Fashion and Mental Health

Mental Health has always been a huge problem across the world. In the UK alone it affects 1 in 4 people every year, with 1 in 6 people having experienced a common mental health problem in a week, according to mental health charity, Mind (Mind, 2021). It can range from a wide range of things, whether it is having anxiety to having schizophrenia, it affects everyone differently. The amount of people reporting to have a mental health illness has increased by a large amount in recent years, according to Mind, with the amount of people who have reported self-harming more than doubling (Mind, 2021).

Mental health can be affected by many aspects of life, whether it is something which you are experiencing at work or the things which we are surrounded by on social media, the impact can be very damaging for every individual.

Many companies across the world are trying to have a positive impact on mental health, whether it is by donating to charities such as Mind or ensuring that their employees have enough support at work and in their personal lives, there is something every company can do.

Social media has a huge impact on mental health, whether it is by the ‘perfect’ pictures which we see everyday or the trolling which many people receive online. The effects of this can be seen through the death of Caroline Flack in February 2020. Caroline was trolled by many news articles for many years and it ended in a devasting way. However, this tragic event started the spread of awareness for mental health.

One company that started spreading more awareness was In The Style. They produced a t-shirt that had a phrase from one of Caroline’s last Instagram posts: “In a world where you can be anything… be kind.” The message of this t-shirt is very powerful and had a very positive impact. In The Style donated 100% of all profits for the t-shirt to Samaritans to further show their support for the cause (In The Style, 2020). The original t-shirts raised over £400,000 for the charity and in early 2021 they released a full collection dedicated to raising awareness (Lord and Jakes, 2021). The second collection raised an astonishing £50,000 in less than 24 hours, with 100% of the profits once again being donated to Samaritans (Lord and Jakes, 2021).

The print of Caroline’s message on the original t-shirt

Celebrities showing some items from the second range

This campaign continues to have a very positive impact as they now spread a range of messages, helping to show people that you care, as In The Style added: “ You never know what goes on behind closed doors” (In The Style, 2020).

This tragedy sparked many companies and people to change the way they behaved, whether it was through the companies helping to inspire people to be happy within themselves or encouraging people to be kinder to each other in day-to-day life.

However, this could all seem too good to be true. Many employees who have worked at In The Style have complained about the lack of support they received from the company and those who work there. An employee who worked there for less than a year, said that: “They aren’t trusted by the CEO and they are underpaid and overworked” (Glassdoor, 2020). Another employee added that: “ There is no HR, there is no appreciation and that mental health is a myth” (Glassdoor, 2020). This could mean that In The Style are only having this campaign to advertise themselves to more customers because although all the profits are being donated to charity, it means that they will gain more positive publicity, which could result in more sales for their other collections.

Although the fashion brands will benefit from using these campaigns, the awareness they are spreading is encouraging more people to seek help if they are experiencing mental health problems and allowing others to be aware of the consequences. However, these fashion brand do need to ensure that they are following through with the advice they are giving, because then they could receive a backlash.