By Jade Bivens, Staff Writer
Fashion represents all individuals, allowing everyone to proudly display their unique personalities. Fashion does not hide individuals, and fashion is not just about styling clothes. Fashion is an individuals’ bold presentation to the world.
Oftentimes, people feel as though “having a sense of style” is an exclusive power only select people innately possess. Although coordinating and configuring an outfit indeed comes easier to some more than others, it is not reserved for a select few.
Having a sense of style can be expressed in many ways beyond clothing. An individual’s style may relate to their interests, such as music or film. Style can also relate to lived experiences, such as family stories, exciting travels, refined skills and new people. Through every experience, relationship or connection to the world, everyone can develop their sense of style.
Fashion allows individuals to weave together the singular threads of their lived experiences, make up the fabric of their identities and boldly wear it on their sleeves — literally.
Fashion is for everybody and every body. In American society, the stereotypical beauty standards and exclusive fashion industries often praise certain features and certain body types. The fat-phobic, Eurocentric, male-gaze-driven culture of beauty and “perfection” has consistently diminished the self-worth of most people at some point in their lives.
Portraying only specific features as desirable or worthy of admiration reflects the deep-seated racism, sexism and history of colonization that praised Eurocentric features to further justify the subjugation and discrimination of people of color. Cultural appropriation throughout the fashion and beauty industry furthers the notions of white supremacy today.
Although it is important to note that certain ethnicities and racial identities do not exclusively share any single facial or bodily features, it would be unworldly to ignore the patterns of features that do commonly appear among a certain group. Having said so, the common features among people of color — such as certain nose shapes, lip plumpness, hair textures and skin tone — have been demonized and ostracized in comparison to Eurocentric features.
In spite of not being well-represented in the media as attractive, desirable or even acceptable, everyone is worthy of feeling comfortable in their own skin. A good first step to feeling comfortable and confident in one’s skin is finding out what looks best on it.
One way to explore what looks best is to use inspiration from others. Individuals can see what aesthetics and styles they like, and then they can replicate such styles. Seeing styles or aesthetics on people who don’t look a certain way does not mean that anyone is excluded from trying that style. People are most confident in what “suits” them, so they should not be afraid to try new styles that they like.
To encourage everyone to have self-confidence in their own skin, I created the “Style Society” club at Georgetown College. My mission is exactly as it sounds: to style society. The “Style Society” club is for people to learn about fashion, develop their style and share ideas about what fashion means to them.
Learning different ways to express oneself and experimenting with different styles go a long way in discovering one’s identity and self-worth. Finding better ways to present oneself in different places is a great gateway to finding the places in life that fit everyone best, even if it means starting with a fitting room.
Remember, fashion is for everyone. Clothes are made to fit us — we are not made to fit clothes.
Categories: Arts and Entertainment
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