There are two simple ways to look at fashion: as a minor art form (and major consumer business) or as a reflection of the society in which it is created. Most fashion publications understandably choose the former option and only occasionally is the latter examined, usually with rather poor results. Fashion rarely survives much scrutiny. As Colin McDowell notes in his preface to The Literary Companion to Fashion, the subject suffers "from being very much more interesting than those who follow it".
Fashion will always be an unreliable social barometer, inclined to wander off on unexpected tangents. While its apparent perversity is fascinating, any conclusions drawn from fashion are, therefore, liable to be highly suspect. Whoever first suggested that skirt lengths reflect the state of a nation's economy, for example, obviously never looked back as far as the 18th century, during which financial upheavals were unceasing but women's dresses remained firmly fixed around the ankles. Meanwhile, analysis of menswear - in particular suiting - over the past century will show remarkably little change, even though the period has witnessed enormous social upheavals. What is to be made of the almost unaltered nature of men's suits since 1900? That the western male is a highly conservative creature in matters of dress, that he cannot be troubled to undergo frequent overhauls of his appearance or that, having developed a highly functional but simple wardrobe, he sees no purpose in throwing it aside for clothing which may not serve his needs so well? Surely the fact the suit has been adopted globally as a business uniform indicates the last of these suggestions is closest to the truth, especially since women over the past 30 years have also come to adopt suiting as their preferred mode of dress.
But it would be rash to push the point too far. In his notebooks, Samuel Butler wrote: "Fashion is like God . . . springing out of nothing, yet the maker of all things - ever changing yet the same yesterday, today and for ever." As his remarks suggest, Butler was prone to exaggeration, but he is right to note that fashion usually exists in its own universe and according to its own rules. Naturally this does not mean it's immune to social shifts going on in the surrounding world. After all, the greatest change in fashion during the present century - the steady drift towards casual dressing - reflects a more widespread trend touching every aspect of our lives in favour of informality. With each successive decade since the conclusion of the second World War, the structure of dress has been whittled down as one item after the next - hats, gloves, coats - was jettisoned for clothes demanding almost nothing from the wearer. Key Moments in Fashion, a book published last year looking at the most important style statements of the past 100 years, concludes with a chapter called "The Trainer as Fashion Footwear". The trainer, like most items of sportswear, has long since left its original environment to become the fashion equivalent of fast food; relatively inexpensive, undemanding and instantaneously fulfilling a consumer's requirements. This is what fashion means to the majority of today's consumers. Having ceased to be the preserve of the wealthy, today it may be perceived as just another mass-market business, prone to shifts in demand like any other, and dependent on constant sales to sustain itself.
Contemporary fashion is therefore interesting as an example of in-built obsolescence which now enjoys widespread public acceptance in every area of consumer goods, whether clothing or computers. In this respect, fashion has ceased to possess any distinguishing characteristics. Nonetheless, too much stress ought not to be laid on the connections between fashion and late 20th century consumerism. After all, as Jennifer Craik points out in The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion (1993), seasonal shifts in dress can be dated back to the societies of ancient Greece. In 1970 the New Yorker's fashion writer, Kennedy Fraser, observed: "Fashion is in ceaseless pursuit of things that are about to look familiar and in uneasy flight from things that have become a bore." There can be no confidence in fashion because it has none in itself. Instead, it provides an illustration of the Sisyphus myth by which a designer labours to reach the top only to be knocked down by a usurper and obliged to start the climb again. There remains only one absolute certainty about fashion: it is and always will be without certainty.
Ready to Wear, a six-part series, begins on BBC 2 Television on Tuesday, April 27th at 9 p.m.