Fashion is a part of our lives, whatever we say or think about it. It is a mode of our expression, it is a way of creating different facets of our persona and personality – the intimate lover, the calm business person, the fun outgoing friend, the caring parent, the cozy loving pet parent… It defines our sports interests, the state (both current and previous, and to some extent the future) of our psychology, how we relate to our society and the rigidity or fluidity of the society itself. In rigid societies, fashion may become non-existent, because fashion as a term describes multiple options of mode of dress and self-presentation, which is at odds with societies desiring a non-descript, cloned look and behaviour in everyone; at the same time, even rigid societies often develop a form of fashion (such as different types of head wear or face covering, all of which are often perceived as determiners of acceptability by the most extreme members of that society, much like our own Western society had and still retains in the most extreme communities – examples of that are attacks on women whose veil is “too loose”, perceptions of colour in some societies, the short skirt in both Salaula and, in a way, the West).
Fashion, however much many feel it is forced upon them, is actually a huge part of building our actual self the way we wish to. While options are presented, nobody forces one to take them in a fluid society, and even within a certain amount of uniformity and convention, there is always choice. It is, however, crucial to understand that the complaints about enforced look in a fluid or at least semi-fluid society, insofar as actual cases of pressure are absent (which is why you should always work on case-to-case basis when looking at this type of data), stem from not the fashion itself, but the person and their feeling of discomfort with themselves in the surrounding society. Love songs are not an insult to once-abused now-feminists; fashion is not an entity and cannot force you to be someone else (for instance shave your legs or wear a skirt or makeup); your phone or your FB will not prevent you from exercising (but it will be bad for your psyche to switch off all contact with friends) and your TV watching habits are no problem insofar as you exercise to the program you are watching at least most of the time (you should see me to Disney’s Hercules… I can go the distance 😉 🙂 ).
In short, fashion, like many things, simply is. It is a fact of our surroundings, it has always existed and it always will. It has helped us shape our specific self to a T and it is up to us to make the best or the worst from it.