Size and Age

 

SIZE

The size zero debate continues. In glossy magazines. On billboards. In campaigns and advertisements. In retail. We see size zero models everywhere. With seeing, we also feel – the pressure and influence it continues to hold over us, the general public and consumers. Fashion designers the world over insist on using them, and only them to model their designs. Some of them try to defend themselves, saying the models are there to do a job, and that job is to wear designs. A living, strutting clothes horse if you like.

Are the designers right, or should that be DO they have the right to this attitude? Have they actually said that we too also have to be a size zero? Maybe it’s just our own insecure (or vain) state of mind? No. Ok, so designers can say all they like they are there to design clothes - clothes to fit model size. It is however, the designers who ‘made’ the models to be model size. The model fits the clothes, not the clothes fit the model.

Designers, like any other creator of a product are out there to sell. To anyone and everyone who’ll buy into it, and models are there to do exactly what any other visual in a campaign or advertisement are meant to do – entice and influence you, the consumer into not just buying into, but wanting to be a part of what they are and represent. The irony being we focus far more on what the model looks like rather than the garment she’s modeling.

If we are to stop focusing on what we want to see and start seeing and appreciating what and who we are, we need to shift eyes away from the size zero models and what they’re wearing, and instead look at ‘real’ people, ourselves and what suits us. Fortunately, there is a modelling agency which is now signing up and using ‘real’ people of regular size and look. ‘Real clothes for real people’. YOUR style. What suits YOU.

 

AGE

In fashion and styling it is vital for you to wear clothes that suit your general age range, but that by no means is saying there is an age limit to having style. Again, like with the age ‘rule’, style is about what suits you an individual, there shouldn’t be a restriction based on age. If you look good in it, if you love it, get it! Wear it! Too many people base their ‘style’ purely on their age. Doing so suggests everyone of a specific age looks and is the same – build, height, ethnicity...This of course is definitely not the case. Also, not everyone ‘looks’ their age. With all these factors in mind, only then can you really find what suits you. The more it suits you the more stylish you will be.

‘Dress your age’. Many women, particularly in their late 30’s/40’s enjoy the confidence age gives them and that should show through with the way they choose to dress. Certainly don’t wear the clothes of a 19 year old if you’re 39. Ok, it may have suited you back then, and if you’re really lucky, into your late twenties, but wearing clothes too out of your age range only risks ‘aging’ you. There are many approaches to choosing and picking what specifically suits you as an individual. Some of the best ways is to go shopping with your friends of a similar age. Make a day of it. Or treat yourself to a personal shopper. The essential thing to keep in mind is to embrace the range of colours, patterns, cuts and styles out there and never be afraid to accept who you are, what you look like, no matter what size or age you are. Individual style comes from being an individual first and foremost.

Written by Tom Farr