The depiction of clothing fashion in print media

Abstract

The mass media is one of the most influential sources on fashion today; the influence is complex and diverse. Throughout the last century, in Sri Lanka, the print media have become an opinion leader of fashion and played a vital role in shaping ‘fashion’ into a complex social and cultural phenomenon. Thus, as both an art form and a commercial enterprise ‘fashion’ has begun to depend upon attention in media. This study analyses the relationship between print media and popular fashion in Sri Lanka, providing a historical overview from the beginning of print media to discuss their specific orientation towards fashion coverage. Today, newspapers and magazines - the print media in Sri Lanka, as a form of traditional media, work in a different contextual structure of fashion coverage and their function is more of a commercial nature which largely depends on advertising. The shift of fashion models from being product-centric to being consumer-centric is evident in the recent past as newspapers and magazines are losing ground in favour of electronic media and of online communication media. However there are number of newspapers and magazines exist today in many different forms and genres the country has no highly developed media system, with extremely elevated levels of media-usage. This study demonstrates the relationship between print media and fashion in Sri Lanka under three phases. The first phase is the era of the beginning of print media in the country. The second phase is the period dominated by the print media as an industry. The third phase is its decline, where other forms of media influences on fashion.