Critiquing Cliques.

Fashion is and has been an important part of our culture. I feel that the media emphasizes differences in fashion among people in a negative way creating cliques. Cliques isolate young people from each other. I see fashion as something to inspire us rather than define us. i feel that many cliques borrow ideas from each other, though this is not necessarily always portrayed in the media. What we do see are many Romeo-Juliet relationships where people try to cross some boundaries, but it is never easy. i feel that many young people are pressured to expressed their identities through bought fashion identities rather than creating their own.

i made this list of visual stereotypes to establish a basis for looking at fashion as an identity. i would like to look closely at the sharing of fashion ideas and the relationships between different cliques. Many of these stereotypes come from google image searches, films, and my own high school experiences. However i feel that many of these groups overlap and borrow trends from each other.

Why is it that we as humans feel so different from each other? Why are we so intimidate by others? I feel that fashion has evolved just as people have all from common ancestors. i feel that we use fashion to define ourselves to make ourselves feel different because we are too afraid to find our similarities. And maybe we are different and fashion is how we have evolved to express those differences.

I would like to explore this topic so that i may find a way to talk about these ideas with young people: how they view themselves, how they view others, what positive and relationships they see between fashion and cliques.