Do cars and fashion have a relationship?  As a jewelry artisan, I never thought about that when creating wire jewelry before so I was hot on the trail.  Talk about interesting!  My research opened my eyes and I am amazed. Photo by Brandon Brown on Unsplash

How Cars Influence Fashion Trends

Fashion influences car design, and vice versa. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

Check out https://www.autoinfluence.com/fashion-influences-car-design.  An automobile, like clothing, protects, decorates and provides a traditional means of getting around but also emits their personal, unique character. 

Car Designers Benefit from the Influence of Fashion

Both industries share a love of emotion. Their goal is to wrap color and materials, such as leather, around a form, whether it be a human body or a car body. 

Finest Materials and Craft

Luxury car manufacturers and the world of high fashion are linked by a common philosophy: they both take the finest materials and craft them into an exquisite and desirable luxury good that expresses the taste and lifestyle of their clients.

Designing a Car Based on Age, Politics and Fashion

But fashion and car design have always had a relationship with each other. From the 1930’s to the 1960’s there was a lot of creativity in designing a car based on the age, the politics, and the fashion sense. Handbags were first designed as an accessory to store driving gloves

Just think, women wouldn’t even carry handbags and purses if not for the car. American designers turned those accessories into the modern handbag.

Fashion and Car Design Always Played Off of Each Other

Think back to the 1960s or even earlier to the 1930s, when there was a lot of creativity in designing a car based on the age, the politics, and the fashion sense. 

Just think, women wouldn’t even carry handbags and purses if not for the car.

When cars became popular, the first prototype of a modern handbag was created as an accessory to store driving gloves.

American designers turned those accessories into the modern handbag. For men, cars influenced fashion design of tweed driving caps and leather jackets.

In the 1950s, popular whitewall tires on a car influenced the trend for men to have slicked-back hair styled like Cadillac tail fins and women in white bobby socks. 

Today, automobile aficionados and fans collect vehicles due to their beauty. 

Iconic Vehicles as Objects of Art

The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles displays a vast array of iconic vehicles that have become objects of art, not just classic antique cars. The partnership between fashion and car design represents a shared tradition of exclusivity, personalization, style, individuality, and quality.

A new automobile launch is like sending a runway model down the catwalk with a creative fashion style.

Cars Influence Fashion. Fashion Influences Cars and Vice Versa.

Fashion designers have taken cues from the auto industry with race car designed looks like motorcycle boots, and leather zip-up jackets.  

Whether it is fashion or an automobile, it takes teamwork to assemble a new ensemble or vehicle.

Both see their palettes as exclusive art forms. 

Fashion has, and will continue to be, a major influence on automobile design and maybe even the other way around. Check out this link to see how fashion influences car design: https://www.autoinfluence.com/fashion-influences-car-design/

Designers focus on creating timeless design.

Fashion designers strive to create timeless design – something that feels fresh and current now but the consumer will be just as comfortable wearing ten years from now.   

Auto design is similarly challenging.  

Both need to consider the combination of materials, finishes, metals, and how color plays into the design without becoming overbearing.

Automotive designers as well as fashion designers need to strike the fine line between fashionable and daring vs. a long product life and everyday use. For more info, read this article: http://stylevanity.com/2017/04/jewelry-trends.html

Wherever there is a fashion week, there is an auto sponsor involved.

For eight years, New York Fashion Week was known officially as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week; the luxury car maker remains the title sponsor of fashion weeks in Moscow, Berlin, Sydney and Istanbul, as well as one of the leading sponsors of London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks, lending cars to ferry editors and VIPs between shows.  

“Fashion is a reflection of what’s going on in our culture — people in fashion have an appreciation of art, design, culture — and a lot of auto brands reflect that in their own positioning,” Source: https://fashionista.com/2016/02/car-companies-fashion-week-sponsors

So, there it is.  

These two industries not only influence one another but are intertwined in many ways.  When shopping for your next car think about fashion, color, and read this jewelry fashion blog!