1.) Research Question: “I am studying the changes in fashion history trends, because I want to find out the current events that influenced changes, in order to understand current/future fashion trends and how they coincide with societal changes.”
2.) Thesis: This project delves into the relationship between fashion history trends and the cultural outlook, offering insights into how prevailing attitudes, beliefs, and aspirations of a society reflect clothing trends. By examining the evolution of fashion over time, this project will engage readers who are fascinated by clothing as a form of self-expression and a mirror of societal transformations.
3.) Sources: Jill’s Zotero Library
4.) Research Process: The resources that I found consisted of notable historical events, literature, and media of the decades of the 1900s, fashion history trends spanning from the 18th century to modern day, and articles that provide insight on specifically the pandemic and its impact on fashion and microtrends. These sources came from the US Census Bureau, Google Advanced Search/Scholar, EBSCOHost, GMU Library, and the Library of Congress. My strategy for finding sources was to first, learn of the historical context needed to understand the time period’s cultural climate. Second, to find the fashion trends that were caused by these societal changes. Lastly, to hone in on specific time periods of interest in relation to major societal and fashion changes, currently being The Great Depression, the end of World War II, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
My search for historical context, past fashion trends, and major societal changes were successful with the sources I found, but I’d like to find more images that correlate to my findings, as well as more information on fashion towards the end of the second World War. There was an abundance of secondary sources online, but to find primary sources, specific databases that catered to scholars and research was necessary. One new neat fact I found was that the modern day trend of a relaxed white button down on women was already a trend among teen girls in 1945. It just goes to show the true cycle of fashion. A new question I have is how social media’s use of microtrends has warped our view of historically accurate fashion in exchange for commodified “add to bag” looks. In retrospect, I would have chosen my major societal changes to focus on beforehand, as I wasn’t set on them previously, and that made picking a timeline to utilize difficult.