Through centuries and generations, fashion and the idea of garmenting yourself has penetrated the complex idea of identity and group narratives. Whether we discuss Ancient Rome where your toga would identify your status, to our current day and age with multitudes of subgenres of fashion to categorize your stereotypically perceived identity, fashion is not a simplistic “feminine” interest, but something historical and constructive. Society’s social ranking system may have been abolished but status is still represented through draping ourselves in fashion that is associated with an identity.  Following fashion tells a story of globalization, society, economic advances, and self.

Looking at the timeline of fashion is greatly correlated to our social processes and our continuous changing narratives and identity. We see with the onset of our progressive, modern era of globalization, fashion’s fluidity and weight in our society. As globalization heightened, the process of fashion production became easier. Resources and labor could be outsourced for cheap, technology was exponentially advancing allowing transportation to be quicker and more efficient than ever before, and the boom of digital technology made the process of buying extremely simplistic. The ability to create trends and seasonal wear became cheap and fast, and the large corporations pushed for a narrative of ever more consumption. Brands are fueling our consumption habits by meeting our consumer demands. This business model in the fashion industry didn’t just create environmental degradation, it also created a model of choosing an identity through the effortless ease of fast fashion, leading to identification through fashion.

The realization that fast fashion explicitly sees points of damage and degradation is no longer disputed; however, it is important to additionally understand the extent of fashion’s role in identity formation and expression. Just as humanity was doing in Ancient Rome, clothes are used to represent ourselves, an outlet of our identity and even more so, identity expression.Whether we want to stand out, or fit in, fashion helps us communicate to our peers who we are by what we wear. Fashion’s impact on identity is something so personal and subjective, but it can also be confining and conforming to popular narratives in society, typically curated through social media. Throughout the ages, there have always been outlets to reach consumers that instruct them how to achieve an identity through fashion; in today’s blueprint, it is hands down the Internet and Social Media.

There are multiple levels fashion crosses: individual identity and who you are expressing to the world, larger group identities where fashion and style can be an identifier to a stereotypical “character”, a tight rope around one’s neck conforming them to a “character” they might not relate to, a mask to hide from the watchful and judgemental eyes of society, an occupation that provides for families, a dangerous occupation needed to make ends meet, to even the environmental impact and how that shapes you. So what am I getting to?

Fashion is often overlooked with harmful gender norms dictating its narrative, but it tackles a fundamental aspect of society and individuals: fashion’s impact on identity. We can’t just look at how fashion impacts identity without environmental consideration; how does fast fashion/ sustainable fashion impact and express identity, especially given our modern era with technological advances thanks to globalization? Are we solving the environmental aspect of fast fashion by creating another identity associated with sustainable fashion? Ultimately, solving fast fashion’s negative impact on the environment won’t disconnect fashion from identity. 

Emulating someone we identify with and whose values resonate our own (athletes, entertainers, business leaders, even a neighbor) is the safest representation of ourselves in society because investigating who we are without fashion requires us to step back and ask, who are we? And who do we want to be?