As time goes on, so do trends, styles and fashion. Most of the stuff that teenagers say, wear and do would be highly looked down on from people of other generations. One of the main things that is a new “trend” is taking meaningful symbols and customs from other religions and cultures and turning them into a fashion statement. For instance, the trend of Henna, Bindis and wearing religious symbols have turned into a fashion statement, when in reality it is a large part of a culture and religion.

Another common thing that people are now doing is taking religious symbols and putting them on their Instagram or writing them on their cars because they think that it makes them indie and bohemian, when they are really just turning a religion into a way to make them look cool. I am family and friends with many people of all religions and ethnicities. Seeing the people I am close to and how passionate they are about their religion makes me upset to see people making it into a brand.

The trend of teenagers doing henna has become popular. Henna is a Popular thing teens are doing now. They think that it’s like have a temporary tattoo. But what they don’t understand is that henna has ancient meaning to it and is not comparable to a temporary tattoo.

Clothing store like Urban Outfitters have even started selling clothes with religious symbols on them. This is insensitive to the people who live and practice these religions every day just to see people who know nothing about it, represent it.

Urban Outfitters has been infamous for selling clothes that have controversy. They have sold tank tops, shirts, socks and a duvet cover with the Hindu God Ganesha on it. This is very disrespectful to the religions that so highly respect the symbol. People need to stop taking these highly respected symbols that have been around for centuries and turning them into an item that makes them look cool.

A very large influence of this new trend is coming from the way celebrities dress to famous music festivals. This has rubbed off on almost all clothing stores. During the spring and summer seasons you will see stores with a “festival collection.” The clothing items in these collections are inspired from what people wear to music festivals. Included in these collections are clothing with Hindu symbols, Native American symbols and Buddhist symbols. Music Festivals have drawn the inspiration for their “festival wear” from these different cultures and religions because of the intricate designs they have. Even though the music festivals have absolutely nothing to do with any of these cultures or religions, the designs make them seem bohemian and indie.

The people wearing these clothes and the companies designing them need to put their feet in the other person’s shoes and see how they would feel if they saw someone wearing something that was very close, traditional and meaningful to them. People wearing clothing with these symbols on them because they look cool is not only offending a culture and religion, but taking away the meaning and turning it into just a cool design, and to an entire population those symbols are their entire livelihood.