Let's talk representation

An archetype I'm dying to address in my fashion magazine is the way in which high school girl’s fashion is portrayed. In many forms of media, for a high school girl to be considered traditionally attractive and accepted in their school environment, they have to have a very girly and feminine sense of fashion. You know the drill: short dresses, even shorter skirts, lots of pink. The popular girls are always portrayed as wearing the same outdated wardrobes that are simply not what we are wearing today.

InStyle magazine dissected some of Cher's looks from Clueless and I couldn't help but wonder "who actually dresses like this?" In all my years of high school, I have never seen anyone come close to this look. I get that there is a generation gap, but c'mon! I want to make it my mission to display fashion looks that people my age can actually relate to. Is that too hard to ask? 

An example of this archetype is in the movie Clueless through the main character, Cher. Cher is the popular girl at school, and her wardrobe is composed of mainly short skirts and dresses. She is looked to as a fashion icon, yet she lacks versatility in her clothing, as she is rarely seen in anything that is not feminine in nature. Even when playing sports like tennis, she is still seen in a short skirt which prevents a tomboyish side of her from being portrayed. Furthermore, in Mean Girls, the plastics, or the most popular girls in the school, are all portrayed as girls in short skirts and tight shirts. Their signature wardrobe color scheme is pink, which even further emphasizes their femininity. 

I don’t agree with this archetype because it puts female figures into a box when it comes to them expressing themselves. Instead of portraying a diversity of fashion styles, women’s fashion is boiled down to girly skirts and dresses, which is not an accurate portrayal of the varying levels of female fashion in high school. In actuality, a girl’s popularity is not based on how short her skirt in or how preppy she dresses. The archetype encourages the notion that to gain acceptance, girls must dress for the approval of men rather than for themselves. In high school, girls actually have a variety of different styles and excel socially even if they have a unique style.

Vanity Magazine did their own article where they took a look at classic Mean Girls looks.  As much as it pains me to say it, this cult classic is guilty of the same crime of putting female characters in this fashion box. They are especially guilty of the pink plague that I discussed earlier in the article. While the color has become somewhat of an icon for the film, when you really think about it, it forces this concept of feminity onto the audience that all female characters don't have to comply with. We like other colors too! In my magazine, I plan on not making pink a necessary for my female models. Maybe I'll experiment with non-traditional colors like black and grey to challenge these stereotypes. 

In my magazine, I will address certain aspects of this stereotype by portraying some of the models in traditional girly fashion. However, I will also include teenage models in more unconventional stylings like more urban wardrobes and less feminine pieces. This will hopefully show the diversity in teenage fashion when it comes to girls and shows that you don’t have to wear feminine clothes to look good.

Sources:
Staff, InStyle. “12 Of Cher's Clueless Outfits That Are Still on Trend.” InStyle.com, InStyle.com, 2018, www.instyle.com/fashion/chers-12-best-looks-clueless.

Rao, and Priya Rao. “The 10 Best Fashion Moments from Mean Girls.” The Hive, Vanity Fair, 29 Apr. 2014, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/04/mean-girls-best-fashion.