CULTURAL CRITIC PAPER

Roxie JIN

COMM 110

Kevin Schut

Mar. 9 2009

Is Fashion Evil?

            As many of you know that fashion has been playing an important role in our society for a long time. It has historical background, professional industry and academic support. Fashion is one of the greatest products of human beings. However, fashion also has a negative effect on people. The movie “The Devil Wears Prada” specifically represents peoples’ vanity fair in fashion. It looks like a shiny beautiful dream, but it actually makes people’s life go up I smoke. Therefore, I will argue that fashion does play an evil role, but it’s a personal choice.

            David Wallace-Wells once wrote an article called “The Devil – and Everyone Else – Wears Prada”. He argues that the luxury has a wide effect on our society. Luxuries have been widely accepted by the public even thought buyers are aware of the astonishing profit of each luxury. Moreover, In Annalisa Barbieri’s article “Get behind me, Satan”, she states that she congratulated herself that she has ran away from her job in fashion years ago because she thought her job in fashion was like Satan. Annalisa’s experience is very similar to Andy’s in the movie. Based on David’s perspective. I think fashion and its industry do contribute to our society in many ways, such as economic, culture, esthetics etc. Also I highly understand Annalisa’s thinking of her job. However,, I think there must be more people who actually want this job.

First of all, it is true that everyone in the society has been involved by fashion no matter how much the sense of fashion people have realized or recognized.  From the primary school student to our grandparents, everyone cares about fashion. More specifically, we should say they care about trends: trend of garment, trend of color, trend of hairstyle and so on. In fact, trends are phenomenon of fashion. They might not be the real fashion, but the phenomenon reflects people’s wish of pursuing fashion. For example, in the movie, when Miranda is trying to tell where Andy’s blue sweater comes from, she even gives an entire speech about the blue. Like who selects this blue, who use the blue in his design and why the kind of blue garment would be bought by Andy who doesn’t care about fashion and many similar people. And the answer is no one could say he/she is not related to fashion.

In addition, I believe most people would internally respect Andy’s choice at the end of the movie – she gives up he successful job in fashion and goes back with her boyfriend. I would say this really depends on personal choice. Andy gives up her job because she found out the life she really wants. Also writer Annalisa give up her job because she couldn’t suffer from this different and complex job anymore. Why in the movie, the boss Miranda always chooses to keep her fashion career although she has divorced twice and she could not play a normal role as a mum and a wife at home; because she enjoys her job. She chooses to sacrifice her life for her fashion career.   

In conclusion, I would objectively say that working in fashion industry is difficult. However, it is a personal choice for those who love this job.