DISSERTATION

CHAPTER 4.2
PERSONAL FACTORS-
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Furthermore, society has a silent yet specific expectation of
appearances, where personal factors are affected. With the
need to fit in with society, attitudes towards “looking the
part” often overtake the rational mind. However, insecurities
also become products of this, such as wanting only to dress
for comfort or to be invisible. To explore these factors
further, a questionnaire was put together to ask an audience
about their style and the reasons behind it. Results showed
that many interests in fashion were related to constant
changing of styles, which transfers a sense of confidence.
The participants were also questioned on the inspirations
behind their dress. The chart below shows the results of data
collected from multiple choice answers:
Thoughts on how fashion is portrayed in media today
showed that many believed it to be very one-sided. When
questioning this further, the participants went on to describe
fashion media as ‘very restrictive and specific, fashion is
only shown if it is being sold...’, ‘celebrity dress is heavily
influencing people because of social media’. The final result
of this research was to obtain an overview, of whether the
participants felt fashion was the main part of who we are. ‘...
clothes are the first thing people notice when they see us...
we are judged much by our choice of dress that we put this
pressure on ourselves of feeling like we need to belong in a
fashionable society’.
These results proposed that revolving around or with social
influences, makes up a form of self-expression of a person.
Constantly being faced with many of the factors considered,
can effectively influence one’s perspective on fashion;
physically or subconsciously.
Fig. 1