Psychological Influence of Fashion Essay

When one thinks of the identity crisis that plagues multitude, one is able to discern the company between way of life and its lure on people. Conformity comes in many a(prenominal) forms and affects many aspects of adolescents lives. Do adolescents take up a certain port of dressing because everyone else is dressing up that way? Do they let their sensory hair grow long one year and cut it short the following(a) because of fashion? Conformity occurs when individuals adopt the attitudes or behavior of new(prenominal)s because of real or imagined pressure from them.Indeed, the pressure to conform to peers becomes very strong during the adolescent age (Santrock, John 1998. p. 211). More than any other outward manifestation of a persons personality, the clothes has a language all its own. It is a nonverbal system of communication that symbolizes the beliefs and thinking of an individual. In an encounter, before people even speak to one another, their clothing makes a statement t hat expresses their age, sex, class, assembly line and personality (Flynn, Patricia). Clothing has a language all its own.It can prescribe from conventional and traditional to the outrageous and eccentric styles. Dress can localize its weargonr with a social group. For example, jeans never go out of style with teens. The diversion just lies in the style, cost and labels that identify them as designer. Wearing jeans may symbolize that the individuals are members of the equal group (Flynn, Patricia). For example during the 1950s, teenage clothing styles grew amidst the economic prosperity after World War II. The consumer market targeted those who were pampered and had bills to spend on clothes.At the start, the adult designers were the trendsetters in terms of fashion sense. But the teens began to assert their own individuality and sported only the styles they most prefer. To these youth, this was a form of their self-expression (Flynn, Patricia). Image builders give a great d eal of judgement to the types of images that would have the strongest appeal to the greatest number of people. Merchandisers reason that they could build into their products the same traits that people recognize in themselves.Studies of narcissism indicate that nothing appeals more(prenominal) to people than themselves so why not help people misdirect a projection of themselves? That way, the images would pre-select their audiences, select out of a consuming earth people with personalities having an affinity for the image. By building in traits known to be widely dispersed among the consuming public the image builders reason that they could brightness level love affairs by the millions. The sale of self-images expedited the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of clothing, accessories and other beauty products.Thus, the image builders prove again and again that American consumers are becoming self-image buyers. Conclusion Young people, having identified with many m odels, have interconnected many different characteristics. Now they must integrate, synthesize, and reorganize these, dropping around characteristics and strengthening others. A new, unique and coherent identity emerges, one in which, the whole has a different quality than the sum of its parts (Erikson, 1959, p. 90). mien and style exerts a different kind of mental influence of people, specially adolescents since they are pampered by society.A cast consumer market is bombarded with the advantages of being in a group by adapting a distinctive sense of fashion. It is, therefore, weighty that people understand the psychological influences underlying this issue. People must be critical in recognizing that merchandisers of many different products connected with fashion probes peoples subsurface desires, needs and drives to find their points of vulnerability. (Santrock, John 1998. p. 211). Among the subsurface actuate factors found on the emotional profile of most of us are the dri ves to conformity, need for oral stimulation and yearning for security.People must be critical in understanding that once these points of vulnerability are isolated, the psychological hooks are fashioned and baited and placed deep in the selling sea for unwary prospective customers, particularly the youth.ReferencesCovey, Stephen R. Living the 7 Habits. (1999) Erikson, E. (1959). identity operator Youth and Crisis. New York W. W. Norton. Fashion. Nationmaster. Retrieved Feb. 21, 2007 at http//www. nationmaster. com/encyclopedia/Fashion Flynn, P. (1985). Body linguistic communication The Language of Contemporary Fashion. Accessed 12