The Fashion Industry and Its Unrealistic Beauty Standards

The Fashion Industry and Its Unrealistic Beauty Standards
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The fashion industry, and by extension, the media is often criticised for promoting unrealistic beauty standards. To what extent do you think this criticism is justified?
The Fashion Industry and Its Unrealistic Beauty Standards
The stereotypes of beauty are based on Western beauty standards, and the western feminine aesthetics are tall and thin body archetypes with smooth and silky hair. The slender body type is shown as the ideal, and the fashion industry focuses more on the female body than the male body. Male models are mostly shown as ripped and chiselled. While there has been more focus on representing different body types and inclusivity showing women from different ethnic backgrounds, the idea of beauty is still Eurocentric in the fashion industry. Additionally, the catwalks and the media still amplify the message that a "size zero" is the perfect body size for girls and women. The body size, height, weight, eye colour, hair colour, and skin colour are some of the elements to which it is considered in beauty standards. The thin-ideal body type among girls and women is the most common in the fashion industry. The fashion industry, advertising, and the media still emphasize photographic retouching and unrealistic beauty standards where the image of extremely slender women is naturally unattainable.
The fashion industry influences beauty standards and advertising, where there is an overrepresentation of being beautiful—slender, tall, and without marks. In addition, there are gender stereotypes closely associated with beauty standards. It is no surprise that girls feel pressure to represent certain appearances based on beauty ideals and the gender stereotypes reflected in advertising. In any case, the fashion industry's beauty standards are reinforced through advertising and may cause girls and women who are different from the ideal beauty standards to have low self-esteem. The fashion and advertising industry have influenced people to hold unhealthy ideas on beauty.
The fashion industry is one of the main channels through which perception of beauty standards is modified. In the past few years, there has been a greater willingness to open diversity in the fashion industry and promote inclusion. This extends to defining beauty and the ideal body associated with gender. Physical beauty is one of the main features when identifying the lead models, and the photography focuses on the "ideal" slender bodies (MacCallum and Widdows, 2018, p. 236). However, the industry is pushing unrealistic beauty standards promoting the models and advertising clothes that are the best fit for the few very slim women. Since the industry shapes attitudes and options on beauty, when people internalize unrealistic beauty standards, they are more likely to perceive these images as the ideal reflection of beauty. Still, these bodies are unachievable for most people.
Beauty is subjective, but the fashion industry sets the standards of "ideal" beauty, and the advertising industry has aesthetic standards of beauty. The fashion and media industries standardize and impose models of beauty, where the fashion models are expected to meet high st...