Every day, people wake up and wonder what they are going to wear. The suit and tie? The fast-food smock? Do we ever really think about why we go to all this trouble, or are we clueless? Why does fashion exist?

People use fashion to present themselves to the public eye. What we wear is an image of what we want the world to see.

Fashion exists to provide information about ourselves, who we think we are and who we aspire to be. It defines our age, our sex, our occupation and often, our ethnicity. A man walks down the street in a business suit -- and we gather information about him. A young girl wears a tank top and short pink skirt -- and we form an impression of her.

Fashion has evolved over the centuries. In cultures that wear few clothes, body paint is used as a substitute. In some cultures, the powerful decide what everyone wears. They use laws to mark off different segments of society from each other.

Today we tend to dress based on the way clothes appeal to our personal taste. If we like it, we like it. If we don't, we don't. We chose our style to express our personality. It's nice to be cool and to dress with the times. But let's be serious, what's cool now is probably going to look silly in a few years.

Carla Aaron-Lopez is a student at North Carolina Central University, where she writes for the Campus Echo.