"Fashion" is a term which means ‘an ongoing trend‘. It refers to how people dress and what kind of external getup most people think is making them look stylish, up-to-date and sophisticated. It changes with winds of time very fast, this can be seen from the vast difference between how people used to dress before and now: even a span of 10 years makes a great difference. The growth of social media and overall the demand of time, which lures everyone to look confident and updated, have made people quite inclined towards making themself look fashionable.
In 2012, researchers from Northwestern University in the US found that wearing specific articles of clothing had an effect on the wearer's psychology and performance. The researchers concluded that clothes have a symbolic meaning. When we wear an article of clothing with a specific meaning, these clothes can influence our psychological state. It's called "enclothed cognition."
On days where we don't feel our best the clothes we wear can make us feel better and act as our potential armour. But fashion doesn't simply shape our perception and self-expression; fashion also influences how we are treated by other people which in turn can impact our mental wellbeing. Clothes signify how we want to be treated, what social group we belong to or want to be accepted into. Acceptance for who we are and what we wear gives us peace of mind, just as wearing clothes we are comfortable in can positively affect our mental state.
Before social media, becoming a fashion icon was next to impossible. Someone in the fashion industry had to see you and think you were incredible. They had to build your brand from scratch. But social media has changed the game.
Instead of waiting for someone to discover them, users are getting themselves discovered. With new tools like Instagram, users are building their own brands and finding their own fans and followers. Social media has influenced the fashion industry more than any other industry. For the most part, fashion used to be a one-sided industry. Users didn’t have a say in what they were consuming, they could only opt out of trends that they didn’t like. Social media has reframed this structure, allowing users to not only consume fashion but to also contribute to it.