The Mystery of the Unkown

Beneath the iceberg and behind the mask is the mystery of the unknown. Our society continues to pay more attention to science and technology, and we are paying more and more attention to fashion studies. What is Fashion? Is it an obsession and body admiration? Is it a story of cloth and the industry’s broth? Is it a body ministry or a simple little paltry? Is it an occupation with a style demonstration? Is it an operation, an opinion or presentation? All above is about number one occupation of fashion – the in- and-out of profession in higher education. An American designer, Claire McCardell, once said that people without a sense of fun, of dash, of whim, might misunderstand fashion. For scholars, for students and educators who are involved in the teaching-learning body of knowledge in the academic process of fashion studies is a serious business.

As fashion trends are taking over the planet, and, historically, the role of fashion studies interferes with basic understanding of the nature of wearing clothes in appropriated style is the common core of information process and preparation to research. To get informed and be able to transfer and deliver the pieces of information and visual literacy into fashion craftsmanship and in the creative skills with unlimited offers of the talented individuals and their intellectual liberations and self-expressions is the driving forth of handling the "mystery of the unknown.”

Contemporary urban legends in popular culture, traditional folktales always gave up the common core of extensive overviews on the breath of multicultural traditions, revealing the historic characters of the countries and its people as well as their time-honored values and costumes. The familiar fictional tales provide in-depth materials for popular culture products in songs, craft, and images accompanied by historical and geographical backgrounds of research exploration.

I live and work in Miami, and Southeast part of Florida has a special visible place in American popular culture. In the 21^st century, fashion together with arts, design, and entertaining associates in people’s mind with chic, style, luxury, and shopping. Consumerism is an economic expression of American socio-economical American Revolution. Adam Smith recognized it and wrote in the Wealth of Nations, “Consumers are to economics what voters are to politics.”