A Short Timeline Of Fashion Moments

The elegance and sophistication to which fashion has come today are obviously the process of a very long and sometimes hard journey that mankind has taken along the course of many years.

Even though we take clothes for granted, which is only natural since we live in a world where they are not something to be questioned, we believe that it is necessary to remember the turning points that actually made clothes what they are today. Nobody knows how old the concept of clothing actually is, and it’s assumed that it has been around pretty much since the beginning of time when people needed to face changing climates, as their bodies were not enough to adapt. The cavemen discovered something we discover over and over again: that simplicity is best, that natural fabrics last the longest and that things like leather never go out of style. This was a bit of a joke, of course.

Let’s have a look at some of clothing’s most important moments and try to imagine what the world would have been like had they not happened.

c. 28000 BC – Sewing needles were used at Kostenki (in Russia).

c. 25000 BC – Venus figurines are represented wearing clothes

c. 6000 BC – Woven textiles were used to wrap the dead at Çatalhöyük (in Anatolia)

c. 5000 BC – Linen cloth and papyrus were produced in Egypt

500 to 1000 AD – The spinning wheel was used in India

500 AD – Jia xie method invented in China  for resist dyeing (usually silk) using wood blocks

1000′s AD – In Egypt, finely decorated examples of cotton socks made by true knitting appear

1275 – Approximate date of the use of a  a silk burial cushion knit in two colors that was later found in the tomb of Spanish royalty

1300 – Men wear tunics

1562 – The earliest example of use of the purl stitch, found in Spain, which allows knitting of panels of material.

c. 1600 – The first modern spinning wheel appears

1733-1784 Many inventors patent their inventions of fabric creating and sewing technology.

1793 – In the United States, Samuel Slater of Belper establishes the first cotton spinning mill that works

1800 – Women start wearing knickers

1830 – Barthélemy Thimonnier develops the first functional sewing machine

1856 – William Henry Perkin invents the first synthetic dye

1857-1892 – Needles and sewing techniques boom, as fashion develops and clothes continue to grow in variety

1870 – Menwear trousers, waistcoats and coats.

1893 – The invention of the zip fastener

1900 – A man named Heinrich Stoll creates the flat bed purl knitting machine

1913 – Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel opens a boutique in Deauville (France)

1913 – Mary Phelps Jacob invents the bra

1920s – Women start wearing shorter dresses

1946 – The invention of the bikini

1947 –Christian Dior introduces the New Look

1950 –The rise of the stiletto heel

1953 – The First commercial polyester fiber was produced by DuPont

1963 – Open-end spinning  was developed in Czechoslovakia

1965– Mary Quant invents the mini skirt

1968 – Ralph Lauren creates men’s wear line;

1960s and 70s – Haute couture fashion houses develop in parallel to the hippie culture

1974 – Giorgio Armani creates a men’s wear line; popularizing Italian tailoring

1984 – Donna Karan launches her line of versatile, casual knits

1990 – The motto of the era was “anything goes”

2000s –Fashion returns to it’s classic “roots”

2010s – Fashion goes to another level with the rise and development of the fashion blogs niche, which we are part of

Of course there are by far a lot more important moments and happenings, but we wanted to offer you a glimpse over the fine and graded evolution fashion has taken. Each milestone was the inspiration and tool of the next generation. This is what we should learn from all this, that the past is ours and that we can take what we want in order to create something new.

Fraquoh and Franchomme

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