Designers
Breaking the Silence: Confronting the Body Shaming Culture
Breaking the Silence: Confronting the Body Shaming Culture
It must have happened to you that you like a dress, but you go to the store, and your size is not available.
This problem sometimes occurs because your size is a normal size and has high sales, but sometimes this problem occurs because your size is larger or smaller than the size of the clothes in which you are in the size range.
Is produced. This is the time when you go in front of the mirror and feel ashamed of your body size.
It is not bad at all to criticize your body if it is because of damage to your health, and it can be solved with exercise, diet and taking care of yourself, but most of the time, this negative criticism towards your body is because of words. The opinions of others and, of course, the negative policies of the fashion industry are what harm your body and mind.
In this article, we are trying to discuss the relationship between body shaming and the fashion industry by reviewing some issues and talking about the policies facing the fashion industry.
What is body shaming?
In general, body shaming means negative criticism and giving a negative opinion about a person’s body, which has a lot of negative effects on the psyche of the person who is criticized. Commenting on people’s bodies by saying things like: (because you are fat, this dress won’t fit you… or things like don’t eat so that your clothes don’t fit) rarely has a negative effect on people.
They suffer from bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa, which is known as the disease of fashion models.
Where did this matter start?
It was in the 90s when there were models on the cover of all the fashion and fashion magazines who were extremely thin and looked sickly because of the extreme thinness, but the opinion of fashion photographers was that the photos of these models were more beautiful.
It was at this time that the slender hourglass silhouette was chosen as the best silhouette of fashion and clothing, and most of the clothes were designed only for this silhouette.
Little by little, these images and designs affected people’s thinking and made those who did not have this body silhouette or were not thin feel that they were not good enough and try to improve themselves with irrational diets and even use drugs to bring themselves closer to fashion.
This issue did not only affect ordinary people but fashion models were severely affected by this. Many models were diagnosed with anorexia nervosa or anorexia nervosa. Some models ate pieces of cotton in order not to eat for a long time, and some overworked their bodies to reach zero size.
If for ordinary people this issue was just to be in line with fashion, for models it was their source of income and not having low weight and this silhouette was equal to losing their job to the extent that brands like Victoria’s Secret with professional models who are just a little more They were from size zero and did not sign a contract.
It seems that this issue was a media game for the benefit of brands. With this policy, brands could guarantee the sale of one season’s clothes with only one silhouette and a limited size range.
This game has progressed to such an extent that until recently, no actor or singer with a normal or slightly higher weight could have a career, and the main role of every movie or series we watched was a woman with an hourglass body and thin body.
Where did the fight against body shaming begin?
About two decades later, and almost from 2010 until now, stars appeared who were very talented in their specialty, but did not have the appearance characteristics of being hourglass and thin.
Stars like Adele and Lizo, who are wonderful singers, were not only underweight and thin, but they were also not ashamed of their weight and body according to the media stereotype. They encouraged people and their fans to love themselves the way they are.
With the expansion of the power of the media and social networks and, of course, more awareness of people about the complications of severe weight loss, the policies of the superiority of the thin and hourglass body are gradually being removed.
Of course, this change of view has not only occurred in the people and the nature of that media, but many brands have also changed their view of beauty. Many emerging brands only design clothes for plus-size people, and big brands have also added plus-size lines to their products.
Some brands, such as Versace and Prada, no longer sign contracts with size zero models with the aim of eliminating excessive thinness, and hundreds of other measures are being implemented in this direction.
The most important issue is understanding and accepting that people’s weight is different at different ages and conditions. As fashion designers, we should consider that the principle of diversity in production leads to better sales in a wider market.
Production policies with a large number and low variety of policies are obsolete, and considering different bodies and different weights of people in the design of clothes in the last decade is a guaranteed policy that requires the hands of your artist and clothing designers.
