What Influences Teen Fashion

Teen fashion sometimes leaves you wishing you were young enough to wear a cute sundress and sometimes it leaves you wondering whether these kids even own a mirror. What’s hot today is out tomorrow and the ever-changing teenage trends are not always something you might want to see your own teenager sporting. However, your fashionable opinions probably aren’t so fashionable in your teen’s mind; your teen is a lot more likely to find fashion influence elsewhere.

Magazines

According to a web page on the Brigham Young University website, magazines are a primary source of influence on teens when it comes to fashion. Magazines focus on using models that make clothes look amazing and desirable. Cover models are dressed to catch the attention of your teen and the clothing and accessories photographed inside the pages of magazines are designed to influence your teens to want to wear a certain designer or a certain style.

Music

Why Do Teenagers Find Fashion Important?

Learn More

Most teens love music and the musicians that sing their favorite songs. This makes musicians a big influence when it comes to teenage fashion. According to Heather Askinosie, the co-founder of Energy Muse Jewelry, all it takes is a single musician or pop star to wear something one time for it to become one of the biggest trends of the moment, according to an article at DisneyFamily.com. What your teen sees her favorite singers wearing in concert, on the cover of a CD or in a music video can influence what she considers fashionable and worth wearing.

Television and Movies

According to the web page on the Brigham Young University website, the physical appearances of most actors and actresses are highlighted. This encourages teens to want to look like their favorite television characters. If your teen watches a popular television show in which the main character is a beautiful, popular girl who always wears a headband, she’s more likely to start wearing headbands. Additionally, actors and actresses tend to influence a teen’s desire to have a certain hairstyle and hair color.

Models and Body Image

Does What You Wear Affect Your Athletic Performance?

Learn More

Teen fashion isn’t something you can talk about without mentioning body image. Girls and boys alike are both influenced by pop culture to look a certain way if they want to be considered attractive. The media focuses a lot on body image, from its use of ultra-thin models to excessive questioning of celebrities about how they remain so thin or fit. According to the Girl Scouts of the USA study of more than 1,000 teenage girls, the fashion industry places too much pressure on girls to be as thin as possible 1.