This article is intended both for parents concerned about the appearance of their child, and for anyone who wants to become familiar with the social and cultural norms that the image of a modern teenager must meet.
Modern teenager: who is he?
There are no uniform standards of appearance that society imposes on adolescents. In different countries, different social groups, adolescents can look completely different. In addition, adolescence is the period of a child's transformation into an adult, independent person, associated with many emotional experiences that cause protest in him, a desire to stand out from the mass of his peers. Appearance is the most affordable way to "show yourself". Clothes, shoes, hair - all these attributes are important for a teenager. The current generation is in the digital age, so today's teenager gets style information primarily from social media. Musical preferences are also important: rock lovers prefer leather accessories of mostly dark colors, wristbands with the names of their favorite bands, spikes. Popular music fans - light, bright, “glamorous” clothes. In addition, many subcultures flourish among adolescents with a special dress code.
Youth subcultures
Boys and girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen often belong to different subcultures. Most often, the period of enthusiasm lasts one to three years, but leaves a noticeable mark on their appearance. For example, today's popular hipsters prefer haircuts that were fashionable in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century, large glasses and coffee tones in clothes. These are adherents of light rock, India, cinema of the last century. It must be said that hipsters are much less condemned by society than emo, hippies and goths who actively existed before and "out of fashion". The latter wore elaborate clothes, long and sometimes ridiculous haircuts, thereby strongly standing out from the crowd.
Traditional teen look
Many spheres of a teenager's life (school, university, work) assume their own standardization of appearance: jeans, a shirt or T-shirt of a calm tone, hair of moderate length for boys and a long skirt below the knee, a minimum of makeup, jewelry and a neat hairstyle for girls. Slightly less often, teenagers are forced to wear strict suits or dresses; this is practiced in gymnasiums and lyceums, where they have their own uniform. But you should not frighten a child if he is fascinated by any subculture: the less emotional pressure is put on him in the family, the sooner he will “get sick”. Of course, this does not apply to cases where the teenager looks vulgar or behaves inappropriately. In other words, remember yourself at sixteen: what could be more important than freedom in choosing your own style?
