25 Interesting and Fun Facts about Fashion

1. The word jeans comes from the cotton pants worn by Genes, the local
term for Genoan sailors.
2. The average American owns 7 pairs of blue jeans.
3. The four major fashion capitals of the world are New York, London, Milan,
and Paris. Each city holds fashion shows twice, in February and September.
4. It was not acceptable for women to wear shorts in public until World War 2.
5. The first fashion magazine was published in Germany in 1586.
6. The five most common clothing materials are linen, cotton, polyester,
and rayon.
7. The bikini was named after the island Bikini Atoll, where the US military
was testing its bombs in World War 2. It was so named because its creator,
Louis Rard, belived the revealing suit would create a shock like that of the
atomic bomb.
8. Womens nominal clothing sizes have increased in physical size over the
years in a phenomenon known as vanity sizing. A size 8 dress with a 32-inch
bust in 1967 is now considered a size 0 today.
9. 10-25% of Western women dont wear a bra, and 75-85% of women who do
wear an incorrect size.
10. Mens shirts button on the right, and womens on the left.
11. Both the pencil skirt and the A-line skirt were designed by Frenchman
Christian Dior.
12. Children dressed identically to adults until the mid-1800s, when the
concept of childrens clothing took off.
13. What Americans consider tuxedos are called dinner jackets in Great
Britain, as the word tuxedo itself refers to the white version of the suit jacket in
British English.
14. Dresses and skirts are commonly seen as womens clothing in the West,
but in other parts of the world, men wear them as frequently as women do.
15. More than 2 billion t-shirts are sold each year.
16. A persons social rank and profession in the Medieval Ages was
represented by the color of their clothing. The nobility wore red, peasants
wore brown and gray, and merchants, bankers, and gentry wore green.
17. In Rome, purple clothing was exclusively reserved for emperors and
magistrates.
18. The earliest known shoes are sandals that date back to approximately
7,000 B.C.
19. In Arab culture, shoes are considered dirty because they touch the ground
and cover the lowest part of the body, the foot. It is considered offensive to
show ones shoe sole, and throwing your shoe at someone is an extremely
grave insult.
20. Eyeliner became popular after its discovery in King Tutankhamuns tomb
in the 1920s.
21. It was once taboo to wear black unless one was in mourning. Victorian
widows were expected to wear black mourning clothes for two years after
their husbands deaths.
22. The fashion industry generates an average revenue of $20 billion each
year.
23. A Sneakerhead is someone who collects shoes, mainly sneakers (AmE),
trainers (BrE)
24. Vintage clothing refers to clothing made between 20 and 100 years ago,
and retro refers to recently made clothing that is designed to resemble the
style of another period.
25. The skirt is the second oldest piece of clothing, outdated only by the
loincloth.