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At this age individuals are involved in various activities like schooling/ college, sports activities, extra curricular activities, get togethers, etc. Hence they need varied clothing including casual wears, party wear, night wears, school uniforms, NCC dress, sports wear, formal wear, etc. The clothing is an important tool that affects the individual’s social development at this stage. The clothing of the adolescents affects the following aspects of the social development:
- Appearance; important for social adequacy and group conformity that increases participation
- Acceptability; means of popularity in a group that builds up confidence level resulting in better decision taking capability
The important components of the adolescents’ clothing are as follows:
- Style i.e., according to fashion and fads; wide range of fabrics, colour and styles are preferred by the adolescents
- Becomingness i.e., proper fit, size and colour
- Self grooming i.e., use of jewellery, accessories, beauty care elements as creams, nail polish, lipstick, etc.
Other features related to the clothing of adolescents are:
- Easy care practices for clothes to enable them to learn wardrobe management
- Price and durability of their clothes are considered least by the adolescents; they want/ purchase the clothes that fulfil their physical, psychological and social needs no matter they are cheap or costly and will be useless shortly.
Thus concluding the clothing of adolescents, we can say that there is difference between the needs and choices of early and late adolescents.
Early adolescents prefer design (fashion) over quality; like to purchase more garments of low cost; purchase with parents; often choose odd sized or ill proportioned clothes owing their perception of self to be young but have conflicts during with their parents regarding clothing and grooming, appearance, hair styling and use of cosmetics; these conflicts over dress are more frequent among girls than boys; boys and girls dress similarly irrespective of family occupation, place of residence or family connections; buy garments each year rather than rotating the old ones as the close-fitting garments purchased become too small the next year because of the rapid growth and the influence of fads; do not plan their clothing purchases over a long period of time, purchase clothing when they have the money, for special occasions or when something new catches then eye; both boys and girls go for readymade garments and girls have more clothing than boys.
Late adolescents prefer quality over design however they have an appreciation for design in clothing; purchase less garments of affordable cost; purchase with friends or by self; go for proper sizes, branded products keeping in mind their values, individuality and the purpose i.e., follow functional, purposeful and styling fashion; settle into patterns which they will use in adulthood.
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Participants