The fashion industry is a billion dollar industry. Different fashion companies around the world are setting beauty ideals, followed by millions. Young, old, poor, rich, Americans, Asians, Europeans, Australians, Afro-american, Caucasian…
Achieving these beauty ideals, however, is often almost impossible, and puts a lot of pressure on those who want and cannot achieve them. We, at the youth cener, also wondered about the great influence of beauty ideals on young people. To what extent do they follow them? How do they feel when they do not achieve the desired effects? Do they also have any other consequences? We could not answer these and other questions, so we decided to further explore this area. We expanded the survey among young people in which we found that the fashion industry has a very large and especially negative impact on young people’s self-image.
And yet – can we manage to change our thinking?
The answer is simple – definitely not unless we try. We have decided to take action and have registered a youth exchange Breaking Beauty Standards in the Erasmus + program as part of which we want to help young people to increase their self-esteem, search for their style, and to break the beauty ideals set by giants. Of course, we must not forget about the environment
In early September, together with partners from BiH, Greece and Malta, we held a two-day advanced planning meeting for the upcoming project of international youth exchange Breaking Beauty Standards in the Erasmus+ program, which will take place in Trbovlje from 21th to 28th October. During the two-day meeting, the partners got to know each other and made friends, while at the same time sharing with each other the tasks and activities we would lead during the exchange.Through our exchange, we therefore want young people to recognize the importance of following themselves and their style while at the same time seeking to become more responsible consumers of clothing with environmental concerns in mind. At the same time, we also want to encourage them to accept differences and tolerance towards the appearance of others, and to raise awareness of the importance of critical thinking about the presented beauty ideals by society and the media.
Would you also be interested in participating in an exchange? Do you dare to break beauty standards?
contact us via FB or aneja.tahirovic@gmail.com
