Unfashionable fashion

Tonight I spent a lot of hours, I mean a lot, drafting a position/ argument paper for my English 121 class. I haven't had to write this kind of paper for a long time. I was incredibly intimidated by it. The assignment is to draft a letter to someone or some organization addressing a specific issue and taking a stand against it. I chose to write to the Fashion Houses.  I vacillated quite a bit as I was trying to figure out who the BEST audience/ recipient of this letter would be. I settled on the fashion houses because all my research indicates that they are the starting point. They build the clothes in impossibly small sizes, then they pass said clothes on to the magazines to use for fashion spreads. They only pass on the runway sample sizes because it is very expensive to make these clothes and they can't sell them once they've been worn on the runway, therefore the magazines exhibit the clothes in those impossibly small sizes, because that is all they are given by the fashion houses. When we are only exposed to one kind of image we get used to that image, and all others become foreign and undesirable. I felt like I was studying this vicious and ugly circle, one that perpetuates itself and we sit back and not only watch it, we enjoy it.

I can not tell you how disturbing it has been to me to research the effects of media, not just on girls, but on women as well. We are all susceptible to the belief that for some reason the girl in the magazine or in a TV show or anywhere, really, is better than we are.  I have said it before, and I'll say it again, our worth is intrinsic. Please be aware of all the ways our society tries to tell us that we are worthy only if.... As the advertising moguls have said, if you want people to buy your product you must first create a problem and then fix it for them. 

Please, never buy into the myth that has been created by this industry, the myth that says you're only cute enough, beautiful enough, hot enough, whatever enough, if you are the same size as the girls on the cover, or if you can wear the right clothes or be the right person because of some external, transient thing. Please remember that every day it is our responsibility to teach our children of their worth. If we don't teach them someone else with a very different agenda will teach them instead.