. Most people outside of this culture attach a stigma of being a superficial and selfish culture that is pointless. The fashion culture is an expression of oneself and the support of creativity. It allows people to step outside of the social norms and boundaries, and lets people set new social norms when it comes to fashion. Clothing popularity and trends do not come from the designers themselves; they are merely just the creators. It is up to the other people within the fashion culture to experiment with these clothes to make them popular and trendy; popular figures within pop culture also have the ability to do so.

Street fashion has become a culture of its own and has become part of something known as high culture. High culture is exclusive, is always changing and is diverse. It focuses on aesthetics, style, and taste, whereas low culture is considered mass culture. a great example of the divide between high and low culture is the use and exposure of certain clothing brands in Hip Hop music videos and lyrics. When Hip Hop was a growing genre, artists were mentioning clothing brands which in turn started a movement with their fans that influenced them to buy these mentioned brands. This allowed the Hip Hop genre to reach far beyond its own generic boundaries and official market share. Street fashion today has been influenced by so many factors that there is not a certain defined style.

Impact on Younger Generation
The younger generation today is in the spotlight of everything related to pop culture, especially the fashion aspect. This younger generation is targeted by some of biggest fashion companies around right now. From classic street wear brands such as Stüssy and Diamond to high fashion brands such as A.P.C., and Yves Saint Laurent. Today, there is a mix of original and classic street wear and high fashion that is gaining popularity in street fashion among young people. In the fashion world today, items gain recognition by making bold statements about social and cultural issues. When it comes to fashion, the younger generation use it as a tool to set themselves apart and show that they are unlike any other generation. Popular individuals within pop culture have the ability to gain a following and strongly influence the young generation today. Hip Hop artist and producer Kanye West is one of the most influential people in pop culture when it comes to fashion; he is so influential there is something called the “Kanye affect”. When people see something that Kanye West is wearing, it instantly gains massive popularity in the street fashion industry. One great example of this is when Kanye West was seen wearing a pair of Nike Flyknit shoes; the sales for those shoes sky rocketed. Another fashion icon within pop culture is A$AP Rocky. A rapper from Harlem was recently titled the best dressed in New York. It was A$AP Rocky who blended classic street wear brands and high fashion designer brands and brought them to the forefront of the street fashion and street wear movement. A$AP Rocky allowed his creativity to create a fashion movement that the younger generation admire which is expressing themselves and who they are through street fashion.

Asian Influence
Japanese fashion has highly influenced what is popular in street fashion in the West. Traditional western view of Japanese fashion began to change when younger people started to wear these clothes on the streets. These fashion trends are influenced not by famous fashion designers and popular people within Japan but rather they are heavily influenced by high school kids, especially girls. This younger generation is so fashion-obsessed and fashion-conscious that they have become agents of fashion who take part in the production and spread of fashion. The Japanese street fashion influence has reached the West via social networks and although Japanese fashion may have been influenced by fashion from the West, it is the creative mixing and matching the Japanese have done to contrast and separate their style from the rest which in turn is copied by the West.

Japanese fashion culture has spread throughout other parts of Asia; one of the most influenced countries being South Korea. It was through the sudden popularity in Korean pop culture in the West that help Asian fashion become popular. A great example of this would be K-pop bands. People from the West were being highly exposed to not only the music but the clothes these bands were wearing. This contributed greatly to the influence of Asian fashion in the West.