Fashion challenges us to think philosophically about concepts like inclusion and exclusion. It serves both social and cultural functions by establishing norms and fueling consumerism. According to theorists like Mauss and Bordieu, the clothes we choose train our bodies to move and present ourselves in certain ways. The document discusses how some, like Chanel Park, found their place in the fashion world despite not fitting the typical image. It notes increasing diversity at events like New York Fashion Week, with more plus-sized and racially diverse models, showing fashion's depth when it features a range of identities.

1. Umar Siddiqui, 9/15/16
Sostrenews: Fashion: Fitting into Fashion World
Fashion features ample things and ideals. It challenges and incites ontological and
philosophical questions. It encourages insightful thinking and inquisitive pondering. It is easily a
very cyclical phenomenon and so enigmatic, as it is composed of binary elements, such as
inclusive versus exclusive, skinny or slender versus plus-sized, subtle or simple versus
extravagant and showy, minimal versus baroque, and mainstreams versus hipster. Fashion is not
only an expansive, multidimensional field of aesthetics and artistic beauty blended with social
and cultural and philosophical elements, but it serves social, psychological, and cultural
functions, like iconisation through models, photography, and themes and consumerism through
branding and commodification. It establishes and reinforces codes and stylistic conventions.
According to Mauss and Bordieu, “how we clothe the body” is an active process or a
technical means to create or represent a bodily self. The body is naturally trained to inhibit and
internalize postures, movement, and gestures. Bodies are worn through technologies of
movement, gesture, projection, and restraint.
You can have personified fashion. You can find yourself through it, no matter what you
image is. Chanel Park, who never expected to fit into her fashion world’s realms, reflects she did
not fit the image. She, however, is in the fashion world and she finds depth and diversity in it.
Models like Marquita Ping, Sabina Karlsson, and Georgia Pratt, walked on the runway
that featured a notable amount of plus-size models, according to Parks. She reflected that gender
identity has been played with but that racial and cultural identity and diversity was more
prominent and dealt with this year at New York Fashion Week.
Seeing fashion is everywhere; it is unavoidable. Relating to it is made easier by diversity,
depth, and breadth and meaning becomes more evident.