What's "in" and What's not

In my opinion, advertising agencies and the companies whose products they are selling are the ones who deciphers this for us. I would like to think that everyone would be content with the clothing they have if they weren't constantly being pressured to look a certain way, or buy a certain brand. I believe brand image is nearly a facade created by these multi-million dollar companies to keep us as the consumers buying more. Without our spending power they would literally have no income whatsoever, so it seems they have to figure out ways to keep us coming back. Each individual company spend millions on creating their image, whether it's the naked, young looking people on Abercrombie ads or the Nike ads that make it seem like you are going to be an Olympic gold medalist if you wear their product. It seems as if they are trying to sell a perfect image that suits a particular lifestyle, rather than the product itself.

All this hype about the latest and greatest clothing that is completely unnecessary baffles me because it seems some kind of top secret fashion agency is conjuring up these different fads and throwing them out at us as if we couldn't think of what to wear ourselves. For example, here is an ad by Abercrombie and Fitch portrays three people, two girls and a guy, with minimal to no clothing in the actual picture, if this didn't say Abercrombie and Fitch on it I would just figure it was a picture of three random people. The point being here is that they are selling their image, which in turn will sell their product, because if you buy their product, you are automatically young and good-looking.

As far as the influence on cultural values that selling these types of images goes, I think that these very images that we are surrounded by every day have a huge impact on how we view ourselves and others. If certain images of "beauty" are put in front of our eyes everyday, we become accustomed to thinking that's just the way it is. The power these ads have over what we buy is immense because they are the very thing that are creating the illusion that we have to buy it in order to fit in.