6. Modern society is a slave to fashion. Comment.
Fashion, is something everyone in this world is connected to. As Katherine Hamnett, a top British fashion designer once said: “Clothes create a wordless means of communication that we all understand.” Since everyone needs clothes, whether it is just for the reason of protecting oneself from cold or to create a good impression to others, clothes are inseparable from humans’ lives. Clothes are closely related to fashion, fashion refers to the unique, popular trend, often brought about by the newest materials in the market. Fashion does not only limit to clothes but also vary from architecture to literature to technology. Are the people of today being manipulated by fashion when they are faced with unlimited choices? I beg to differ. The people of today, as a result of globalization, demand some freedom of choice in almost everything they do. As this applies to fashion, something fashionable might be deemed unaccepted by some and acceptable by others. At times, people today might follow the trend, but they are certainty not controlled by fashion. On the other hand, they might be using fashion to achieve their personal objectives. There are instances where one’s life and daily actions all revolve around fashion, thus one is called a slave of fashion. However, these are just the minority in the society, and some are slave to fashion because of means of survival. As such looking at the society as a whole, I strongly believe that the modern society will not be a slave of fashion.
As fashion refers to a popular trend, those in the line where their popularity matters, will be a slave to fashion so that they are deem to have a good fashion sense and thus always remain popular with the change in time. When one wears something that is not fashionable, others might say that they are outdated. For an office worker or a manager, it does not matter if others do not favour them. However, for a celebrity for example, their popularity determines how successful they are in their job. If they do not dress fashionably, their popularity might drop and there goes their opportunity to star in the upcoming movies. For example, celebrities like Madonna, Paris Hilton and Jennifer Lopez, they will always wear new designer clothes to awards presentation. As they employ designers to dress them in clothes that went down the runway, they are helping to publicize for fashion. Thus they can be deemed as slave to fashion. However, it is also arguable that they are not the slave of fashion. Instead, they are making use of fashion to gain both fame and do a business. As stated in BBC article “fashioning a business out of fame”. OutKast's Andre Benjamin gains additional fame as he sets up his own clothing line. In this way, fashion is a slave rather then them being a slave of fashion. As they make use of what is in fashion to reap benefits of their own. Therefore, even those who need to keep up with the fashion on a regular basis are not necessarily slaves of fashion. Hence, the modern society is definitely not a slave to fashion.
As stated in Wikipedia, the modern society is engaged in consumerism and materialism. This could be clearly seen through how compact disc players, digital media, personal computers, and cellular phones, all began to integrate into the affluent American’s everyday lifestyle. As the modern society gets more materialistic, they will continue to achieve their happiness by purchasing increasingly more materials that are latest in the market. The modern society will demand more materials as they are able to gain happiness through them. This will mean that their happinesses will be controlled by the possession of what is the latest in the market, what is fashionable. If they are able to follow the trend and possess the latest gadget, they will then feel happy. As a result they will become slaves to fashion, as they gain happiness by staying fashionable. Therefore, as seen from research by Wikipedia that the modern society gets more materislistic, they will then become slaves to fashion.
On the other hand, modern society uses fashion as a means of religious identity, to portray one’s emotions, allow to to look atractive and protection. By how a person dresses, others are able to identify what religion does he belong to. Moreover, religions are also able to use fashion to spread their culture. For example, Orthodox Jewish men wear long black suits and Islamic women cover every part of their body except their eyes. Their dressing allow their religions to be make known to others so that others would know the code of behaviour to observe around them and also allow more to be aware about their religion, tradition and culture. These traditional costumes could be worn by others who are not from the particular religion, but they do not need to change their habits just because they change how they dress. One example is seen locally in Singapore where Chinese wear the Malay traditional costumes-baju kurung. However, they continue to eat Chinese food which are non-halal and do not pray everyday in the direction of Mecca. Similarly, Malays are seen to wear the Chinese traditional costume too, but their practices do not change. Therefore, it goes to show that the modern society uses fashion to benefit oneself by achieving personal objectives, yet not allowing fashion to control one’s actions.
In modern society, people rather dress to express themselves and work more comfortably, than to stay in fashion. According to Marlow’s hierarchy of needs, basic needs of survival must be gratified before higher needs like need for beauty. Therefore, one will be more concerned about one’s survival before being able to stay in fashion. As globalization continues to take place and competition for survival is crucial, men will be more focused on how what he or she dress will create an impression to enable them to succeed in work or life. An example is how Indian females are wearing more trousers as they find it difficult to work with all the pleats (of the sari) and it does tend to be cumbersome, as stated by BBC news. Fashion designer Nikhil Mehra also stated that, "There are more professional women working now than before, and since most of them are dealing with international clients, they are bound to imbibe some aspects of western culture.” This showed how globalization have allowed fashion for the Indian females to change from saris in the past to wearing pants with blouses and shirts today, because their women found that it facilitates movement more easily as compared to the saris. Therefore, the modern society determines fashion according to comfort rather than allowing fashion to enslave them.
One certain thing in the fashion world is change. Since fashion keeps changing, something must have caused. Although few might be enslaved by fashion, fashion is created and determined by man. Without man, clothes and other materials used by man would not have been invented. Hence, instead of saying man are enslaved by fashion, they are actually enslaved by those who create and determine fashion. Therefore, no man is enslaved by fashion. They either are those who create fashion, determine fashion or enslaved to those who create and determine fashion.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
essay outline
2. Singaporeans are too apathetic to take an active part in politics. Discuss.
Definitions:
Apathetic=indifferent
Politics=regarding the management of a country
Definitions:
Apathetic=indifferent
Politics=regarding the management of a country
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