Fashionable IS uncool (exclamation point)

FIR RB# 8
Author of the article read: Colin Goh
Page nos.: 2
Read from: Reader's Digest
Date read: August 9, 2010

The article Colin Goh wrote made me realize that the youth hasn't changed its ways of being trendy and 'fashion-forward' for their sake of proving a statement...whatever the obscured statement could be. But in his article, he makes us realize also how different the youth was and the youth is today, and the difference couldn't be made any clearer.

The Article
The article starts off with him remembering how he was in his teenage years, especially when his vice-principal had told them, 'Fashion is ephemeral, but style is forever,' in which he and his friends snickers at this remark. But looking back to their old photos, they realized how tacky they had looked before: with all the big, puffy hair, mismatched shirts, torn jeans with colorful socks and leg warmers in the middle of the day! And at school!
He makes it a point that in his years the youth dress up so radically because they wanted to make a 'statement', and the statement is usually that of rebelliousness against adults, law or the social norms. To him, it still bothered him why he didn't listen to his parents when they had kept him from dressing up like a...you-know-what, but also bothered him why their folks overreact so much. Perhaps parents, too, had fought their own parents about what they should wear and what not to wear.
Fighting over fashion is an age-old rituals all families re-enact every generation, according to him. He also states that he expects his own daughter to argue him about what she wears someday, given that 'trendy' fashion today emphasizes on sexualization, and hopes that he has enough wisdom not to overeact as his parents had before him, because arguing at your parents are a necessary part of growing up, as he states in his article. He also makes it a point that the Youth culture should not be look down upon, as it is a way for the youth to seek their identities amidst the seething mass and creative experimentation should be encouraged.
But the irony today is that the youth no longer see fashion as their way of being a unique individual and is instead a way for the youth to blend into a specific group, creating stereotypes. The youth nowadays only care how 'important' a certain label is, or to be more precise, how high a price a certain label is. Instead of making a loud, individualistic statement that says: 'See me as who I really am', it rather says: 'Hopefully, you think I'm rich'.
He states that kids today also see fashion as a sort of arms race, as every kid races on who gets to be really fashion-forward, all the while they let their parents suffer for wasting money on clothes the marketing department puts on the rack, which isn't just pathetic but also it lacks personal expression.
In his last sentence, he says that kids can still fool around with fashion, but make sure that creativity is used and not their parents credit cards, other wise the only label that they'll be able to acquire reads: 'sucker'.

Reaction
I agree with Colin Goh in so many ways. First of, it isn't hard to see how the youth are such copy-cats when it comes to what's the latest.
Sure it is fun to copy what the celebrities are now in, or what the designers and markets now have in store, as they are the ones who start on the choices we make when we shop. We also learn from the media what kind of clothes are best for us.
I, too, wear for what I am, as I believe there is no other style than what I already wear. Unfortunately, peers are into social pressure, even though they don't notice it, and I admit I have been pressured as well for being so different.
I guess it can't be helped because this is who we are, whether we do find a label that says 'Sucker!' or not.