How does fashion influence adolescents?
Almost everyone is
influenced by fashion and trends and I will explain why.
We can differentiate, among others, two very
characteristic types of people due to the way in which they face this
situation: there are so-called fashion victims, which are those
people who are constantly in fashion, are aware of the current situation in
this sector and they follow all the trends that appear; on the other hand,
those people critical of fashion, in one way or another, are also influenced by
it, because not wearing a certain garment because it is a trend makes you
constantly aware of current fashion.
And the most sensitive group to this type of situation
are adolescents . They
are in a time of their life of constant changes, of searching for their
personal identity and where they are highly influenced by all kinds of external
stimuli.
But, does fashion really influence them as much as we
think?
Fashion and social media
In these times, there has been a brutal social media
boom. They have gone from being a mere fun to become something basic of
our day to day,
How long has it been since you went a day without
visiting Instagram ,
Facebook or TikTok?
So much so that, as we saw a few weeks ago in the article
where he questioned the origin of current trends, one of the key points of
imposition of fashion at the moment are the social networks themselves.
And, who are the biggest consumers of this format? Exactly,
teenagers and young people.
These tend to follow a very common pattern: they follow those accounts with which they feel most
identified , they absorb all the knowledge that they
offer, be it about fashion, video games, lifestyle ,
etc., and, finally, they imitate their idols. In this way, we can conclude
that today's young people are highly influenced by fashion due, in part, to
social networks.
Another reason that shows why fashion has so much weight
on adolescents lies in the situation we live in today, globalization, the wide
communication we have, current marketing and advertising in response
to the great existing competition, fast fashion In
general, we can summarize it in the current situation of the fashion
sector. There is such an amount of advertising from so many different
brands, firms and businesses that our young people receive stimuli from a
multitude of platforms at all times, not only social networks and the internet,
the street is full of advertising that is related to fashion!
The search for personal identity
I have always said that fashion is a form of expression ,
that defines your way of being, your personality and even, at certain times,
your state of mind.
In this way, on many occasions, young people seek their
personal identity through fashion.
We saw a few months ago how fashion is considered a
cultural phenomenon, it identifies certain cultures and subcultures. Young
people, in their search for their inner self, at which time they seek to get
together with people like them, with similar tastes, one of the first steps
they take is to use certain garments that define those tastes and that allow
them to be part of it. and share that feeling of belonging to a certain social
group.
This, which is sometimes considered as a mere stage in
the life of adolescents, may be marking the beginning of the search for the
person they want to become and, for this reason, it is important that they feel
supported by their environment closest. In addition, adolescents tend to
have a bad habit of doing everything that is prohibited, since it is usually
more tempting for them.
But, the problem of fashion directly influencing
adolescents lies directly in the way in which they are affected by it. It
does not matter that a young person views a certain way, the conflict appears
when, in order to follow a specific fashion, they become obsessed and try to change certain
aspects of their life , as can occur with the appearance
of certain eating disorders derived from stereotypes featured in fashion
advertising.
So where is the problem really, in fashion itself or in
the advertising industry that usually
sells that to wear certain garments you have to have a specific body?
Be that as it may, what we are clear about is that adolescents are highly influenced by all
kinds of specific stimuli and are in an extremely important moment of personal
development, so we must try to know the type of advertising and content they
consume and be pending their behavior around fashion. Only in this way, it
will be possible to prevent this great influence that the fashion sector exerts
on them from becoming something harmful.