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The Effect of Fashion on Teenage Mental Health
Mental health is becoming an increasing issue across the world today, particularly with many of us stranded in lockdown thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. Your mental health can be affected in many ways from a wide variety of sources, some more surprising than others. Fashion has the ability to inspire confidence and allow us to flourish, but it can also have negative effects on peoples’ mental health, with teenagers being at particular risk. Factors such as body image, peer pressure, class issues and more can all cause fashion to become detrimental to teenage mental health. Industry pressure According to The International Conference on Addiction and Associated Disorders, people in the…
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Does Fashion Have an Ageism Problem?
Diversity is a hot topic in the fashion world, however, one of its lesser known elements – ageism – is rarely covered. We are used to seeing young, vibrant figures lining the pages of magazines or striding down the catwalk, but we never think to question it. Why aren’t there more older models, and why does most fashion seem to be aimed at younger people? Unfortunately, ageism is an issue that is rife across a wide variety of industries, but fashion’s unwillingness to accommodate for older people is particularly glaring in an age of mass consumption and rapid fashion industry growth. Missing mature models Models are a major part of…
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How Fashion Pressures Our Body Image and Sense of Self
Docile bodies The social theorist, Michel Foucault, wrote about ‘docile bodies’ – where the body is a passive object being acted upon by society’s discourses surrounding issues such as health and beauty. He believed that there is a constant societal pressure on people’s behaviour and body image as we are continually being observed by some kind of authority, often stemming from institutions such as education and media. In today’s world, we are so connected that it is impossible to exist without being subjected to the scrutiny and expectations of society. Both men and women feel the pressures of contemporary fashion to look, dress and act in certain ways, or else…
