Meghan Loftus

The fashion industry has a reputation for overemphasizing body image and materialism.  This reputation manifests itself on social media, and impacts how young women view themselves in comparison to the standard of beauty.  Fortunately, modern brand names and celebrities are making important strides in order to change both the stereotype of the industry, and how that standard is perceived on social media.

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Gigi Hadid image via

Two celebrities that are striving to change this perception are super models Gigi Hadid and Cara Delevingne.  They are among a number of women that are choosing to speak out about body shaming.  In one particular instance, Hadid posted pictures of herself on the runway from Paris Fashion Week.  A few pictures and a couple thousand rude comments later, Hadid instagrammed a picture of a typed paragraph that she composed in response to her body-shamers.  As a former athlete, Hadid says, ‘Yes, I have boobs, I have abs, I have a butt, I have thighs.  You can all make up reasons you think I am where I am, but really, I’m a hard worker that’s confident in myself, one that came at a time where the fashion industry was ready for a change.  I represent a body image that wasn’t accepted in high-fashion before…’  She closes her powerful ‘gram saying, ‘I hope everyone gets to a place in their life where they’d rather talk about the things that inspire them over the things that bring others down.’  Hadid is a positive example of having confidence in yourself and your body; a great role model for young girls.  Yes she’s beautiful, but she's healthy and happy with herself and that is an empowering message to young women.

Cara Delevingne recently stepped down from her runway modeling career, telling The New York Times it made her feel ‘hollow.’  Fashion-modeling since the age of ten, Delevingne has struggled with body comparison and shamers her whole life.  ‘There was a point in my life where I literally lived through a camera,’ Delevingne claims.  With her break out role as Margo in John Green’s Paper Towns, Delevingne is now one step closer to achieving her goal of acting, a goal she set for herself before she started modeling.  These two beautiful women have made it very clear that they felt pressure from the public and have taken a stand to make a change.  Their confidence and their empowering messages are inspiring to young women across the globe.

In addition to Hadid and Delevigne’s efforts, other prominent women are speaking up in defense of the fashion industry.  In British Vogue’s YouTube collaboration with Alexa Chung, The Future of Fashion, Episode 3 deals with body image and diversity in models.  Chung interviewed Cairlyn Mair in this episode.  Mair is a psychology teacher at the London College of Fashion; she teaches students to identify a problem in the fashion industry that they believe psychology could make a positive difference towards.  Mair says, ‘We need to educate people to be more media savvy for them to better understand that models are models and they don’t necessarily represent the whole spectrum of body type.  Nevertheless, studies have shown that having diversity in fashion imagery does increase sales.’  Chung also interviewed ‘the fashion oracle,’ Karin Franklin.  Franklin feels that if there were more diversity in the industry ‘every one could celebrate who [they] are' without feeling the need to compare.  British Vogue’s publication of this episode is another example of the fashion industry exposing its greatest flaw and making a conscious effort in fixing it.

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Cara Delevingne

In Teen Vogue’s November 2015 issue, an article titled Pretty Hurts discussed the obsession with touching up and perfecting pictures on social media: ‘Instagram has given rise to an unattainable beauty standard.  It can be a constant scroll of unreal body parts – the plumped lips, the thigh gaps, the yanked-in waists – that many women now aspire to have.’  The article lists that 63,538 teenagers admitted to getting cosmetic surgery in the U.S. in the year 2014.  That means, at a minimum, 63,538 teens felt so uncomfortable in their own skin, that they sought the means to alter their appearance with surgery.  It’s unfortunate that in a world today, we haven’t yet found a consistent way to use social media for good.  Inspiring others, motivating others, and using media for the greater good is what generations to come need to achieve. 

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Be confident and be bold, because you're beautiful.

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While supermodels and media platforms within the fashion industry are beginning to make a shift, the true change starts with you.  Make a conscious effort each day to make one decision that makes you feel better about yourself; maybe that’s running an extra lap at the gym, or sitting down and reading a chapter of your favorite feel good book.  Find in your life the things that make you feel comfortable and confident in your own skin and embrace them.  The most beautiful quality in a woman is how confident she is in herself and her capabilities.  Your mindset today, is what changes the mindset of generations to come.  So, be confident and be bold, because you're beautiful.

 

Meghan Loftus is a freshman at Saint Louis University studying Entrepreneurship within the John Cook School of Business.  She plans on merging her passion for philanthropy and her love of fashion into her future career within the fashion industry.  Meghan is a big believer in the power of lipstick and the Skinny Vanilla Latte.  To see more of Meghan's writing and personal style, visit her blog, Beyond the Boutique.

 

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