Do We Have Freedom of Fashion?

Clothing has been a principal means of identifying oneself in public places for centuries. It used to be an important expression of social status and economic class.

In the 21st century, we basically have the right to dress whatever type of fashion while a huge number of brands and shops have been expanded across the world. The selections of any fashion items are limitless in this developed society.

So let me ask you a question; how do you select your clothes to dress with all the choices available? 

I interviewed some shopping-lovers and also typical average shoppers. I found out that everyone chooses things to buy based on their preference, but it seems that this also is influenced from somewhere else. The shopping-lovers, who buy clothes almost every month, more likely to refer to themselves as influencers’, for example, some famous models’on Instagram. Naturally, they often follow trends. People can be attracted to influencers’ latest styles and try to get the same or similar items to represent the styles.
A bit differently, the average shoppers, who buy clothes only when they need to, tend to check the Internet or social media and try to find an item that suits their style or personality.
Also, some people who extremely love clothes check lots of brands' collections every season and usually prefer runway styles.

According to many business researchers, in this economic situation, we need to pick one item out from various choices, it can actually make us feel tired and less satisfied.

When we want to eat just some cookies and if there are twenty kinds of cookies in the grocery store, we check every product’s price, ingredients, and quantity. We have to choose one from another, with too many chooses, even a simple choice is hard to make.
Therefore people tend to check with reliable sources to save their time and energy. Fashion magazines used to play this role; nowadays, social media takes that place.

Just like other industries, most clothing companies use marketing strategies.

Every week, they promote some particular items through social media or websites. Some big companies also spend a lot of money on promoting offers to influencers who have for example over ten thousand followers.
The goal of these promotions is to show the products to consumers as often as possible. We start feeling as if we need the same trendy clothes after seeing many beautiful images. It is a form of brainwashing consumers into purchasing their clothes.

Therefore, how many of us truly have free choice of fashion? 

Nowadays, information that is manipulated in the way of business is able to affect us quite strongly.  Most people can’t really say if they are really controlled by this or not. If this system continues to develop and expand like this,  it will continue to provide us with more convenient ways of shopping and we will possibly wear the clothes, which social media helps us choose, without any consciousness. Then there might not be much greater freedom of dressing like the past.