Your Body Is Trouble, Vogue says

A Little Word on When Fashion Becomes a Woman’s Enemy

I recently came across an article on Vogue.com with the title 5 Takes on the Most Figure-Flattering Trends from Spring. I thought to myself, “oh this might be a good way to start thinking about what kind of summer wardrobe I should invest in.” Quickly after scanning through the article I realized this wasn’t what I thought it would be. For every “flattering trend” they list, the headline starts with “trouble area”, and then it lists whatever that trouble might be – everything from your thighs, to your arms, to your waist.

Trouble area, let’s think about that concept for a moment. This immediately makes us analyze our bodies from a negative standpoint, even if we didn’t do so in the first place. Instead of saying “do you have great shoulders? Show them off by wearing an off-the-shoulder top, which also happens to be trendy now!” , they say: “are your arms trouble? Wear an off-the-shoulder top to distract the world from them”. Before you know it, your whole body has turned into a “trouble section”, a war zone, something to hide and shield from the prying eyes. And if your whole body is trouble, does that mean you are trouble too? An article like this doesn’t make me feel encouraged to buy new spring clothes, it makes me want to throw a big paper sack over myself and hide my whole trouble-sectioned body from the world forever.

This is when a seemingly light-hearted article turns into something else, and turns into something, dare I say it, trouble-some for the women and girls who read it. Fashion can be, and is, a powerful thing. But as with everything powerful it also needs to be used in a responsible way. A big, influential magazine such as Vogue has a responsibility to put out content that is healthy to read for teenage girls as well as for grown women. The fashion industry is heavily targeted towards women and thus has a golden opportunity to help women and girls, who are so often treated with inequality in our society, feel strong, empowered and good about themselves and the skin they’re in. An article like this sets back a girl like me who has struggled for most of her teenage years, and still today in her early 20s, with eating disorders and a behavior of seeing her body as a constant threat, or, in the words of Vogue, a trouble-area. It might make a woman who finally feels confident about the way she looks after an entire life of self-doubt, feel insecure again, because maybe her thighs are a trouble section after all.

Fashion and feminism could (and should) go hand in hand, they have all the potential to do so. Both are targeted towards women, both are heavily dominated by women and if they would help each other out, it would be a powerful, wonderful thing. But when used more against women than for women, fashion also becomes one of the biggest threats for women.

Fashion should be a friend, not an enemy. Right now fashion all too often plays for the patriarchy team and uses those systematic regulations and rules of oppressing girls and women as a tool to sell; by making women feel bad about themselves and think that “maybe, maybe if I buy that $300 Givenchy top my arms won’t be trouble anymore”. Grow up, Vogue. Also, didn’t you hear? Feminism is looking pretty trendy this spring.

- A

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