The fashion industry is an industry that is growing and changing all the time. Fashion is a way of expressing who you are throughout clothes and is considered a type of art form. Even if you don’t know a single thing about clothes or aren’t fashion savvy, you yourself are a walking piece of art. You decided to put on clothes today to go to either work or school, but you chose your outfit according to colors or style. You chose to dress yourself by who you are as a person and how you wish people to see you. Fashion is all about being creative and mostly about being yourself.

As you may know fashion is not always about brands but that is how fashion is recognized and how it stands out to people. For example, when you see the check mark logo you automatically think about Nike. Another prime example is when you see MK on a purse, you think of Michael Kors. Many fashion brands have various fashion shows to show off their new season or new merchandise. There is always something in the fashion runaway that makes the brand and the brand’s logo stand out. In order to see the garment completely, a model must be wearing it and it makes the outfit complete. If you have seen any type of fashion show, many models are males and females that are tall and slender. I am a very fashion person savvy person and I love to see my favorite designers and brands execute a runaway. But all the times I have seen a show I have never seen a girl that is plus size. In every show I see all slim and tall girls but never a girl that is a bit bigger. This type of fashion is portraying fashion on just slim girls should just stop. Everyone in this world does not look like the model that is walking down the catwalk. All of us are different and we all have unique type of bodies different sizes and shapes. Some of our bodies may be slim but have curves or we can be curvy but with a little bit more weight. Today’s society makes young girls and women want to have slender bodies due to the fact that that’s all they see. We either see it on TV, billboards, magazines, and runaway shows.

We shouldn’t get carried away by the things we see online or what people say about the bodies we have. We are all different and that is what makes each of us unique. Girls that are a bit heavier than others feel like they don’t have the right to wear certain things that slim girls wear. I say this because I have encountered this issue with one of my friends. My friend loves everything about fashion. She is always up-to-date with the latest fashion trends and what celebrities are wearing. She always encourages me to wear certain things that I must admit are out of my comfort zone, but I do it because she tells me I would look good in it. My friend and I are always shopping whether if it is at Forever 21 or our local Target. We always seem to end up in the clothing section for some reason. We either like to see what is new or our favorite place the sale section. In couple occasions I have told my friend to try or buy several pieces of clothing that also takes her out comfort zone. One of the times we went shopping I told her to get a cute colorful crop top that went well with a fresh pair of jeans that she had bought a week earlier. I begged for her to give it a try and give it a chance. The only reason she did not want to try the top on is because she said “I can’t wear those.”  Confused I asked her what that meant and she told me that the way her body was and how the top is, it is just a no. She told me that crop tops are only for girls that are skinny and tall. That’s is when I told her that, that is something society today makes you want to think. They make you want to think that only certain type of clothes go on certain kinds of people, but that is all wrong.

Fashion does influence body image. I say this because a lot of people like to follows others in order to feel like they belong somewhere or in a group. Many fashion savvy people associate themselves with other fashion savvy people because they feel they need to be with that group because they understand the latest trends or brands.  Another way fashion influences body image is the way celebrities stand out and what they think fashion is. One example, a lot of people follow Kim Kardashian. Many will follow her because how she is as a person, for the business woman she is, or just by the way she dresses. A lot of people follow her because they wish they can be like her in maybe her body type or how she dresses. The influence celebrities have in our daily life influence how we do certain things also. Many celebrities wear certain things of a brand to influence you to buy that product. Whether we may admit it or not a certain celebrities made you wear what you are wearing today or maybe using a certain product because they sponsored it.

Fashion is a wonderful way of expressing who you are as a person whether if its by garment or colors, there is always going to be a story on why you do what you do now that makes you, you. But never let outside resources tell you what you should and should not do. All of us are unique and different, let’s stay that way.

Check out: http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/30205/1/how-should-we-tackle-fashion-s-body-image-issues

 

Marilyn Velasquez is currently a junior at Old Dominion University majoring in fashion merchandising graduating in the Fall of 2018. She is a very creative person and shopping is one of her favorite things to do, even though she knows she shouldn’t. She loves fashion because it gives you the chance to express yourself through clothes which made her choose her major. Besides fashion, she is a big coffee lover.