The Cult of Fashion – A critique


Swaying bodies in revealing attire, strange gyrations and loud music, models walking up and down ramps, this is what a typical fashion show is all about. And the jeering, cheering crowd, hooting and enjoying the show, straight out of some uncivilized bar/nightclub, it would seem. It is also actually a series of live mannequins, moving versions of the ones you see in the shopping malls, the slimmer the models the better, they would definitely give you a complex as to your body mass index. So start to become anorexic today – however, don’t tell me if you faint somewhere on the street, because you have to be as slim as the models right? The ideal role ‘models’ for this age.

What obnoxious events take place behind the fashion scene, the wheeling-dealings, the notorious FTV channel could give you a glimpse. Such things are rampant in western nations but the sorrow is we Indians always borrow the bad, the dirty culture from the west rather than the good points, their industriousness, their punctuality, their cleanliness. We would rather try to ape their fashion models than the good ideas from their social activists, artists or their intellectual thinkers. We tend to gulp down what we are fed, without once thinking, without even blinking – it is a larger malady that is being bolstered by the torrent of western media campaign and TV channels. The Nike and Reebok, etc are what we drool for and gush about – do they even make sense I sometimes think – not that we don’t get quality consumer goods in our own country, those companies employ the same sweatshops to produce their goods, not something out of the world. The fashion industry is purely for business.

The role models that are infiltrating our own Miss world and Miss India can you imagine the effect they would have on young minds. Morality and discipline go to the dogs, ‘we wanna have fun’ is the residual attitude that could waste away millions of youth in our country. Do we ever think what this leads us to? We are entering another phase of slavery, selling our freedom, a larger form of colonialism – with the cultural twist. Touting that the beauty with brains contests a larger version of the fashion shows, empowers women is like saying ‘the world’s oldest profession’ empowers and strengthens women’s rights. The analogy is perfect. Only a few are lucky, for others it is a veritable trap.

The systematic and organized corruption of the mind, that such fashion and glamour industries ensure, cause a deep impact on the psyche of the masses. They are fascinated and start to follow and emulate the same path, thus leading to larger socio-economic upheavals and tensions within families and among communities. Spring-summer and winter collections in which designers want to showcase their designs, that is not the goal, nowadays you would find such ‘fashion shows’ becoming a craze even in colleges and software industries, this time not for display of designer collections, but for ogling at men and women, for displaying beauty; as if beauty were quantifiable just physically. Cheap entertainment. If this is not the case, someone please clarify, what else is it? The fashion industry and the models and such side-businesses have created a potpourri of decadence, with the models often turning into the designer’s muses. Is this the culture that we would like to see prevalent in our nation? No way.

The fashion industry (a collective term) targets the physical instinct in human beings - the lowest element of the human aspect, among his abilities. The intellectual and spiritual faculties of human beings are being ignored, by those who fall for the effects of ‘wine and women’ and crude sensual pleasures that this industry injects. The overzealousness with which the western world protects what it calls liberalism, is only skin deep, and is going to cause their ruin. In the larger perspective, actually, the western civilization has created a mistake, a Frankenstein that they are themselves in the throes of and grappling to fight with and we, capable of being so foolish, are in turn following a blind culture’s folly, a distorted perverted creation, to the hilt. This type of humbug we must be wary of, and should not allow it to affect our lives. Firstly, we should stop glorifying and promoting fashion and fashion shows. It would be possible only if people open their eyes and a new freedom struggle would follow. The key, as always, is to imbibe the positives and kick out or reject the negatives, whether for an individual, a society, a community or a nation.


Shamit Bagchi



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