Fast Fashion – or Fashion For a Select Few?
Think of these words: Tall, slender, svelte, lithe, ethereal,
young, intelligent, presence, the it-factor, forward, special, timeless,
unique.
Then think of these next set of words: normal, satisfactory,
chubby, overweight, obese, ill-fitting, challenging, black, brown, red, yellow,
different, vanilla, unique.
Striking words, aren’t they? And that word “unique?” In fashion,
it’s a relative term, subject to interpretation. Whose interpretation, dare I
ask? That all depends.
Social consciousness, and the media have a symbiotic relationship
in that they feed off one another. In policing both men and women’s bodies,
society -- as bolstered by media expectations, aim to define society in a
binary modals of acceptable…or not.
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| An ad from American Apparel. It is quite obvious that the young woman is made to appear pre-pubescent while posing in a provocative manner that blatantly creates a sexually charged ad that means to keep the viewer looking and reacting at the piece |
 |
| Left: Type the keywords, "unique, diverse, woman, and Vogue on Google's search engine, and this is the first photo generated. Sample cover of Vogue Magazine US; Center and Right: Ads that have appeared in Vogue publications in Europe that are also available in the US. Note that the child model The child was only 10 years old when this was published. |
The fashion industry has always aimed its efforts to showcase what
is essentially a perfect specimen of a woman. Looking at some origins of how "good health" was marketed in the early years allowed me to understand how the term my have also shaped what we consider is fashionable about our own bodies. I discovered a historical fact
around Eugencis, when States promoted the "Better Babies" contests in state
and county fairs, as a message to promote what healthy human beings should look
like, and to send a message that only these types of babies would therefore be
predisposed to lead better lives and succeed. The darker side to eugencis, however, is that it only served the “standard” bodies that could
identify with these healthy babies – only white people. All those who do not
“look” the type, or behave differently or have special needs and attributes,
are therefore considered as undesirable and may even lead to their
sterilization or being committed to an institution.
On a different bend concerning epigenetics, it states that that, as “epigenetics opens us to new ways of thinking
about body-environment interactions, we are presented with a very narrow view
of what we ought to be and what we ought to do about who we are.” (Guthman,
n.d.) Fashion, in a way, is a form of cultural epigenetics in that it teaches us that one
culture or way of life must be better than another, based on the former’s set
of rules.
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| Left: Even global movie stars are made to appear white, if only to be more acceptable to the "global" market. Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan as appears on the cover of Elle Magazine (inset) Rai as she truly appears. Right: Even Justin Bieber can be re-molded to appear more virile, thanks to Photoshop. Can you spot the differences between the actual photo, and how he is made to appear on the Calvin Klein ad? (Both photos sourced from Bored Panda online, via Google) |
As fashion paints the ideal to be something we are all lacking and
must therefore want, men are still given more legroom and agency to move in
less confined spaces. In Hunger as Ideology, Bordo, we see that men are allowed the space to feed their virility, from appetites, to how they comport themselves as "macho" or simply "man." Women, on the other hand, must starve to look like a pre-pubescent 18 year old, considered as overweight or obese even in standard wights should they hit the scales at over 120 pounds.
Men’s
bodies are allowed the space to live and consume, to be masculinized and even sexualized
without derogatory attitudes where virility is celebrated, while women’s bodies
are regulated by fashion, only acceptable if they are less of themselves and of
their own femininity. This is true in fashion houses aimed at women, wo will sell you the latest clothing at sized 0 through 8 at a hefty price tag of $$$,
nd will rarely carry anything beyond that body size. Meanwhile 68%of women in America these days are at a size 14. A version of said dress will
appear at stores such as H&M and Forever 21 at lower price points, and
still, the sizing is aimed at the bodies of adolescents, touted at grown women. In the essay, Beauty and the Beast of Advertising , Kilbourne states that "Advertising creates a mythical, WASP-oriented world in which no one is ever ugly, ovrweight, poor, struggling, or disabled either physically or mentally...it is a world in which people only talk about products(122).
Who profits from this positioning of women’s bodies? Let’s break
down one source. Vogue magazine is an institution
in high fashion. Owned by Condé Nast, a conglomeration of subsidiaries and
partners support this type of fashion and even deem to call it an art form and
a lifestyle. Let’s not forget that even Instagram, Apple, and Facebook are some
of its affiliates. These affiliates are all in the business of visual imagery, where only the beautiful can ambit its space in popularity, and sensibility. The magazine's median consumer is a woman who makes at least $68k per
annum. Meanwhile, the average American woman aged 35-64 makes between $49k -
$55k. Even at that scale, women can never seem to even match the economic scale
for which this magazine is being touted towards. Between body policing and the
gender gap in terms of pay scale, the media is still forcing to bottleneck
women’s minds, emotions and wallets towards a scale that is only accessible to
few and only to a certain demographic.
Gender performance is a used as a tool to market what society wants from
women, and that if you cannot fit into its narrow mold, then something must be
wrong with you. As Judith Butler states in Gender
Trouble: Feminism And The Subversion of Beauty, “For something to be performative means that it produces a series
of effects. We act and walk and speak and talk that consolidate an impression
of being a man or being a woman…we act as if that being of a man or that being
of a woman is actually an internal reality or simply something that is true
about us. Actually, it is a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and
reproduced all the time” (Butler, 25).
Although this has been the norm
in nearly all societies, when it comes to fashion, commodification of women’s bodies
and how SHOULD be viewed is not only an industry trend, but also means to only
allow a select kind of woman to be considered in the public space as “woman”. For
as long as this is the norm, organizations and companies owned by the usual suspects
will continue to profit in a fashion that allows women to be subjugated, controlled,
regulated, and oppressed.
Sources:
Butler, Judith. " Gender Trouble: Feminism And The Subversion of Beauty". Routledge Press, New York, 1990.
Bordon, Susan. "Hunger as Ideology" Discourses and Conceptions of the Body. University of Clifornia Press, Berkeley, California, 1993. pp.99-134.
Guthman, Julie, and Becky Mansfield. “How Epigenetics Got Hijacked by the Body Police – Julie Guthman & Becky Mansfield | Aeon Essays.” Aeon, Aeon, 11 Nov. 2018, aeon.co/essays/how-epigenetics-got-hijacked-by-the-body-police.
Kilbourne, Jean. "Beauty And The Beast Of Advertising, 121-125.
“Sexual Objectification of Women in Media.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 May 2015, youtu.be/2c7rsfdemwU
Wallace, Kelly. “Do School Dress Codes Body-Shame Girls?” CNN, Cable News Network, 30 May 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/health/school-dress-codes-body-shaming-girls-parenting/index.html.
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