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Learn how to embrace yourself and be body positive
Through this article I want to share more about how we can use fashion to cultivate a positive body image and learn to be proud and embrace your own skin (if you don’t already). This issue is not confined to women, I will also touch more on the topic of men and their body image and share some tips we can all implement to spread more body positivity. We are all unique, let’s celebrate our uniqueness. Enjoy! Body image In 2019, one in five UK adults felt shame because of their body image. For me, that is quite troubling. Body image is how we think and feel about ourselves physically,…
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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…
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Seeing yourself for the first time
The good, the bad and the self love “and I said to my body. softly. ‘I want to be your friend.’ It took a long breath. and replied, ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this” For as long as I can remember there has been a timeline of my life where I have hated my body and not seen myself properly. In primary school I felt too tall I would tower over the boys in my class then in high school this was not longer a problem, great right? No, you develop new issues for yourself. Now I felt like the bigger one in the group, I had…
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Plastic fantastic? Plastic fantastic? How fashion is leading more women to cosmetic surgery
Over hundreds of years our fashion trends, culture and spending habits have all changed along with the way we view ourselves. With cosmetic surgery on the rise, it has never been easier to have a quick pick me up whenever we feel like it, especially as more beauticians are becoming qualified to take a stab at it. The most common treatments in the UK are micro-blading, Botox and fillers, with 92% of all cosmetic procedures in the UK being for women. But what has driven this change? Contour, rejuvenate and enhance It’s quite overwhelming when looking into cosmetic surgery with so many different choices to “fix those troubled areas”, as…
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COVID-19: An Opportunity for Change?
How is the global crisis affecting consumer behaviours towards fashion? It seems an increasingly difficult question. Will the drastic changes we have seen in the short-term result in long-term positive change for the fashion industry? The complexity of our buying habits may need more than a month of lockdown to untangle the skein of consumerism. The complexities of aspirational culture: In an article on luxury fashion in China, the Journal of Retailer and Consumer Services looked at the relationship between the culture of aspiration which drives the luxury goods market and the economic reality behind its incessant growth. They look at fashion as a symbol and how this affects what…
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The global impact of COVID-19 on the fashion industry
As the COVID-19 global crisis unfolded, I watched in horror as many of the major fashion brands and retailers, without warning, cancelled orders and delayed payments to their suppliers and factories. This was because of the slowdown in consumption of their clothing, due to the closure of their retail stores. In many cases, this meant that the factories could not pay their workers for work that they had already carried out. Over 1 million garment workers in Bangladesh have lost their jobs or been temporarily suspended from work, due to these order cancellations and the failure of buyers to pay for cancelled orders. Many of these workers have been sent home…
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How the global pandemic will affect the fashion industry
The global pandemic of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill, with numerous countries in lockdown to slow the spread of the disease. While it is difficult to escape the news and panic surrounding this, businesses like the fashion industry can provide some escapism from the new reality. However, this current situation highlights how insignificant the latest trends can be. This is having a huge effect on the industry as people are turning to news articles rather than fashion blogs. Many companies have been forced to close for safety reasons and economic loss. With everyone staying indoors as advised by the government, retail therapy is out of the question…
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Coronavirus impact on the media and fashion industry
The coronavirus has hit 2020 in full force, turning our lives upside down and making almost every aspect of our society now alien to us. The disruption being made to our daily lives is clear, but the crisis is also having serious consequences on large corporations such as the fashion industry. The media is now more exaggerated than ever, delivering updates 24/7 which seem targeted to instil a sense of dread and panic whenever we scroll through our Twitter feed or turn on the TV. But the big question is, should we believe everything we’re being told or is the media causing unnecessary stress? As well as asking the question;…
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Is fashion killing our planet?
The UN has predicted that the global population could reach a whopping 9.8 billion people by 2050. If this happens, we will need the equivalent of 3 planets to provide the resources needed to sustain our current lifestyles. So how can one planet create all these resources? And how can we as consumers change our behaviour to stop us killing our planet? How Bad is the Fashion Industry Environmentally? We all know that fast fashion is causing the fashion industry to be one of the main pollutants of the environment. Each year we, as a planet, consume more than 80 billion items of clothing. Another £12.5 billion worth of clothes…
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Can we find a sustainable solution to the business of fashion?
The need for growth? Sustainable fashion, can we find a solution when it comes the business side? I think we can all agree that the concept of a business model striving for growth and pushing for more sales and higher profits is generic. Everybody is going for this and it seems as though there really is no alternative. Ofcourse a business wants to grow and make more money, why else would somebody make it? Even charitable organisations, although they are not keeping all the money themselves will still push toward more sales and growth in order to make more charitable funds. The ethical impact? When it comes to the fashion…
