Youths are, for that matter, conscious about their appearance and observe most of the details that may hardly be observed by many adults. What they wear behaves like direct expression of their mood, style, and personality. In fact, the youth is among the most fashion-sensitive sections in the world, and fashion plays an important role in the formation of lifestyle and image. Fashion comes in all styles and sizes, colors and materials. Fashion is one way teens can express individuality, affiliate with peer groups, and establish or enhance social status.
The youth, in the fast-paced fashion atmosphere, often relies on influencers and fashion bloggers for inspiration and style suggestions. The pressure to be on trend and fit socially leads many teens into the category of “fast fashion.” Also, peer influence is strong in their decisions, since a lot of young people preserve a fear of social exclusion for dressing wrongly or not being able to follow trends.

Fashion would become a tool for maintaining friendships, and girls, in particular, would become more susceptible to the influence of media and fashion magazines on their understanding of style and body.
Social media has also driven this fashion trend forward. Most teens idolize their favorite celebrities, wanting to look just like them from head to toe, including clothing and the fashion accessories that complement them. Whenever the youth catch a glimpse of any celebrity sporting something, they seem to have an urge for buying the same thing just to let the world—alike their friends—show that they, too, have amazing style. Social networks, including Instagram, have created a huge influence in producing fashion influencers—some are already famous, while others became celebrities through the very website. Magazines and media are the leading fashion guides for youth. They help these young people to stay current with what is fashionable and make it easier for them to decide just what to buy. These magazines, as well as fashion runaway shows, tend to have an unusually huge impact on the teenagers’ choices of style, particularly for the young girls who are usually the targeted subjects of the fashion magazines. And with fashion continuing to play a big role in the life of youth, it’s pretty obvious that trends are a very important part of their social life and self-expression.

Key Factors Influencing Fashion Trends

⦁ Social norm
⦁ Fashion education
⦁ Mass media
⦁ Peer groups
⦁ Social criticism
⦁ Environment
⦁ Customs traditions
⦁ Religion
⦁ Work
⦁ Leisure activities
⦁ Wealth or change in income
⦁ Inspiration by friends
⦁ Changing trends and Values
⦁ Influence by family members
⦁ Education
⦁ Age

However, there is limited literature on fashion trends of India and little emphasis is placed on the impacts of these trends on society on the above parameters. Parul Bhatnagar (2012) professed in her book traditional Indian costumes and textiles that, it is “Costume” which establishes his/ her individual identity in society and which also links up with social hierarchy.

Indian bikini costume is outcome of nearly four thousand years of history wrought with significant political, economic, social and cultural upheavals and influences. The costumes which form an integral part of any historical dominant culture in India also underwent several crucial transformations. Clothes help to make us self-confident, jolly, free, or they make us self-conscious, shy, sensitive and restrained. They determine how much we go into society, the places we go to, and the exercise we take. Fashion Design says that inevitably, constant exposure to different cultures and the way people interpret fashions around the world influences fashion trends.

To understand the present scenario of fashion apparel trends in India and their impacts in context of the history of clothing, descriptive and case study approach has been there in the study to reveal the degree of impact on future. This research consists of application of secondary data. The secondary data has been collected from the reports, journal, previous studies, books, websites etc.

Erotic Impact of Fashion on Youth

Fashion has taken up the lives of a Youth so much that most of them are more concerned about their style statement at an age where they should be more concerned about their grades. Youth of the present times have involved themselves so much with fashion that they don’t get sufficient time for any other work; time that they should be spending mostly on their studies is being wasted checking out new fashion styles and thronging markets and malls to find something like that. Instead of reading textbooks youngsters these days prefer to read fashion magazines and try hard to imitate models or celebrities to resemble them. Though fashion at this age is quite an important part and they should be conscious of their looks, not at the expense of other important activities like studying, sports and relaxing. Most part of the Youth time should be spent on studies, but there are few who spend most of their time watching programmers on TV, reading fashion articles or finding the recent trendy clothes on the web. This has led to a lot of changes in Youth behavior. Unlike earlier, now the Youth do not go out with their parents on weekends, rather they plan their outings with their friends. Earlier parents used to buy clothes for their kids which have been replaced by children themselves going out shopping. The prime zones for outings have now become malls for most of them because they can do a lot of shopping there apart from having fun.

