Fashion is less about art than it is about reinforcing the worship of thinness

Fashion is supposed to be about "self-expression," "taste," and "aesthetics." That's all fair and nice rhetoric from your friend going to FIT, and I believe that they believe what they are saying, because I love fashion too--I spend hours curating my various fashion Pinterest boards (which can be found here if anyone is interested). I love the way patterns, palettes, and textures come together to create a look.

But something tugged at me recently. I was trying to put together an outfit, but I kept rejecting pieces in my closet because they "wouldn't fit right." My shoulders were too broad and "masculine" looking for spaghetti straps. My waist wasn't tiny enough for crop tops. My legs looked too thick in oversized T-shirt dresses. I realized that so much of my "style," and in fact so much of fashion today, is not about patterns, palettes, and textures. I wasn't rejecting these pieces of clothing because I didn't think they were pretty, I just didn't think they looked pretty on me. I didn't feel pretty enough to wear pretty things. Fashion, I've realized, is not about innovate or aesthetically pleasing design. It's not art. Instead, it's about "fit," i.e. marketing a certain body type, and the clothes simply serve as aesthetic packaging.

Let's look at some "fashion" trends of today:

The crop top.

The high waisted jeans.

The high waisted mini skirt

These clothes are specifically designed, not to simply exist as pretty clothes, that would make any wearer universally pretty, but to show off a specific body type--the thin/lean body type. It's not so hard to crack the code on "style." It's not hard to understand and buy the right clothes to be "fashionable." That's not what any of us are struggling with when we struggle with fashion. What sets these girls apart is the fit. They have the type of body that is considered the current ideal, and these clothes are simply props to show off that ideal to the rest of us. Oftentimes I'll see Instagram or Tik Tok famous "influencers" of fashion and they'll all wearing the same copy and pasted outfits showing off their copy and pasted thin bodies. It's interesting when these influencers who wear the same crop top and miniskirt everyday are lauded for having "fashion sense" or being a "style icon," when I really feel like the clothes are simply a nice frame, and the body wearing those clothes is the painting, and the painting is what we're really all looking at. On a pretty painting (i.e. the conventionally attractive body), any frame will look good. We aren't really liking the frame, we like the painting, and we like how the frame goes on this painting that we have already been conditioned to like. The same frame on a not as conventionally attractive painting won't garner any interest.

I actually admire all of these influencers in the photos above, because they all seemed genuinely interested in fashion as a mode of art/design, and I believe they must all have strong work ethics to put out so much content. In many ways I am sure they deserve their success, but in many ways they've also been lucky to have conventionally beautiful bodies with thin legs, slender frames, and the tiny waist. And it's certainly not like they all woke up and decided to ruin the self esteems of the girls following them, but that is not to deny that they profit off of unrealistic ideals that those same girls struggle with.

I also genuinely admire their fashion style--especially Ashley (from bestdressed) centers her channel around various fashion tips and I can tell she sees fashion on the level of art and self expression, but a lot of her outfits are also centered around her conventionally attractive features such as her tiny waist and collar bones. She has talked about this openly on her channel, that she likes to enhance these points that she likes about herself. And what decides what things we like about ourselves? I think it's often used as a self-love talking point to "find things we like about ourselves" and use makeup, or clothes to "enhance" those, but why do we like those things? Usually those are just the parts of us that do happen to fall into conventional attractive standards. Because the reverse side of that, are the features of ourselves we don't like, that we learn to hide, and ultimately you will forever be using makeup and clothes as a crutch if you are always trying to "play up" the parts of you that society likes and conceal the parts it doesn't.

When fashion is so centered around a certain type of body, what is left for the rest of us who don't have these conventionally attractive features? I enjoy styling and fashion for the aesthetics, and for self expression, but it's hard to do so when it seems "aesthetic" is synonymous with thin and often white girls, and it's hard to self express in a way that's true to myself and what I find beautiful, rather than expressing myself in a way hoping that others will perceive me as attractive.

I look into my closet, and it's full of beautiful pieces, trendy pieces, but it's gotten to the point where I don't see these clothes as things of beauty on their own anymore, because I'm too obsessed with how it fits on my body, or rather nothing seems to "fit" on my body like it fits on these girls. Of course it doesn't--I am a regular looking person with arm flab and some belly fat. Of course I could wear a crop top anyways and just have my belly hang over, but I think what I'm trying to relay throughout this article is that a crop top's "aesthetic" or "fashion" is only applicable to thin girls. It's not that the crop top itself is pretty, but it serves to cement the aesthetic of the type of body we worship in society. So you literally can't just enjoy these pieces--whether it be the crop top, the mini skirt, the high waisted jeans--in a normal body. It defeats the whole purpose, because the purpose of those pieces is in conjunction, in service to the thin, slim body. Again, it's the body that is being marketed, not the clothes are simply a frame.

