The emphasis on materialistic beauty has been in a downward spiral ever since the beginning of the 21st century. Anonymity is the new key of attraction it gives a clear sense of contrast between the opinionated beauty standards and the ambiguity of the drama a collection offers. The idea behind faceless fashion is to signify the inner self through personal expression over the conventional preconceived modes.

Faceless fashion is a socio-political stance over the Eurocentric representation in the industry. Faceless may fall under the literal meaning of the deranged, blurred state but also includes any unconventional stance on the representations which has been since the beginning of time. Anything which falls outside the bars of the phenomenon which questions the narrow representation of the beauty standards by placing unorthodox representation also falls under this category.

Brands such as Maison Martin Margiela, Haphazard, Jantaminiau have adopted the thirst for such mystical, seductive and political aspects through “faceless” phenomenon into their core strategy. Daft punk, Austra, Woodkid, Sia, Kanye and many others in the music industry have adopted this strategy to give emphasis on the music aspect rather than the social attention which follows it.  By covering a face an artist a mystery is created around the image and more attention is drawn towards the art rather than the personality or the platform where it originated.  This has certainly paid off for the above artist as they have found critical appreciation for their work rather than their presence. 

Dr. Chris Soloman, a proclaimed "expert in visual profiling" conducted a study on the features that are deemed to be most attractive and the studies show that they all share the same European facial features and fair skin. Kent Online claims that this paradox can be broken down into a series of simple ratios and proportions stating- " The perfect face has a distance between the pupils of just under half of the width of the whole face from ear to ear, eyes and mouth should be a third of the overall length from the hairline to chin on the perfect face".  News outlets claim that this is an effect of the golden ratio paradox, even so, the fact still remains unchanged that the attractive features always tend to take a narrow path and most commonly all are white!. People around the world with non-white complexion have been deeply affected by this idealism of what beauty should look like and it's forcing them into incorporating measures such as skin lightening and double eyelid surgery.

Due to these alarming idealism, youth have been undergoing self-doubt through ages. The Eurocentric standards don't fit with most of the other world and the representation is so narrow that the beauty industry tries to push products that aren't made for people of other ethnicities. Some of the most common complaints remains the lack of representation, mono-centric shades of lipstick, lack of foundation products for POC, proclaimed notion that lighter skin means more beautiful, lesser prominent curves, idolising straight hair, lighter eye colour and the most disturbing of all- POC are meant to fit into the preconceived box of representations in order to be more fitting to the socio-idealism of what beauty should look like and pushing them towards incorporating methods and product which push their agenda.

These are often incorporated in most visual aspects we look at day by day. Starting with narrow TV personalities and the adverts displayed on them every day, to the deeply rooted idealism that you have to look a certain way to fit the criteria of the social perception. Brands like Nivea, Fair and Lovely are a few among the very vast number of brands pushing the ideas of bleaching for fairer skin. 

Academy Award winner Lupita Nyongo is one of the biggest social celebrity who as publicly spoken towards the lack of broad spectrum in beauty industry- from mere knowledge on how to work on darker shades of skin by beauty professionals to pushing the POC to opt the silky straight hair instead of appreciating and working with their normal hair. As for the Indian A-listed celebrities, they have long been ignoring the fact that the discrimination exists and some major of them even endorsing the brands which advertise these agendas. This is clearly seen in the narrow representation on social platforms which at the end of the day is one of the important factors influencing the false idealism.

The question of diversity has become a sustained topic of conversation since last 10 years. The castings of nonwhite models, plus-size women, transgender and women over age of 50 has been accounted in a larger percentage at recent years. Every runway at these days include at-least 2-3 diverse models.

In Spring 2018, casting of racially diverse models has made up a history by having a 36.9% nonwhite models among 2,601 total runway appearances. The Fall 2016 held the record till now by having 31.9% of racially diverse model appearances. Whereas Fall 2017 and Spring 2017 had 31.5% and 30.3% appearances. And seasons before that had below 30% exposure of nonwhite models. These statistics were quoted from the cast in influential shows like, Calvin klein or Marc jacobs. It wouldn’t have got the spotlight if that was deduced by mass-market brands, minor shows or barely known design houses. 

Also this Spring 2018, we have been through the season of body diversity. Almost 3.46% i.e, 90 plus-size models walk the runway. Wherein previous seasons had poor percentages, like Fall2017 had 26, Spring2017 had 16 and Fall 2016 with only 4 plus-size models. Leading designers are casting plus-size models in their shows and also these models are getting a wide recognition in fashion industry in these years. 

Another diversity that’s visible in industry is casting of transgender. It has found the lift too in this Spring2018, where 31 models i.e, 28 transgender and 3 non-binary appeared in runways and some of them were high profile shows. This season has the highest figure since 2015, Spring 2016 and Fall2016 had 3 and 2 transgender appearance. Later Spring2017 showed 8 appearances and Fall2017 had 12 appearances. 

The casting of women over age of 50 also an important category to be noticed. Although it hasn’t found a big raise in statistics, this seasons runway had 10 appearance of models in their 50’s and 60’s whereas Fall2017 had 6 and Spring2017 with 8 castings. Yet majority of designers still overlook this group but at least few designers understand the importance of diversity in all levels. 

Faceless fashion hence is more a stance on this socio-political idea than any other mediums. What better platform than the root of this idealism? The industry is becoming more tolerable season by season but still fail to reach a balance even through these years and controversies.