Fashion as a Cultural Practice: Identification by Main Characteristics

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to define and characterise the features of fashion as a cultural practice. Research methodology. Fashion as a polysemantic phenomenon requires an appropriate approach for its objectification in scientific research. The latter is not limited to one scientific field, but relies on an interdisciplinary methodology. Therefore, the research used an inclusive combination of a number of approaches integrated from cultural studies, sociology, psychology, and relevant methods. The scientific novelty consists in defining and substantiating the main characteristics of fashion as a cultural universal. Conclusions. The main characteristics of fashion as a cultural practice are: dynamism and variability (constantly changing and subject to various socio-cultural influences); historical basis and continuity (has a historical basis, serves as a form of expression of cultural identity and a way of establishing a connection with previous generations); socio-communicative nature (is a means of communication, expression of status and belonging to a certain group); dialectic and ambivalence (contradiction between the desire for originality and submission to other or previous fashion trends, individuality and conformity, innovation, and the desire to preserve the established order, universality, and support of the local cultural context, commercialisation and potential as a trigger of social change); cultural universality (contains cultural universals in the structure: convenience, usefulness, comfort, practicality, aesthetics, beauty). In general, fashion as a cultural practice is a dynamic phenomenon that reflects the diversity and complexity of contemporary culture. It is a means of expressing the way of life and meaning systems of culture, maintaining social ties and identity, forming sociocultural trends. The specified characteristics make it possible to state that fashion as an important cultural phenomenon, an integral component of the way of life is a cultural practice that, on the one hand, responds to all socio-cultural changes, and on the other hand, reflects the peculiarities of a certain historical era and is able to adequately represent them, acting as a kind of indicator and marker of transformations.
 Keywords: fashion, cultural practices, culture, society, socio-cultural transformations.