I just hate how I am always bargaining with myself--I could wear this and that, I could be fashionable, but only if I lose 15 pounds first. Why does fashion have anything to do with body type? Every body, in my opinion, is beautiful when we are taking care of our physical and mental health. I am healthy. So why do I feel like fashion, which again, should be an exercise in personal expression and aesthetic beauty, is so inaccessible to me? It's also difficult when you go shopping for clothes. I see on youtube or instagram how clothes are "supposed" to fit, but those same pieces don't fit like that on me, so I can't wear them, but then what do I wear? Even if I don't care about being "trendy," clothes designed specifically for the thin body has been around for decades, if not centuries. I would have to go back to the Roman toga. So we either have to normalize belly fat peaking out of crop tops, or we make pieces that are flattering to different body types. But then what is flattering? I often see "flowy" and "unshaped" pieces being recommended to wider people. As an inverted triangle, I know that A-Line skirts are supposed to be "flattering" on me, but why am I trying to hide my broad shoulders in the first place? Who decides what is flattering?

Or I've seen "showing off my chest curves" recommended for wider people (which, first of all I personally have belly flab AND a smaller chest, so where does that leave me?) but then why are curves the pretty part? I feel like the bigger chest's rise to being a standard of conventional attractiveness has such a history of weird fetishization from men.

But I digress.

i think a specific and very demonstrative example of how fashion is centered around marketing a body type rather than being art, is Brandy Melville. I think everyone sort of agrees at this point that the clothes are extremely basic looking, and pretty boring. Brandy Melville clothes are not art. But it was never about creating beautiful clothes, it was about creating clothes that went well with and reinforced the aesthetic of thinness equaling prettiness. Brandy Melville doesn't even try to hide it--they have a one size fits all, that basically only really "fits" on girls who have the Kate Moss waif body type. To my previous question, "When fashion is so centered around a certain type of body, what is left for the rest of us who don't have these conventionally attractive features?" Brandy Melville is telling us loudly and clearly to get fucked.

It's even more obvious in runway models too. I know some people will say that "silhouette is part of the art," and if you're talking about puffy sleeves, or the flare of the skirt, I agree, but how is it that designers will run the most groundbreaking--some would say ridiculous looking--outfits, but the body type of the model has remained unchallenged for decades. If the thin woman silhouette is just another aesthetic preference, then certainly some designers should have come out by now that prefer curvier women, flabbier women, fatter women. Cat walks should have women of all sizes, and yet they don't. Fashion designers will break every convention, except the one that harms women. They will challenge every aesthetic rule in the book, but they will never challenge the standard of extreme thinness. That means the silhouette of a thin woman is not an aesthetic rule in terms of being the fashion preference of the designer, it's simply societal conditioning. Your designing clothes around the idea of a thin woman, and your "aesthetic preference" that your fashion line looks better on thin women, only looks good on thin women, is the result of having a mind imprisoned by conventional standards for beauty. That's probably the least artistic thinking possible.

I also find it interesting how gendered this is--women being expected to be smaller, petite, more fragile looking. The fact that collar bones and rib cages are things to show off is so odd to me, because seeing those features make a person look delicate. I don't mean to thin shame--I am a firm believer that if a person is taking care of their physical and mental health, that is their most beautiful body, whatever size it is, but I think it's important to point out the connotations of societal preferences. Looking weak doesn't mean you are actually weak, and it certainly doesn't have to do with how beautiful you are, but I think it's fair to say from a scientific perspective that very thin people just instinctively look more delicate/fragile/weak.

So why do we worship this fragile "aesthetic" for girls? Why do we want girls and women to have the type of body that could be easily overpowered, that needs protecting, that takes up less space. I don't think I need to spell out the societal and political implications of each of these concepts--overpowering women, protecting, and diminishing. Especially with the new "oversized" aesthetic (that I believe was popularized in Korea first?), which I think has grown out of the "wearing my boyfriend's hoodie that looks oversized on me because of our aDOraBLE sIZe diFfERenCE" we continue to fetishize women being smaller, and therefore "cute." But in the same stroke, are we also fetishizing the women being powerless and weak?

What has been interesting to see however, is the rise of this same aesthetic for men. Men wearing oversized shirts, men with very tiny waists wearing high waist jeans, etc., but I think this just means that aesthetics have become less gendered (which is one win!) but they still center thinness (not a win), and now both genders are expected to achieve a level of thinness that many of us are not naturally suited to.

In conclusion, I want to recognize that this whole article topic might have been obvious--fashion is an art surrounding the presentation of our bodies, so of course it will get mixed up with societal expectations of our bodies (and all the political baggage that comes with that), but I also think it's worth explicitly mentioning, so that we can be highly conscious of the future direction of fashion. I think body type diversity in runways and advertisements is a huge step. I believe there is already a growing body type diversity among influencers and celebrities. And I look forward to trends and wardrobe pieces that exist separately from specific features, like how the crop currently exists for the thin waist, or the short shorts exist for thin legs. Let beautiful clothes just be beautiful clothes, that would look good on all beautiful, healthy people, of all body types, shapes, and sizes.