Feminist down the ages have argued that the oppression of women is played out on their bodies, their clothes, their style of adornment. Times however have changed. Feminist themselves have changed our culture; we can begin to acknowledge and celebrate the freedoms that have already been achieved. What the new Feminism is now trying to achieve are not the symbols of the past oppression, but the duller , too - often forgotten elements of women’s continuing social and economic inequality. 

In this final march towards equality, the puritanism that was expressed by so many earlier feminists is a hindrance rather than a help. Is our interest in our bodies and our clothes really forced on women by a masculine conspiracy? Femininity is strong and always has been. I believe that feminist can be strong while being feminine! Classic feminists will argue against this, they will argue that women are undermined by this the traditional relationship to fashion and beauty rituals. I believe that feminists should be wary of simply insisting that women are oppressed by the imagery around them. Some may be oppressed, others maybe revelling in It, others may be creating it, others yet maybe ignoring it.

At the endless debate about what women should wear is essentially just loading more guilt on to women. How we respond to such pressures- whether we want to resist them, or exploit them - cannot be simplified by talking of fashion as a simple conspiracy that patriarchy exerts on women. The way women dress often come close to the ways men dress, and the choices that women make today often speak less of their sex than of their occupation, or their class or their politics. Fashion , which has changed in response to the changing cultural and sexual world, can no longer be seen as a monolith of oppression.