Fashion in America can be discussed from two different perspectives—as a general statement about American styles, based on generally casual conformity or in terms of the growth of an art and industry of couture as artifice. In the latter realm, American designers freed themselves during and after the Second World War from slavish imitation of European models to compete in a global market that ranges from Paris and Milan to Tokyo and Hong Kong. In either case, fashion tends to be a highly gendered, classed and racialized enterprise where commodities transform bodies, sexuality and identity.

An American style, in the broader sense, has been less defined by aesthetics than by comfort and mass consumption. In the twentieth century Americans bought more than 9 billion items of clothing annually but they do not necessarily stress individual panache in everyday dress. Workplaces tend to mean conventional clothes (uniforms or pseudouniforms, like dark suits and white shirts). Teenage conformity long has been epitomized by the dominance of blue jeans and T-shirts as basic wardrobes, but also reflects trends in apparel, accessories and style (see Clueless, 1989), as well as race relations. Hip hop baggy pants and baseball caps have different meanings on white suburban college students and black, inner-city youths; minorities also display designer labels as marks of status and identity Clothing needs are met by a variety of prices and qualities of merchandise, with competition for brand name recognition pitting GAP, J. Crew, Express, Limited, Delia and others against each other, for example, for the youth market. Other brands have established reputations for conservative clothes for the workplace—Brooks Brothers, Anne Klein, Talbot, etc. Names have also created wider markets by moving from clothes to perfumes, accessories and household goods. Many people buy clothes according to what they can afford, whether in boutiques, department stores, discount stores or thrift shops, or via catalogs and online commerce. Still, the appeal of vintage clothing or sales shopping allows consumers to extend budget and style.

While certain Americans may have gained global reputations for their individual senses of style—Wallis Simpson, Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy Onassis—other prominent women have been embraced for their “sensible” look—like First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, Barbara Bush or even the power-suited Hillary Clinton.

Hollywood stars are often taken as the epitome of male fashion, from Cary Grant to Denzel Washington. For men not directly involved in fashion or media of display an interest in fashion is often taken as anomalous, or even a failing in masculinity. Despite the “Peacock Revolution” of the 1960s, which introduced hippie clothes, colors and extravagant styles, American male fashion in public realms remains conservative and unobtrusive.

Despite these consistencies in general choices and ideal types, the American fashion industry has offered more and more new choices and forms of consumption and display since the end of the Second World War rationing. It has also aggressively asserted an American ethos in fashion—and fashion production—in distinction to European couture.

The pioneer designers of the 1960s included Halston, Mary McFadden and Anne Klein, who extended their influence through ready-to-wear clothes, many of which appealed to middle-class women entering the workforce, balancing jobs and style. The 1960s were also marked by more idiosyncratic fashions associated with hippies and imported Carnaby Street designs, as well as the rise of designer jeans.

Subsequent decades saw the rise and globalization of many important American designers. Donna Karan designed clothes for the professional woman, Ralph Lauren offered classic, “preppy clothes,” while Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis and others established visible looks and trademarks. The 1980s, according to Silverman (1986), became an era to celebrate aristocratic clothes in design as well as exhibits—and in the presidential style of the Reagan White House.

Designers continued to emerge and change in the 1990s. Tommy Hilfiger has appealed to the youth market, while Vera Wang and others competed in specialty gowns. New designers debut at New York’s Fashion Week or outside Bryant Park. Production of many of these labels, however, has moved offshore. Americans also continue to buy from European designers: elite shopping areas like New York’s Fifth Avenue, Los Angeles’ Rodeo Drive or Miami’s Bal Harbour offer boutiques for Chanel, Prada, Fendi, Gucci, Armani, Zegna and other global fashion logos. Meanwhile, American designers have been hired to revitalize staid European lines.

Many of these designers, in fact, offer multiple divisions to reflect differential purchasing power. While Donna Karan’s name marks her expensive line, for example, DKNY provides a pricey but mass market alternative; Calvin Klein and CK follow the same division, reinforcing a design empire through multiple products and sales, although also risking over-extension.

While these lines reinforce divisions of class and gender, fashion also raises important questions about age and race. High fashion often offers clothes that look good on the young, but often only the older rich can afford them. Certainly, female fashion models, who have emerged as celebrities in their own right, have tended to offer young, thin and sometimes exotic looks and bodies. This has led to complaints about the objectification of the female body and the negative impact on female self-images. Male fashion models only gained some celebrity recognition in the 1990s with brooding, lean and muscled bodies whose display remains linked to questions of sexuality and identity as well as clothes. In both groups, exotic racial mixtures have been highlighted without serious integration of the design establishment or couturier clients. Design remains dominated by white males.

Fashion is constantly tied to other media. Stars at the Academy Awards become advertisements for designers and “looks.” Media events such as the phenomenal success of Titanic (1997), Clark Gable’s appearance without an undershirt in It Happened One Nïght (1934), or the King Tut blockbuster exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum all had an impact on design and taste in subsequent seasons. Other tie-ins occur through celebrities and labels: Michael Jordan is linked to both Warner Brothers’ character clothing and sneaker endorsements, while logos of sports teams are popular in male casual wear.

Some of these trends, of course, may be lamented by those who attend New York’s Fashion Week or those who have pontificated on American fashion from the pages of major periodicals like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, or the more trade-oriented Women’s Wear Daily. Nor will they be preserved, perhaps, in museum collections devoted to fashion like that of New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Nonetheless, they embody rather literally, the complexity and creativity of American life.