Positive Effects of Fashion on Youth

Nowadays most students mainly follow fashion trends to get a sense of identity and belonging out of it. The way you dress gives an insight into your personality. Dressing in a “hip-hop fashion” for instance conveys a certain type of personality that differs from other fashion trends and categorizes you into a certain group of people. It is very obvious that a person who dresses this way draws an identity from it, he will most likely also adjust their behavior or personality more to fit into it; and as a result of this person often becomes more accepted by others who are taking on the same identity “template” and follow the same fashion trend. Also, fashion is a way you communicate visually about yourself. Youth is the part of life when everyone wants to look colorful and the best. No one wants to compromise with their personality at this age. Positive effects of fashion on youth include:

⦁ Following your own fashion statement gives you a sense of free-thinking and you tend to become more of an independent thinker.
⦁ Whatever you wear, if you think that you are looking best, it gives you a great sense of confidence.
⦁ Helps you connect with people of the same interests.
⦁ Fashion seems like a magical fix for many problems like bullying and connecting with peers. It has been observed that those dressed up smartly are always low on the target of bullies as they think that a person with great fashion sense must be high on fashion and general abilities and may retaliate and prove out to be a threat for them.
⦁ Leads to an attractive personality and bonding with likeminded people
⦁ It is a colorful way of living and exploring the diversity of life.
⦁ Following their fashion at an early age tends to make them independent.
⦁ Having a greater fashion sense can also land them in a job in the fashion industry.

Negative Impact of Fashion on Youth

Besides the positive effects, there are also a lot of negative effects that are associated with the fashion rage among the students. It is believed that fashion is corrupting young minds, and they are constantly thinking about the new fashion trends and ways to get those trendy clothing and accessories. It is obvious that the main task of the students is to study, and these days they spend more time on fashion and hence are left out with limited time to study and fashion distracts them away from their studies. Things have changed a lot, earlier children used to dream of becoming Scientists, Doctors or Engineers or even teachers, but the priority and taste of the children of these days have changed a lot and most of them desire to enter the glamour world. A lot of youngsters these days find the fashion world better than any other job and think that it’s very easy to be a model or an actor and they can earn some huge money as well as fame in this profession. In fact, it is a shame that one who is not fashion conscious these days doesn’t have much importance. These days one who looks trendy in the first appearance takes away all the limelight.

However other negative effects of fashion on students include:

⦁ These days’ youth are becoming so obsessed with fashion that whole day they think only about fashion and waste most part of their time and money on fashion, useful time which they should be spending on studies.
⦁ At study place also most of the time students spend checking out each other’s dresses and are not able to study well.
⦁ Fashion policing in school often leads to groups.
⦁ To follow the style statement of their celebs, teenagers often pick up their smoking styles also.
⦁ As well as the financial repercussions of getting too involved in fashion, a student who spends his or her time worrying about the latest trends and styles are being distracted from the primary objective of a student: To study.
⦁ Students try to buy almost all new fashionable products because of keeping their good image on others. However, such a big loss of the money leads to a heavy financial burden on the parents. Even some people who do not afford to supply the basic needs prefer buying such expensive products.
⦁ To fit into skin-tight dresses, girls often start dieting which can distract them from studies.
⦁ Students are not well known to the side effects of some chemical products like hair color and bleach and a lot of time use then which led to allergic reactions that can cause pimples or some severe reactions.
⦁ The desire to look nice can take over life and money.
⦁ If you become really obsessed with fashion clothing then it is also possible that you may feel anxiety, depression or eating disorders when you are not dressed up to the mark.

Conclusion

There are more youth who are likely to accept the fashion changes. The fashion industry is targeting more on youth to bring a revolution in the fashion world. People are more likely to shift their interests from traditional and ethnic to western and modern outlook of the sense of dress. Teenagers are more into the fashion world also because of peer pressure and pushing themselves towards a modern look and are somewhat forgetting the values and importance of traditional clothing. Youth feel uncomfortable/ shy when they are with fashionable people so they tend to buy fashion which is sometimes not suitable on them or makes them depressed when they cannot meet the raised standard of the fashion class. Youth dress to stave off humiliation and mocking from peers. Media and fashion magazines affect youth’s lifestyle. In one or the other the fashion magazines and media are playing with the minds of the youngsters, and they manipulate the buying decisions with their lucrative promotional activities and advertisements. Frequency of shopping among youth has also got a tremendous boost with the promotional activities of the fashion industries as well as the strong urge to fit into the peer group the youth buy more often than needed.