Embrace Fashion With Intention

Fashion is alive; it is a continuous movement, a fusion of creative ideas, an ever-changing concept that gives birth to new beliefs and freedom to express oneself. Fashion also has an unpredictable nature in its ability to support lesser-quality materials and promote unrealistic expectations. 

Fashion trends are rapidly changing from one look to another. Less available clothes are usually in higher demand because their target consumers are the elite. But because most people cannot afford these clothes, they resort to cheaper brands and fast fashion, and once the novelty of current trends wears off, new clothes replace them. These unpredictable changes lead to an unstable fashion world that reflects unrealistic expectations of clothes and our bodies. 

Take the “old money” trend as an example. To achieve this aesthetic, people spend money on luxury brands, which are not within most people’s budgets. Instead, they resort to lower-quality clothes that fit the same look, thus supporting fashion that may not be made through proper and sustainable channels. Based on the 2000s, the “Y2K” look today pairs bright colors and flashy textures with low-rise pants. In 2015, the “slim-thick” look, which promotes a curvier body with a tiny waist and was popularized by celebrities like the Kardashian-Jenners, has now shifted back to the rich, thin aesthetic. 

These ever-shifting patterns are problematic, however, because it is impossible to constantly change your style and body type to fit what is popular at the moment. At the same time, consumers must also hold themselves accountable and avoid buying fast fashion for such unrealistic expectations and desires. If people were able to trust their own decisions instead of relying on what is safe and popular to buy, we would eliminate the demand for limited style choices. Both sides of the problem are important, as 66 percent of textiles in the U.S. end up in landfills, where they accumulate and most of the time cannot even decompose.

Limited fashion branches into unstable trends that are unsustainable for most, but it is just the nature of fashion to constantly change, and it continues to change with new ideas, designers, and stylists. Instead, it is important to choose clothes that suit your personal beliefs and expression, clothes that make you feel confident in your body, not what others feel confident in. If everyone individually chose outfits that they enjoy, then we wouldn’t have this sort of limited fashion because of how spread out the beliefs surrounding the way clothes should look would be. In order to reduce fast fashion and create inclusive environments, choose to support your own views on fashion and how you express yourself in your own clothes.