Lately I’ve been asking myself a bigger question. What has actually happened to fashion?

Once upon a time, fashion was about creating style. Beauty. Designing silhouettes. Commissioning beautiful pieces. Creating fabrics, colours, textures.

But somewhere along the way, something shifted. Instead of celebrating individuality, fashion began to define what a “perfect” body should look like.  A tiny waist. A full bust. A bigger bum.

And that definition keeps changing. In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of influencer culture shaping those ideals at an even faster pace. You only have to look at the impact of the Kardashian aesthetic, the tiny waist, exaggerated curves, to see how powerful that influence has become. And it makes me question:

What is this really about?

Because the more I step back, the more it feels like fashion has quietly become a system built on one thing. Insecurity.

If you make people feel like they’re not quite good enough, they’ll keep buying. A new outfit. A new trend. A new version of themselves. Something that promises to make them feel better.

But it rarely lasts. Because when fashion is built on insecurity, it creates a cycle. You buy something hoping it will change how you feel. For a moment it might. But then the next trend arrives. The next ideal body shape appears.  And suddenly what you have or who you are  doesn’t feel enough again. So the cycle continues. More buying. More discarding. More pressure to keep up.  

That system has damaged our planet. But I believe it has also quietly damaged something else. How people feel about themselves leaving an empty void.

We judge each other constantly, through appearance, through clothes, through how closely someone matches whatever the current ideal happens to be. But surely fashion could be something better than that. Surely it could be a force for good.

Maybe it’s time to step back and question the assumptions we’ve all accepted. Why do we need endless seasons? Why do trends have to change every few months? What if fashion was simply about creating beautiful, well-made pieces that people genuinely love to wear?  Clothes that create memories and that we cherish for years to come.  Clothes made from materials that respect the earth, not strip from it. Clothes that help people feel comfortable and confident in who they already are.

Fashion still has the power to do that. But it will require a radical shift in how we think about it.

The systems we live inside shape who we become.Which means if we want a different future, we have to build different systems.