Fashion and Body Image

To achieve these objectives, it will be useful to first examine the psychological concept of the ego. Freud's familiar definition of ego is instructive for the instant case because he draws a distinction between the (unconscious) perception of ego and what its reality might actually be. This may be compared to the difference between the reality of a body's makeup and what will be referred to hereafter as body image.

Normally, there is nothing of which we are more certain than the feeling of our self, of our own ego. This ego appears to us as

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according to Barthes, the would-be purchaser of the clothing modeled in the magazines encounters the potentiality of escaping the mundane elements of real-world existence by means of clothing. At the same time, in fashion modeling, there is an appeal to what might be called the "inner" self, which is somehow more "real" to the individuated ego than the limitations of everyday life experiences. The effect would seem to be split or somehow dislocated personality of low self-esteem, aggravated by the discrepancy between the expectations or even possibilities of the world and the individual's actual experience of life. The recent research that focuses on the experience of unresolved shame or feelings of self-esteem would seem to amplify the effect of a pernicious fashion- and clothing-conscious culture on the unrealized selfhood of a fragile ego. The tone set by the commentary of Carlyle and Langner, nevertheless, is one that attributes to clothing and fashion the ability to determine culture. If that is so, it remains for the actors within the culture to find a way to assert superiority, connection with higher civilized principles, and the like by the expressions of fashion. The claim of body and body image in such a set of limits,
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Approximate Word count = 7601
Approximate Pages = 30 (250 words per page)

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