At the 2014 Vogue Festival, Alexa Chung said that “clothes are about manipulations: How I feel, how I want to feel and how I want others to feel about me”. Such a statement proves that fashion is more than just clothes. It is about your own feelings and about shaping other people’s perceptions of you. Clothes act as an escape; a way of expressing yourself outside the boundaries set by society. But Alexa’s statement seems to keep fashion within society: fashion is based on what other people think of you.
How much is fashion about the clothes or the person wearing the clothes? Alexa ticks all the stereotypical boxes for being pinned as a style icon, but I ask this: if someone wore the exact same clothes as she did, but was a an older, slightly larger woman, would she receive the same stylish accreditation, as it were?
Fashion is interconnected with the person. Fashion is, after all, about what we see and so it might be argued that to have someone attractive wearing the clothes enhances the overall impact those clothes have. But it’s not just about looks. Age is a factor too. A Google search of fashion ‘icons’ comes upwith the following: Blake Lively, Zoe Saldana, Rhianna, Cara Delevingne and so on. In other words, women who tend to be young. Even Victoria Beckham, who in her 40s and is often cited as one of the most stylish celebri- ties, looks considerably younger for her age. The ‘classic’ style icons from the past – think Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor – all reached the pinnacle of fashion fame during their youth.
It is perhaps worrying that the first call for becoming a fashion icon is dependent on three criteria; slimness, attractiveness and youth. Without these, it is becoming more and more the case that the clothes them- selves are not enough.
There are exceptions, like Vivienne Westwood. Now in her 70s, she is still very much in the public eye for the clothes she wears. Then again, how much of this is because of her outspoken ideas and controversial views, as opposed to what she wears? Although talking about her personality rather than her looks, we are still back to the person, not the clothes.
If fashion is part of what makes someone’s identity then the clothes and the person can- not really be separated. The problem is when the media creates a certain ‘template’ for what a ‘stylish woman’ should be, typically listing only young, attractive women in their ‘The top 10 fashionable women of the year’ columns. There needs to be more diversity in how we showcase clothes and in who the media decides to pick out as stylish.
Alexa talks about clothes having the power to manipulate, but the media has also manipulated our perceptions of what fashionable ‘should’ look like. The answer to this is to make fashion more inclusive. Let’s take things back to basics by looking at the clothes themselves, not the person. By having more fashion icons who are larger, less flawless and older, we can make fashion something truly open to all.
