Why does fashion matter? - Personal Identity

Since I can remember, building on my own personal fashion taste hasn't been easy. With bloggers, Instagram and other social networking sites, influence and being influenced as a young person living in todays day and age, trying not to look at whats 'right' instead of whats right for me personally has been hard to dodge. Fashion and clothing is a way we all like to experiment with and show our own self expression. As a fashion student, i've always loved to see whats coming up in fashion and even editing my own clothes to save money but keeping up with trends. Although trends come and go, I feel they are not part of someones identity and express who they really are. 

When it comes to identity, I feel that it can be shown in so many different ways. Examples being; Religion, way of life, way of thinking, ethics and culture. I feel with what we wear, confidence is key and thats the only way we can really express what we're about and who we are. Being ourselves and having the freedom to be who we are is what we experiment with through how we look and come across to other people. I found some images on Vogue where I felt individuality really came out in a subtle way :

These people in the images above use modern trends and styles to keep up-do-date, however make it individual to themselves. Emotions and way of life are ways in which fashions can be pushed to the limits where as styles such as Punk and Beatnik came into play. These styles to me are more obvious about who the individual is such as the rebel and the artist.

No matter who you are, the way you dress is the person you are and every individual is different. We use fashion to express ourselves and show the world who we are as people.