Fashion vs. Society

Very interesting OP-ED piece by India Knight on the never-ending model debate in the Times this morning. Knight takes the stance that people need to stop blaming fashion and start looking at themselves and society with regards to the continuing cycle of eating disorders and body hatred. Its a well written piece with alot to say.

"Why has this happened? The reason that’s churned out most often concerns the fashion industry and the alleged conspiracy between gay men and loony stylists to impose their distorted, misogynistic view of female beauty on the rest of us. Ergo, fashion people make you anorexic; ergo, Vogue makes you ill. That’s an incredibly simplistic take. But if fashion isn’t to blame, who is?

Well we are. The fashion industry hasn’t changed; we have. It is a fact of life that models have always been a) thin and b) young. The difference is that, until recently, people understood that models were working women doing a job, that they made sacrifices, most obviously when it came to not eating very much, and were richly rewarded for it. Nobody in their right mind wanted to be these women: they admired them in the pages of a glossy magazine and admired the clothes they wore, and then forgot about them and got on with their lives. Models occupied the same rarefied stratosphere as movie stars. Women used to be able to separate real life from airbrushed fantasy. We can’t any more".

I think this is is a unique perspective on a controversial subject. Fashion has always celebrated thinness and youth but only in the past decade has there been a societal uproar over it. While I do feel the aesthetic has gotten leaner over the years I think that some of the focus has to be put on society as a whole. I know that I've been guilty of ignoring reality when I look at the lean shape of a Gemma Ward or Lily Donaldson. It is easy to forget that their bodies are genetic anomalies and that 6ft tall, 100lbs is not an attainable look for most.

"Blaming the fashion industry for what is a societal problem is demonstrably not working. We need to look a little more closely at ourselves and ask how we’ve become so insecure as to believe in starvation as an indicator of beauty, and how we seem to have entirely lost touch with the idea that people’s interiors are more important than what’s on the outside."

I'm intrigued to know how others feel on this debate, does fashion just reflect societies wants? Or is there something deeper there within the industry.

Full London Times Article

And apologies for my extended hiatus. TFFF will now be updated bi-weekly with new content, new contributors and new editorials!