Fashion is all around. Whether or not everyone pays attention to the trends there are always ads for different brands and stores featuring glamorous models in expensive duds. Although the fashion world often caters towards women it doesn’t treat them very well. There are many aspects of fashion that can be detrimental to women. The fashion industry is often misogynistic, proved by the disrespect models receive, the expectations women are held to, and the fact that many designers don’t create clothes for realistic women.
Models are disrespected in many ways while on the job. One major concern for models is their health. There is an enormous pressure to be skinny. Designers often only create one sample size for the runway, and that size continues to get smaller (Sieczkowski, “New York Fashion Week 2012: New CFDA Guidelines Cull Underage, Underweight Models”). This increased pressure causes many models to develop anxiety and eating disorders. Another health concern is that models are often exposed to drugs on the job. A quarter of models say that they have had a drug or alcohol problem. This is very harmful especially because many models are under age. Over 50% of models begin working between ages 13 and 16. Since majority of models are still children, being exposed to drugs and the other pressures places them in a very dangerous environment. One of the other major concerns for models is the sexual harassment many face on the job. Often models have a severe lack of privacy when changing and may be pressured into posing nude without being asked before the shoot. 28% of models have actually been pressured into having sex with someone on the job and 29.7% have experienced inappropriate touching. Even worse, only a third of models who were harassed felt they could tell their agents, and many of their agents don’t see a problem with it or even encourage that behavior to get ahead (Ziff, “Industry Analysis”). This is disgusting behavior and models deserve to be given more respect and better working conditions to ensure their health. As the founder of the Model Alliance Sara Ziff says “ Correcting these abuses starts with seeing models through a different lens: not as dehumanized images, but as workers who deserve the same rights and protections as anyone else.”
Women everywhere are held to ridiculous expectations by the fashion world. It’s not just the models that are expected to fit into these boxes. By mainly portraying young, super skinny, very made up models, the fashion world is sending forth the message that that’s the pinnacle of beauty people should be trying to achieve. This is extremely unrealistic and causes many women to develop self-esteem issues that can go so far as manifesting in physical disorders. Although fashion ads aren’t 100% responsible for the high rate of eating disorders in America, it’s definitely a large factor. Young girls are looking at the images portrayed in fashion and comparing themselves. Constantly being pitted against these unattainable images eventually has a psychological effect (Rodenbough, “Fashion Industry Promotes Eating Disorders”). The fashion industry is guilty of putting this image forward with skinny, under age models, who are photoshopped. Photoshopping images makes them literally, physically impossible, although many women still feel the need to achieve that impossible goal. As Huffingtonpost has pointed out, even if the photoshopping is horribly evident, it hints towards how asinine the image is that the fashion world is trying to push. Almost every magazine photoshops their models so it’s hopeless to find fashion images that portray reality (Duca, “Photoshop FAQs: Why Our Obsession With Unrealistic Body Images Needs Retouching”) Even worse than simply providing this standard is that there are shows that degrade women for not sticking to these expectations. Women are actually ridiculed by other women for not sticking to a completely societal construction of what’s considered beautiful.
Designers often design clothes that don’t work on regular women. The US market for women’s clothing is twice as large as the men’s department and yet only a fraction of women can easily find clothes that fit them (Statista, "Sales of the U.S. Apparel Market in 2011."). Many fashion designers are men that do not have an understanding of and/or disregard the female form, creating garments that do not really look good (Rodenbough et al.). On top of that clothes are often designed for underage models that do not have curves, therefore the clothes don’t work on normal adult women (Sieczkowski et al.). Sizing of clothing is also extremely skewed. Often smaller sized garments are just sized up for plus sizes. As fashion consultant Tim Gunn has stated, "It's not a matter of sizing up or sizing down from a size six, it's a matter of reconceiving things altogether. There are just some things that you can't or shouldn't do [design-wise]," (Krupnick, "Tim Gunn: Fashion Seems To End At A Size 12"). This doesn’t work because bodies aren’t just perfectly proportional like that. Too often women, especially those that aren’t size zero, are slighted by designers. It’s extremely difficult to find clothes that fit, and often when they do they just don’t look good. Bigger girls deserve just as much attention and trendy options as skinnier women.
Fashion is a beautiful art form but the industry that’s fabricated around it has some serious problematic behaviors and skewed views of the world. Fashion often degrades women as evidenced by models' working conditions, unrealistic expectations, and clothes not being created for average consumers. The uncaring attitude towards the demographic fashion is usually aiming at is astounding. So many things need to change to allow women to be free of these chains. The fashion industry should open their horizons to ensure the health of women everywhere.
For this essay I really looked at how the fashion industry treats women as a whole. While researching my topic in general I came across the Model Alliance website. Looking around on the website I found many startling facts about the poor working conditions and sexual harassment models face on the job. I started noticing a pattern of misogyny in an industry that is usually known for catering towards women. I decided that an essay was needed to truly bring this to light. I used a lot of research from the Model Alliance for the statistics about models. Then I used some articles from MEL and Huffingtonpost for discussion of how women in general are negatively affected and targeted by the fashion industry. These articles spoke to the fact that, although the fashion world isn’t directly responsible for eating disorders, the images they portray absolutely contribute to the image that skinny equals beautiful. Huffingtonpost really looked at the dangers of photoshopping. This article really examined the fact that everything is so photoshopped it’s impossible to find a realistic image of a model. They also made the good point that even if the photoshopping is obvious it reveals the scary truth of how much other images are being edited. For information on plus sized clothing I looked into interviews with Tim Gunn to discuss the lack of clothing for plus sized women. I know that he has always been an advocate for real sized women and a prominent figure in the fashion world. I really like what he has to say about how you can’t just size up a garment, you have to reconstruct it. He makes some great points about how bigger women are definitely targeted and rarely get clothing that looks good, which is ridiculous since majority of women are not model sized. I feel pretty good about the essay. It’s not the best essay I’ve ever written but it does what it needed to. I think it could have been more centralized but I really wanted to hit on how models and all women are treated and how women are viewed and judged as a whole. I think I clearly conveyed my points although each one deserves more than one paragraph.