Although difficult to relate to for the average person, high fashion dictates the trends which will reach us. Outlandish and criticised and mocked for it's impracticality, it has transformed into something unrecognizably boring by the time it appears on the street, the towering appendages meant to illustrate a love for individuality and creativity adapted to become something deliberately mundane and pedestrian. The sole feature retained which it has in common with the original may be a shade of colour or pattern, now repeated a thousandfold until it becomes a uniform for the trendsetters. Full of contradictions its diplomats are those who would often be regarded as grossly unattractive in normal society. Their thinness surpasses the delicate frailty of the naturally small boned generally prized in many cultures, and crossed the line far into the field of the freakish and disturbing. Awkwardly tall and with harsh, often somewhat masculine features, they are far from what would be desired or envied on the street. Yet its extremeity surely is valued within high fashion world, as with the surrealy overdone creations they wear. It is called "making a statement". Perhaps in a world of endless media streaming all but the most striking are submerged in a great flood of exchanges. What does it scream out to us? What does it ultimately communicate, if through the recycling of the ideas through warehouses that turn the look into a staple, and the more normal girls who similarly seem more accesssible to the rest, the masses, of us. Of course it is often criticised by parents and carers of girls, by feminists and even by the same media that promotes it. However the truth might be that for the most of us, it remains beauty because it is symmetry and balance according to the preestablished standards. This manifestation of masculine (designer, photographer, director) control over the female (model) body, and mass receptivity to the whims of a select few, always destined to imitate and follow them while subsidizing their lifestyles is easy on the eyes because it is easy on the mind. It reflects a standard we believe in. Although intellectual enquiry may claim that otherwise is or ought to be, our actions tell a different story as we continue to adhere to patriarchy and commercialism.
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