The female gender has largely been associated with its desire for ‘fashionable’ body. For the sake of ‘self-enhancement’, women of all ages are willing to undergo painful and intrusive medical procedures or use anti-aging treatments. The cultural message regarding how women should look and act is propagated by media eliciting heightened body dissatisfaction among women (Groesz, Levine & Murnen, 2002). Although for many women the media generated beauty standards are unattainable, it does not prevent them from using a variety of methods to alter their appearance in the pursuit of these beauty standards (Sarwer & Crerand, 2004; Sarwer, Grossbart & Didie, 2002).
The illusionary ‘perfect figure’ and ‘ideal beauty’ has been sought by women through the ages. Cash and Pruzinsky (2002) explain that the more different one’s self evaluation is from the cultural ideal, the greater the dissatisfaction with one’s own appearance. According to Ussher (1989) the concept of the perfect female body has a pervasive influence on women’s consciousness. The cultural expectations of the ideal female body appear to be inconsistent with aging. Aging is a continual but inevitable process that results in physical changes that are often incompatible with cultural conceptions of beauty. (Tantleff-Dunn & Agliata, 2001).
Thus, an aging population is faced with a dilemma; they live in a culture that is obsessed with youth, beauty and thinness but also face a diminishing ability to achieve or maintain appearance ideals. As a result, there is a growing discrepancy between how people see themselves and how they would like to look (Spitzer, Henderson & Zivian, 1999). Although these changes (like, the skin wrinkles, the backbone hunches and the hair becomes thinner and grey) are a product of one’s genetic and environmental background. Such changes influence the social aspects of their lives and choices including clothing preferences. The physical changes which occur with aging (e.g. sagging bust lines, thickened waists and loss of muscle tone) tend to affect clothing preferences because of fitting problems. For example, older women prefer A-line shirts, front closures, set in sleeves, dresses with jackets, three-quarter-length sleeves in order to conceal upper arms and designs that do not emphasise the waist (Kaiser, 1997, p.133). Thus indicating that women’s body image is likely to influence their CLOTHING PREFERENCES.
Women’s feelings of body dissatisfaction most times is associated with unhappiness in finding apparel and clothing products that enhance their appearance, and hence, are hard to be satisfied easily by their Designer's deliveries. Most women therefore dresses up for social occasions, especially when meeting with the opposite sex (Guy & Banim, 2000; Cash & Pruzinsky, 2002). Clothing provides psychological satisfaction for women. Body size and image influences their clothing choices. For most women, clothing reflects their personality and their figures influences their clothing types.
Clothing preferences for women are therefore the product of how they feel about their body size and image and societal influence including media projections of what is acceptable (Entwistle, 2000; Turbin, 2003). Women’s preferences for clothing are therefore closely linked to how they feel about their bodies, how others in their cultural context react to them and how society including media projects the ‘acceptable’ body shape and size.
Hence, every Fashion designer should understand this fact about women. Fashion designers should be knowledgeable about what fits each female body image. I will be addressing that in my next post. Let me leave you with this; "... Fashion comes from a dream." - Christian Dior
Reference:
Relationship between body image and clothing perceptions: Among women aged 18-55 years in the UK.
Dr. Shweta Reddy Assistant Professor, Department of Fashion Merchandising, IDME at Texas Christian University.
Dr. Rose Otieno Senior Lecturer, Department of Clothing Design and Technology Manchester Metropolitan University.
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