Fashion today is a global industry, and most major countries have a fashion industry. Some countries are major manufacturing centers, notably Philippines, China, South Korea, Spain, Germany, Brazil, and India.
Five countries have established an international reputation in fashion: France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan.
The majority of American fashion houses are based in New York, although there are also a significant number in Los Angeles, where a substantial percentage of high fashion clothing manufactured in the US is actually made. There are also burgeoning industries in Miami, Chicago and especially San Francisco.
American fashion design is dominated by a clean-cut, urban, casual style reflecting the athletic, health-conscious lifestyles of American city-dwellers. A designer who helped to set the trend in the United States for sport-influenced day wear throughout the 1940s and 50's was Claire McCardell. Many of her designs have been revived in recent decades.
She is known for designing functional, affordable, and stylish women’s sportswear within the constraints of mass-production, and is today acknowledged as the creator of the "American Look", a democratic and casual approach to fashion that rejected the formality of French couture.
Claire McCardell's creations are dedicated to the propositions that:
1) clothes should be made to be worn in comfort, and
2) only comfort can create sense-making style.
Her clothes are functional, simple and clean of line. She likes "buttons that button and bows that tie." She is, says Dallas Retailer Stanley Marcus, "the master of the line, never the slave of the sequin. She is one of the few creative designers this country has ever produced." Anyone can wear them, but they look best on what countless ads have presented as the ideal American beauty—tall, slim, long-legged.
The top ten American designers were presented to the audience: Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein, Kate Spade, Ralph Lauren, Anna Sui, Donna Karan.Todd Oldham, Bill Blass, and Tommy Hilfiger. The video illustrations from YouTube included both interviews with the designers and their works.
To draw the bottom line for the discussion we answered the questions of the on-line fashion quiz “What’s your fashion style?”.
Our today’s American guest – Ms. Kathryn Herrera, Peace Corp. volunteer – consulted us about the difficult fashion terms and shared her opinion about the fashion issue in the USA and Ukraine.
Once the fashion topic was over Kathryn answered a lot of questions about healthy lifestyle and diet, and how she manages to stick to her vegan diet in Dnipropetrovsk.
All the club members were encouraged to practice the new center’s equipment – iPad.
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