Fashion does more damage than good. Does it?

In yesterday's seminar we debated in teams whether fashion does more damage than good. Split into four groups, a whole variety of topics and issues were raised about the consumer and industry:

"Fashion does more damage than good"

• For - focusing on the industry
• Against - focusing on the consumer
• For - focusing on the industry
• Against - focusing on the consumer

I was in the group arguing that "Fashion does more damage than good - AGAINST", focusing on the consumer. This led to researching into how the fashion industry is a beneficial and positive to the consumer and society.



We also looked at what our opposition would say to weaken our argument, covering body image and the more negative impact the industry may have on the consumer, and tried to find evidence to suggest that although these issues are evident, times are changing.

For our presentation we split the debate into four sections:

• Identity
• Accessibility - body image
• Accessibility - environment
• Environment

I put myself forward to present the debate along with three other girls (sorry for the amount of "4s" are in this post). Although I've never done public speaking before, the thought of it didn't phase me. I can completely understand and sympathise why some hate the thought of standing up in front of a crowd and speaking, but as long I know what I'm going to say, and am prepared, I'm happy to do it.

I spoke about the consumer and the accessibility of fashion, looking at plus size, age, gender and disability in particular. It's common knowledge that the (luckily changing) stereotypical "model" is tall, have legs that goes on for days with the bone structure that looks like it was carved by angels. I presented examples that showed that this was changing, and there are some individuals that are really breaking this archaic view.

I absolutely loved the debate in the seminar, and felt everyone had worked so hard in such a short space of time - we had been set the task on Monday and delivered it on Thursday.

After everyone had presented their debate and points of view, we had time to prepare our "response" to our opposition. We then had one person from each team stand up and defend their argument, questioning and debating what the opposing team had to say. It was fun, funny, entertaining and extremely interesting, making it my favourite seminar by far.