In reply to Penny Martin:

Get well soon Penny.Ah Chooooo

In reply to Penny Martin:

Hello Penny.
Thanks very much for your answer and I'm sorry to hear you have flu.
I asked you the question because you are the only fashion academic I know of, I think.
In my question the matter of class was not really meant to be an issue, in that I was just trying to find two, clearly separate fashion styles - it is more the (if any)intellectual content that differentiates between the two styles that I'm interested in.
You think that these styles are completely different and those following them have different aspirations, but I believe these differences might only be very superficial in terms of the actual functions of these styles. But isn't a style superficial anyway?? Well that's a can of worms to me. Hence my question to you.

Those of a certain outlook and situation follow the Pete Doherty Ska fashion (which evolves with time of course, but will stay relevent) as others follow the sportswear/diamonte earing/terrier fashion (which also evolves but maybe not so obviously). These people are all emulating who they see as their contemporaries in the same way, maybe bringing a little bit of their personalities to their own look. It appears to me that this is the true meaning of fashion, as 'style' is only a personal quality.

In reply to Karl Fuler:

I think it's more fluid than that; everything seems to come full circle again regardless of which class level it 'started' out in. New trends emerging on the street are assimilated into high-fashion (the preserve of the upper-middle and upper classes mainly) which then begins to trickle down again; ready to wear collections are copied by the high street and so on...

In reply to joanne K:

I agree, it is more fluid - and more complicated, with so many different influences we could never keep track of.