How Fashion Industry Influence Asian Culture
Fashion is a language of signs and symbols which convey meaning non-verbally to the individuals and groups through practice of clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup and hairstyle. Fashion can reflect the way of thinking and present yourself to others (What is Fashion, 2015). We are constantly received new fashion idea from magazine, radio, television, movie, books and social media. Furthermore, the advancement of technology enable people to know about the latest trend of fashion around the world.
Nowadays there are many fashion magazine in the current market compared to the older generations. All of these fashion magazine explain the current fashion trends to their readers. It displays a lot of pictures which beautiful models are wearing the new season of collection to attract the attention of reader to make them believes that they will look charming as the model shown in magazines if wearing the same clothing. In this new era, internet plays an crucial role in influencing people perception toward fashion. They will tell you what to think about instead of what to think.
Besides, people can receive the online information about fashion by using Google, Youtube and social media. If compared traditional media to new media, people who are using traditional media might not able to stay connected or follow up the latest trend of fashion as promoptly as Internet do. The power of Internet allow people keep updated to the latest fashion by just having a laptop, Ipad or smartphone.
In recent years, advertisement can be found in television, billboard, internet and even endorsement of celebrities. It constantly persuade to achieve the standard of beauty by improve the way we look in order to get the acceptance of society. (Katheryn,2014). People might changing their way of dressing to imitate the ideals of beauty that are portrayed by media. Indeed, social media play a significant role in advocate and influence people's perception of beauty and fashion by reflecting how people should behave in order to be charming or attractive. People nowadays can easily receive the latest information of western fashion by just a click on social media. The advertisement posted by social media will indirectly influence Asian people to wear sexy and skin-tight apparel as what western people wear to show their body shape.
However, there are differences between Western and Asian countries on clothing.
Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat has claimed that women who wear provocative clothing is giving the impression that they are selling their bodies and it contributes on the rises of sex crimes. However, his statement was refuted as an ignorance of gender issue by Wanita MCA chief Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen (Azhar & Muthiah, 2005). According to Associated Press: “Malaysia's government guidelines for public performances require a female artist to cover up from the top of her chest to her knees, including her shoulders and obscene or drug-related images is strictly prohibited (Hays, 2015).
Malaysia is a major Muslim country which approximately 60 percent are Muslims. There are many Islamic rituals and practices are associated with Malay culture. According to Quran, Muslim women must cover part of their body in publics and tight dresses is strictly
prohibited. They have to wear hijab and the purpose of wearing hijab is to protect and guard dignity of women. Therefore, Muslim women usually wear loose dresses to avoid outlining the shape of the body (Huda, 2017). They believe cover up the body can help to decrease the number of cases of sex crimes.
On 12th June 2015, a group of British tourist are arrested by police in Malaysia because of posted naked photo which taken on Mount Kinabalu. They get charged to court under committing obscene act in public place (Holmes, 2015). This act is very common in western country, however, in conservative country such as Malaysia, this is an inappropriate and disturbance behavior. As a tourists, they should dress appropriately and show respect to the different culture by conform to the tradition of other country.Besides, government has imposed some dress code that should be followed by citizens. The dress code that implement by Parliament's corporate communications division stated that only long-sleeved blouses and skirts below the knees or long pants, baju kurung or kebaya labuh and traditional attire with sleeves are allowed. In addition, same dress code is applied by Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara to ensure neat and decent clothing (Daily Express, 2016).
According to western cultures, wearing less is a sign that one’s is brave to speak out – dare to bare, dare to share. Therefore, many people tend to wear revealing clothes in certain occasion but it shows impolite toward Muslims in Malaysia. However, Malaysia is a conservative country, it encourage people to wear more tradition and formal to show respect toward Muslims.
For a case that happened in 2017, Wan Khairul Hayyee Wali has been charged for wearing futsal shorts in the public. According to Syariah law, exposing knees by wearing shorts is considered as revealing his aurat. He is shock and never knew that it is an offense to wear shorts when he is on the way of playing sports in futsal court. Therefore, he has to attend a counselling session otherwise imposed fine with RM1000. This rule is imposed to all Muslim men to make sure that they wear decently in public place (Thiagarajan, 2017). This shows that Malaysia is a conservative country.
According to this case, the rules that imposed is not fair as why Muslim men must cover up their body but some Muslim women does not have to do so? The Muslim women even can wear shorts and tight clothes in the public. For a cases that happened recently, a Muslim woman is being slapped when she wear fashionable clothes, jewelry and did not wear hijab. The woman told that it is her right whether to do wear hijab or not. Therefore, the man became frustrated and slap the woman for her disrespectful toward her own religious (Robinson, 2018). In this cases, government should readjust and enforces the rules and regulation and strictly imposed on it.
Next, Malaysia University can take some action on this issues. They have to restrict the dress code of students. Students should not wear revealing clothes in the campus area. Although nowadays there are many private university that allowed students to wear revealing clothes to the class, however, it should be banned as it might cause distraction. The dress code is not just comfortable and convenience, however, it should be socially accepted. In sums, students should wear appropriate as university is a decent and discipline place for students to absorb knowledge.
In my perspectives, there are certain western fashion clothes that can be accepted. If Malaysia have the ideas of designing clothes from western country, the designer could unlock the creativity in designing clothes with the advancement of technology. The clothes can be designed in a modest and elegant way without revealing but it is according to western styles. Therefore, western influences through fashion are not considered as negative.
In contrast, if government did not monitored the clothing issues in our country, it will lead to the rise of sexual harassment and sex crimes in conservative country. However, it is not the fault of women. According to Women Aid Organisation, it stated that there is no relationship between the way that dressed and sex crimes. It is because of the lack of respect for women. If Malaysia have high sex crime rates, how about other country that is more openness in dressing? How should they do to decrease the number of sex crime? In sum, it is all based on the culture of a country. In a conservative country, the belief is that wearing less have high chance that lead to rape and sex crime. However, western country are more openness in “sex”.
In conclusion, although Malaysia government do not strictly imposed dress code to citizen, but we should wear appropriate attire, because we live in Islamic country and we should respect other races and their cultural practice, together to work for prosperity nation (Mohamed, 2017).
Today, designers and manufacturers produce clothing and accessories with creativity and luxury quality around the world especially in Italy, France, United States, United Kingdoms, Germany, and Japan.
Through this way, we can predict on the communication technology in the next 10 years due to the advancement of technologies day by day. In the future, people will know the latest fashion through the new fashion application. It is a combination of different fashion brands in an application such as Mango, Zara, Gucci, and H&M. This application allows the consumer to change the color and design of the clothing through the tap of apps. This will give people a more personal fashion experience without going to the fitting room to change the clothing. This new concept can bring the advantage to the online shopper and it helps to increase the sales. Besides, designers are able to disseminate a brand message that they intend to create in the mind of consumers.
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Main References :
Azhar, S., & Muthiah, W. (2005). MB: Sexy dress a cause of crime - Nation | The Star Online. Thestar.com.my. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2005/03/11/mb-sexy-dress-a-cause-of crime/
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New dress code for Parliament | Daily Express Newspaper Online. (2016). Dailyexpress.com.my. Retrieved from http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=106202
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