A fashionista is someone who follows fashion and is involved in the industry. The term can be used derogatorily, but many use it with pride. They keep up with trends, attend events, and read magazines. Fashionistas can also be socially and politically conscious. The term can also refer to people in the industry, such as buyers and designers. Other derivations include recessionists and fatshionistas.
A fashionista is someone who follows fashion or is involved in the fashion industry. This term is sometimes used in a mildly derogatory way, suggesting that fashionistas are obsessed with fashion at the expense of other important matters. As a general rule, however, fashionistas aren’t offended when people call them that, and many use the term as a personal reference, as a sign of pride. This term often appears in trend magazines, for example, and also appears in books and news articles, as well as fashion radio and television reports.
This word appears to have originated in the early 1990s and spread rapidly in the late 1990s. It integrates the Spanish suffix “-ista,” which suggests that it may be from a region like California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, where Spanish often mixes with English in surprising and creative ways. The “-ista” suffix is also used in other slang terms, both because people have borrowed it from “fashionista” and because they are familiar with the Spanish language.
In the consumer sense, a fashionista tends to avidly follow fashion and dress well, keeping up with the latest fashions to secure a reputation for being elegant and well-finished. In addition to actively shopping for fashion, a fashionista keeps an eye out for cultural trends, attends fashion events, and reads fashion magazines. While they may be criticized as superficial, fashionistas aren’t necessarily one-dimensional people with a single-minded fixation on fashion. Indeed, fashionistas sometimes lead movements pushing for fair trade clothing and the abolition of child labor in the garment industry, or engage in other socially and politically conscious activities.
This term can also be used to refer to people in the industry, such as buyers, designers, and so on. Fashion buyers often have a huge impact on the fashion industry because they determine which stores carry which collections and which items become popular. Becoming a fashion buyer requires formidable knowledge of fashion, trends and the industry.
A number of derivations of the classic fashionista can be found. A recessionist, for example, is someone who tries to dress stylishly on a budget, using creative means to stay stylish in the face of adversity. Some fat activists use the term “fatshionista” to describe overweight individuals who dress stylishly and promote plus-size fashions. Many fatshionists try to act as ambassadors for the plus-size community, showing people that being overweight doesn’t preclude looking stylish.
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