Of course, we want to look just as beautiful, so we visit the nearest store and purchase the newest styles. However the results are not always the same. Also the fashion industry leads us to believe we are involved in this decision process, but really we are just followers of what clothing is provided in the stores and displayed in these advertisements. For example, Camouflage clothing is a new popular style, but if we choose to wear this type of clothing are we implicating that we are supporting the war? We may think we are involved in fashion, but are not told everything. Fashion is a direct result of what is publicly seen in the media through propaganda allowing companies to make large profits and agencies to promote hidden agendas.
Icons are another way that lies are promoted through fashion. Many of our idols today are being paid to promote clothing and other items for designers. Thus teenagers and middle-aged people want to purchase these items to dress like their idols resulting in large profits and fame for these designers. Unfortunately, fashion does not always stay the same. It seems that healthy and voluptuous figures are not in or as popular anymore. For example, icons such as Nicole Ritchie, Paris Hilton, and Mary-Kate Olson along with many more celebrities promote the new look of skeletal thin. This new look may beautifully display fashionable clothing but in fact is very unhealthy. Designers however are driven by this new skeletal appearance to make a profit, so as a result clothing is designed smaller and less material is considered hot and sexy.
“In this puzzling era of skeletal "beauty", so-called skinny jeans accentuate bones in the most graphic fashion: sticking close to skin they carve long, pitched-V slabs of free air from crotch to ground between the long pony-legs of the Blessed.”
Icons have shaped how people view beauty and as victims we are influenced by these unhealthy views.
Fashion exposes lies to us socially in school and in our community. In school there are a variety of cliques such as Punks, Goths, Geeks, Preps, and Jocks that allow each group to display his/her own individual style and fashion.
“Punk fashion, with its torn tee shirts, orange hair, safety pin piercings, necklaces of toilet chains, plastic pants with multiple exposed zippers, and mask-like makeup, . . . demonstrates . . . visual culture characteristic . . . of social regimes.”
How we look on the outside does not portray who we are on the inside. For example, the scariest Punk or darkest Goth style may frighten observers and be misunderstood by hiding the individual’s true character. Varsity jackets transform the smallest body frame into an athletic Jock by giving them the power and self-esteem necessary to compete and win. Men and Women’s business attire gives them an image of being well educated, sophisticated, successful, and wealthy but in reality their individual qualifications may not be suitable for the position. Fashionable clothing can hide an individual’s age, character, and physical abilities but can also give them their own unique individual style.
Fashion promotes unhealthy bodies, hidden agendas, fame and profit through propaganda in the media, icons, and socially. The newest trends or styles will make you noticeable, but may not make you beautiful or popular. Although this clothing plays a huge role in today’s latest trends, the selections should be based on clothing that improves our individual appearance.
WORK CITED
Leitch, Vincent B., p.2.
Burns, Janice Breen, p.1.
Leitch, Vincent B., p.1.
