TEENAGERS AND MODEST DRESSING

From time immemorial, women have been fascinated by and inclined towards efforts to look good. Dressing up has been an integral part of making one look more attractive. In middle ages when women were subordinate to men in most of the parts of the world and polygamy was prevalent, it would have been a tool to keep hold on one’s man. But today it also seems to be equally important. The large number of fashion designers, variety of materials and trends in clothes, large number of fashion shows held even in conservative places, itself shows that craze for fashion has certainly increased and not reduced in any way though many women are educated and modern. Maybe now it is the desire to improve one’s own personality and stand out in a crowd. This craze seems to be much more in teenagers, maybe due to peer pressure. An average teenager just wants to dress up like up like her favourite model or film star. There is no harm in following new trends and to be in touch with the latest fashion. But it is important to see that one dresses modestly. In the stiff competitive world of fashions, some designers bring out outrageous dresses which reveal more of the body, rather than covering it.Due to the fad of following fashions blindly, some women wear such dresses without caring how they look to others. Being in an impressionable age, teenagers are more susceptible to fall in the trap of such designs. More than women of other ages, it is essential for teenagers to dress modestly. Dressing up modestly simply means wearing a decent dress which covers the body very well. It does not imply wearing a long cloak with veil. But at least some curves and specifically feminine parts of the body can be covered. Irrespective of being advanced or educated, some men tend to ogle at girls and make a pass. They would not dare to do so with a mature woman for the fear of being reprimanded. But teenage girls seem to be easy target for them, because they are mostly naïve and are easily led away by sweet talk. This sometimes leads to illicit relations which ruin the future of a young girl. Now when a girl wears a provocative dress, it is in a way sending an open invitation to lecherous men that this girl is available. All men may not start an affair with a teenage girl but nothing stops them from ogling. No girl with an ounce of self respect would like the idea that a man is fantasizing after seeing her. To avoid such situations, decent dresses have been advocated since old times. A bride always wears a full dress because she is considered to be personification of purity and virtue. Some young girls have a wrong notion that by wearing short skimpy dresses, they would be considered modern by their friends and if they dress up decently, they would be regarded as being outdated. I am not sure how this type of thinking has been generated. But lucrative advertisements showing glamorous models wearing ultra short dresses seem to be responsible to some extent for this trend. There is nothing outdated about dressing up decently and it is still considered a good quality. There was a statement by the U.S. President, a few months ago regarding his teenage daughter, “I pray to God to make her skirt longer, when she goes out”. This shows how in a liberal country like America also, decent dressing is regarded to be important. Clothes protect the body from extremes of weather and insect bites also. It is funny to see teenage girls wearing short dresses and then complaining of chest pain, backache, e.t.c, when the weather is cold. The most important function of clothes is to enhance the beauty of human body. This seems to be contradictory to the thinking of many people, but is a fact. Clothes cover flaws of a body; keep the unpleasant looking body hair out of sight. Thus teenagers can see that there are many advantages of wearing decent full length clothes and harm, none whatsoever. Therefore if teenagers dress modestly, it would enhance their personality, reputation and make them look more attractive. E-mail- rachna212002@yahoo.co.uk

Lifestyle

TEENAGERS AND MODEST DRESSING