Different lifestyles have a determining influence on the way of dressing of different social groups, whose tastes and preferences influence fashion trends. However, not always a certain style is considered elegant or sophisticated, on the contrary it can be a sign of bad taste for many.
In this context, urban fashion is born as a style created to support the hectic life of the city, where people develop with speed and dynamism, so they wear clothes capable of resisting daily activities and the constant movement that implies the urban life, providing comfort to those who wear them.
Therefore, the urban fashion arises in a spontaneous and unexpected way, thanks to the need of some groups to have comfortable and light attire, which provide a particular and characteristic style. In this way, it was initially created to provide comfort to skateboarders, who initially were people dedicated to practicing stunts on skateboards, but little by little this term has been used to refer to people related to street culture, encompassing other disciplines and urban customs.
It is considered then that the style was born in the seventies in the United States with the aim of providing garments where comfort prevailed over aesthetics and elegance, however little by little it has evolved to reach the big catwalks.
As stated above, skateboarders were pioneers in the use of this fashion, since they needed comfortable clothes to develop their acrobatics more effectively and at the same time wear a style that would characterize them and make them stand out from the crowd, without following a pattern determined, nor obey recognized currents.
Therefore, urban fashion combines designs and concepts, with the purpose of creating original and striking styles, capable of satisfying users based on practicality, comfort and simplicity. But, despite the fact that it emerged from everyday life on the streets, it has subsequently been taken into account by the designers, due to its great boom and the millions of people who are potential customers of the big brands, thus generating different styles within the same, which highlights the contemporary and the different tastes of each individual.
This carefree style of urban fashion, which is not very focused on aesthetics, gave way to a new generation where elegance was relative, to give way to urban garments, with natural aspects, carefree, street and liberal, being an example of this, the musical group “The Beastie Boys”, founded in New York in the year 1981, and that had an eclectic style, that facilitated the use of sets of striking garments, with intense colours, that turned them into precursors of fashion urban and promoted this style more carefree and natural in clothing.
Even in the nineties, athletes were those who almost exclusively used clothes designed especially for them, however other companies were appearing as this fashion was imposed. However, all focused on the creation of clothing for skaters and the newly emerged “Hypebest”, which is a term used to identify the type of people who buy clothes, shoes or accessories with a desire to impress others and end knowing of many styles.
So both groups imposed their own fashion with attitude and security, giving way to a new street culture and urban customs, that the companies dedicated to the marketing of fashion were taking into account to increase their sales and position their products in different social strata, according to the ages, professions and / or activities to which they are dedicated.
New years have arrived, and urban fashion has been complemented with the frequent use of accessories that achieve their enhancement and give it elegance and formality, according to the occasion or the type of event that its followers usually attend. Hence, people use collars, wallets, jewellery, bags, handkerchiefs, lenses, among other items, to accompany for example a set of wide or narrow trousers, blouses and / or jackets.
It originates in this way, a revolutionary urban fashion movement, in which not only skaters, but also the “Hypebest”, who promoted the boom of it, used this type of clothing. For this reason, thanks to the emergence of these social groups, the different companies dedicated to the design and manufacture of clothing had to assume the changes and make a fundamental shift in their market strategies.
This phenomenon is due to the fact that for the so-called “Hypebest” the origins of fashion do not matter, and they are not very aware of the trends and of a specific brand, they only want to use urban clothes adapted to their needs, retaining their style and looking good according to their life parameters, and even looking elegant according to the occasion, as do many artists of the moment.
Urban fashion is transformed, in an option for the most daring, for those who do not care if the experts consider it elegant or not, because their touch of elegance is imposed by themselves, with a style that accepts a wide variety of colours and textures, without forgetting that the basic of this fashion is the comfort it offers, its touch of practicality, how relaxed they can look and why not the elegance that they can transmit through their attitude.
This is how, at present, urban fashion is carried by different strata of society with different styles, which according to some experts are three: sports, intermediate and luxury. Obviously, the sporty style is simpler and without so much design, besides being affordable due to the price level, and that despite being a style that started from the knowledge of the customs and needs of the street people, it has even spread to the world of catwalks and haute couture.
On the other hand, there is the intermediate style, which is more refined and with more laborious designs and more care than the sporty, while the luxury style, includes more creative designs, studied and directed to more exclusive people, where the factor “Price”, plays a fundamental role, appearing on the catwalks of famous designers who represent major brands, which have prioritized this trend in their collections.
Therefore, the urban clothing on the catwalks has allowed to show aspects of this fashion to groups more dedicated to the details of an outfit, so that this style has been gradually integrated into the collections of avant-garde and innovative designers, in such a way that currently there are a diversity of models of sports shoes, garments, sets and accessories of luxury brands, which previously were only dedicated to luxurious, elegant and exclusive suits. Thus, the fashion industry has recognized the importance of urban fashion that shows that everything is “a matter of attitude”.
In this sense, porting urban fashion highlights the attitude as the basis of this lifestyle of many young people and contemporary adults, and involves the adoption of behaviours and ways of acting, feeling and showing to society, which requires the use of clothing to dress in harmony with that way of thinking and unwinding in the environment. Therefore, urban fashion is considered informal and sometimes extravagant, basic or not very stylized.
Despite these conceptions of urban fashion, in recent years has been observing changes in the designs that have allowed to position this style in many countries, where creativity and innovation are present to combine practicality with the elegance of some clothes, considering that elegance not only depends on a garment but on the attitude, personality, posture and presence.
Now, everything is a matter of taste and any style will have its defenders and detractors. The urban is present not only in the fashion related to clothing, but also in the musical and artistic field, and this in turn influences the fashion or the way of dressing of the people, since wearing garments characteristic of a certain way of life, requires that people assume the style, feel it and act as such.
In this way, many artists have assumed fashion in their daily lives and in their presentations, becoming prominent influencers that help increase the use of certain clothes and / or clothing, among which the urban occupies an important place today, considering that in the latest trends are taken into account practical elements that distinguish urban fashion.
Linen, silk, cottons, casimires, denim and rayon stand out, as some of the fresh and elegant fabrics that can be used for example in the combination of a typical masculine trousers with blouses, as well as the tops and jeans to stripes, shorts with blouses and jackets of different textures and colours, predominantly white, black and navy blue for summer.
urban fashion has undergone a process of evolution, which has been deeply rooted in the culture of music. And it is that the artists of the music mark the tendencies in the street, a style that only young people know how to wear, and it is a fact that the biggest inspiration is in the celebrities of the moment like: Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and Rita Ora.
In the case of Rihanna, the singer usually wears outfits or sets of clothes, with a bold style, but combined with sophisticated heels, while Miley Cyrus stands out with the originality of the designs, and Rita Ora shows a more street style, getting to look often long and wide t-shirts, sets of striking colours that usually combine with hats and urban caps.
ALFA