The fashion and beauty industry gets a lot of stick for exacerbating insecurities and body image issues – of young people in particular. Obvious offenders are the countless fashion labels who use impossibly fit or thin men and women to model their latest clothes. The advent of ‘photoshopping’ has made this problem even worse, with magazine covers brandishing waistlines and thigh gaps which have been manipulated in apparent defiance of the laws of biology and physics. Now, there seems to be a tendency of the industry to try and dictate trends in our genetics: body shapes, hair and skin colour, orthodontics and bone structures go in and out of fashion just like clothes do. Surely this is a step too far: how can we allow the transient whims of a commercial industry to define the way we see the parts of ourselves we cannot change?

At some level this may be an issue, with preferences in body shapes feeding into ongoing and futile battles between pro-skinny and pro-curvy factions. Perhaps, however, this is more a symptom of human nature than a fault of a superficial industry. Envious of other body types we attack them in order to feel better about our own; or, caught up in a trap of self-loathing we perpetuate negative opinions about members of our own clan. The former approach has infamously arisen recently in the form of ‘skinny shaming’, through which flat chested women with athletic frames are being compared derogatively to the burgeoning bosoms and buttocks of the Kardashians of this world. Obviously this way of defining beauty, excluding rather than including, is not helpful and is not at all what fashion should be about.

But, arguably, the fashion industry does not do this deliberately. Although Cara Delevingne’s bushy eyebrows don’t grow naturally on all of us and unlike Lara Stone the gap in our teeth was unfortunately closed up by over-zealous orthodontists in our childhood, this doesn’t mean we are in some way excluded or insulted. The premise of fashion is inspiration – not aspiration. Trends come and go because they offer continuous stimuli for the clothes and styles we wear; this doesn’t mean we have to rigidly adhere to them for fear of being excluded from the realm of beauty. Just because the forecast for Spring/Summer 2015 features a whole lot of denim, this doesn’t mean that those who don’t emerge as jean-clad as Justin and Britney at the 2001 AMAs will be deemed unattractive.

Of course, as with everything, there are those who go to extremes. News of Tyra Banks enlisting dentists on America’s Next Top Model to shave down a model’s teeth to widen the gap between her front teeth makes it clear how far some people will go in the name of fashion. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though – those with the ability an­­­­­­­­­d the desire to pursue the art of new trends should have the liberty to do so. There is an important distinction between fashion as an art form which can be explored as subtly or radically as desired, and fashion as something which can dictate what people should find beautiful.

There is also another facet to the industry which feeds into the popular trends which may or may not appeal to or work for everyone. The idolisation of celebrities brings with it idolisation of their peculiarities – not only how they look and what they wear but also how they act, what they do and what they stand for. While such idolisation may trigger certain trends which not everyone can achieve, these trends emanate from a whole package which does more for the cause of inner beauty and personality prevailing over the superficiality of physical appearance. Cara Delevingne ­­­­­­has succeeded in this – the bushy eyebrows might be her trademark but they contribute to a wider rebellious image of a high fashion model acting however she likes. Her youthful playfulness and at times downright weirdness is all part of her appeal and this sends a positive message about what really influences some of fashion’s more specific trends.

If anything then, the fashion world and those who are predominant in it should inspire us to look for ourselves into new styles and trends that work for us. At times, a cult following of a celebrity can trigger a desire to emulate them, but where this specific emulation is not possible, a more general imitation of the overall image which makes the role model beautiful is something we can enjoy exploring. Using the fashion world as an inspirational framework is rewarding, so long as we do not allow it to stray from the art form it is and begin dictating body images that we feel we must adopt in order to feel good about ourselves.