Intro to Fashion - Basic Vocabulary

As an introduction to the fashion world, let's take a look at some useful terms and vocabulary!

The Movement of Fashion

Fashion innovator – a person first to try out a new style.

Fashion influential – a person whose advice is sought by associates and whose adoption of a new style gives it prestige among a group.

Downward-flow theory – the theory of fashion adoption, which maintains that to be identified as a true fashion, a style must first be adopted by people at the top of the social pyramid, then gradually wins acceptance at progressively lower social levels.

Prophetic style – particularly interesting new styles that are still in the introductory phases of their fashion cycle.

Upward-flow theory – the theory of fashion adoption that holds that the young—particularly those of low-income families as well as of higher income who adopt low-income lifestyles—are quicker than any other social group to create or adopt new and different fashions.

Fashion Apparel


Price Zone – a series of somewhat contiguous price lines that appeal to specific target groups of customers.


Ready-to-wear (RTW) – apparel made in factories to standard size measurements.


Trunk Show – a form of pre-testing that involves a designer or manufacturer sending a representative to a store with samples of the current line and exhibiting those samples to customers at scheduled, announced showings.

Project Development


Anchor – a design from a previous season reworked in a different color or fabric.

Collection – a term used in the United States and Europe for an expensive line.

Product Manager (Specification Manager) – manager who oversees the purchasing and manufacturing process for a private label.

Private Label (Store Brand) – merchandise that meets standards specified by a retail firm and belongs to it exclusively. Primarily used to ensure consistent quality of products as well as to meet price competition.

Product Development – the teaming market and trend research, with the merchandising, design, and technical processes that develop a final product.

Global Sourcing and Merchandising

Market Center – a geographic center for the creation and production of fashion merchandise, as well as for exchanging ownership.

Market Weeks – scheduled periods throughout the year during which producers and their sales representatives introduce new lines for the upcoming season to retail buyers.

Boutique – a shop associated with few-of-a-kind merchandise, generally of very new and extreme styles, with an imaginative presentation of goods. French word for shop.

Couture House – an apparel firm for which the designer creates original styles.

Global Sourcing – term used to describe the process of shopping for and purchasing imported goods.

Fashion Retailing

Category buying / Classification buying – a practice whereby a chain store buyer located in a central buying office is usually assigned to purchase only a specific category or classification of merchandise instead of buying all categories carried in a single department.

Chain organization – a group of 12 or more centrally owned stores, each handling somewhat similar goods that are merchandised and controlled from a central headquarters office(as defined by the Bureau of the Census).

Departmental buying – a practice whereby a department buyer is responsible for buying all the various categories of merchandise carried in that department.

Leased department – a department ostensibly operated by the store in which it is found but actually run by and outsider who pays a percentage of sales to the store as rent.

Source:  Infashion: Fun! Fame! Fortune! by Elaine Stone