Fashionable Street-Style & the Democratization of Luxury

Street-styles emerged during the twentieth century as a form of rebellion initiated by those who could not go anywhere except for the streets. Considering that it was only approved as an official fashion genre when it first started diffusing into high fashion several decades ago, the aim of this paper is to analyze how this event relates to ''fashion democratization''. The paper will re-interpret the phenomenon using the course of fashion history the trigger and effects behind the diffusion. Furthermore, use of studies provided by early theorists on class and fashion history will be applied to explain the increasing obsession that society has on luxury. The findings work towards building a proper explanation of the shift from 'class fashion' to 'consumer fashion'. Does it imply that fashion democracy has been achieved? A study of the luxury house Givenchy which mixes popular culture within fashion elegance is used to back up the paper.

Autorentext

Nour Alsaleh, a Saudi Arabian scholar lived in London for over 4 years. Her interest in the fields of fashion & art manifested based on her contrasting exposure to the lives of high luxury & the rising popular culture in the City s East End. During those years, Nour spent most of her time studying the opposing cultures of the two ends.