Paper short abstract:

The present paper attempts to analyze the relationship between fashion industry and trends spread by the media and the notion of beauty in society. It aims to bring forth the manner in which the notion of beauty and physical appearance for both women and men changes with the changing fashion.

Paper long abstract:

There is an increasingly close relationship between the trends in the growing fashion industry and spread by the media and the notion of beauty in society. This paper seeks to explore the manner in which the notion of beauty and physical appearance for both women and men changes with the changing fashion trends that now reach a larger population with an increasing media penetration.

Since 1991, the year the Indian government began to open the economy to the world foreign influences have crept into India at a faster pace and this is reflected in the way the notion of beauty in India has been changing. Analysts say the shifting notion of beauty is just one of several cultural traits evolving in India today, a response, in part, to the arrival of satellite television, foreign magazines and Western fashion styles. The media, our films, advertisements etc. have a great role to play in this changing notion of beauty. The media controls the image of what is beautiful for a woman and increasingly for men too in our society and thus has a great influence over people.

The multinational companies, the fashion houses and brands brought with them, images of beauty, which were very different from what were present in India, and women's magazines internationalized their images of beauty. Today we see that reflected in the way young women look. Women, and increasingly men too, seek to replicate international beauty fashion trends on their own bodies, and broader cultural phenomena at large serve to reinforce newly imported ideas about beauty.