The Way of Expressing Fashion Research Assignment

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The Way of Expressing Fashion.
Introduction.
Today's fashion standards demand everyone to be appealing visually. Most people consult fashion magazines or try to copy exact outfits of their favorite celebrities; since they are interested in how they are going to appear in front of other people. Without considering their personal styles and personalities, most people blindly adhere to the trends in fashion. Dressing up is supposed to reflect one's personality and as well end up being fun, as it is important to express oneself through clothing.
Gay / Lesbians Vs. Fashion.
Throughout the previous century, gay and lesbians used clothing to express their self-identity(Kim,Ann & Kim). Even before the 20th century, cross-dressing and transvestism among men were related to sodomy. By the 18th century, small but discreet gay and lesbians subcultures were already present in Europe. In London, the gay and lesbians subcultures were based on public houses and inns where 'mollies' converged. Most of the mollies put on women's clothing as both means of attracting sexual partners and as a form of self-identification. They wore head-cloths, petticoats, gowns, furbelowed scarves, little-laced shoes and masks; and some dressed like milkmaids; some had to ride hoods and others like shepherdesses with waistcoats, green hats, and petticoats (Chae et.al, 2016: 251-267).
Gender And Fashion.
The average American spend over a thousand dollars on clothing yearly, making the textile and apparel industry in the US one of the many financially rewarding social structures, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics 3. Equally, the fashion industry is among the few business trades that receive minimal criticisms regarding gender inequality as compared to other gendered fields like technology(Kim,Ann & Kim).
As a business whose profitability and success are significantly reliant on women, a lot of people assume that the fashion industry is owned and run by women for women. Unfortunately, many of the influential fashion houses are men-owned. For the year 2014, only two among the seven Americans on the Forbes 400 list are female, that is, Anne Gittinger of Nordstrom (Bhushan) and Doris Fisher of Gap Clothing. The social practice of gender inequality is a determinant in the fashion industry, supported by its functional structures like capital resources, cultural capital, homosocial reproduction, and educational qualifications. These social structures are influen...