Fashion and variation

The European idea of fashion as a personal statement rather than a cultural expression begins in the 16th century: ten portraits of German or Italian gentlemen may show ten totally different hats. Fashions among upper-class Europeans began to move in synchronicity in the 18th century; though colors and patterns of textiles altered from year to year, the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the pattern to which a lady's dress was cut altered more slowly. Men's fashions resulting from military models and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the "Steinkirk" cravat. The rate of change picked up in the 1780s with the publication of French engravings that showed the most recent Paris styles. By 1800, all Western Europeans were dressing alike: local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and then a badge of the conservative peasant.