Fashion's new face far too familiar

America's blind obsession with celebrity life doesn't just motivate the tabloids - it's also steered fashion to the point of artistic degradation. Where statuesque models once graced the covers of fashion magazines, movie stars and various other famous figures have stepped in to show off the work of prominent designers. For the past decade or so, the media has driven the fashion industry to deliver familiar faces to a gossip-ready public at the unnecessary expense of the garment industry's integrity.Fashion is an art form, but it's also a business that relies heavily on its product's marketability. By attaching a celebrity's name to a design label - or even an entire style - the brand is exploiting pop culture's inexhaustible cache of likeable personalities. But clothing should lend its own quality to a model's body, not vice versa. When Louis Vuitton turns to someone like Jennifer Lopez to boost its image, the design house is sacrificing the very elements that make her a fitting woman to dress in the first place - independently successful, stylishly bold and sexy to an extreme. Fashion's power lies in its ability to make a woman all of these things, without the help of manipulative advertising tactics. |source|

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