Picture Perfect

We are more than ever subject to all things visual. No matter what the field, it is increasingly about what we see rather than what lies beneath. And with the onset of social media outlets like Instagram, we are producing and consuming images at an incredible rate, and this is especially true when it comes to Fashion. But often what we’re seeing is a far cry from reality. So, are we being shamed into wannabe visual perfection by oh so perfect images?

We are constantly being bombarded with gorgeous images and encouraged to take them as truths. And whether willingly or  unwillingly, we somehow do. Very few people who like all things pretty can resist a well put together image with all the right things in all the right places. And what’s the harm in admiring beautiful things? Absolutely nothing. The problems begin when some people start taking said images at face value and trying to match their impossible (inexistent) standards. Just because we might be encouraged to believe what we see, no questions asked, doesn’t mean we have to.

Indeed, those incredible shots (often set up by savvy social media managers) might reel us in and have us drooling and coveting this and that left, right and center but that’s what they’re designed to do. They’re designed to make us want whatever because seeing it in a ‘simple shot’ make it seems everyday possible au naturel, even though it rationally isn’t. A picture-perfect image is just that - an image. In short, there’s no need to ever feel that un-IG perfect feeling about your (fashionably full but not sectioned by color) closet or roughly chopped (as opposed to star-shaped) banana in your muesli - they’ll still feel, lookind taste just as good.

The Chicutopian (@barbedchic)