Fashion is a style of clothing, hair, accessories and footwear that changes from time to time. It is an expression of one’s personal taste and personality.
The term fashion is sometimes used to describe a set of trends, although this is often misapplied as a description of behavior rather than of dress. In general, fashions reflect social change and the financial interests of the designers and manufacturers who design them.
Historically, the term fashion referred to the style of dress for the people of a given period or group. This may have been an indicator of social status, a way to display solidarity, or a means of showing off a person’s sense of self.
A person’s dress is also influenced by their gender, ethnicity, social class, and geographic location. Those who are transgendered, for example, may wear women’s or men’s clothes.
When a particular style is out of fashion, it may remain out for an extended period or be cyclically brought back into fashion. In the past, for instance, Europe might favor Turkish clothing at one time and Chinese or Japanese at another.
In the modern world, however, many styles are not driven by societal or economic changes but by internal preferences. For example, a woman might adopt a bob cut rather than the short boyish look of the 1920s or a man might choose to keep his hair long as opposed to wearing a wig.