Cultural Hegemony

After receiving feedback on the first draft of my essay, the essay title has changed slightly in order to allow me to give more of an argument, rather than trying to answer a yes or no question; the new title is In What Ways Does The Fashion Industry Exploit Current Social Issues For Profit, although the feedback for my first draft was relatively positive, i need to create more of a critical argument throughout. It was suggested that i look in to the Cultural Hegemony theory as a means of theorising how fashion representations come to exploit social issues.

Cultural hegemony; a term developed by Antonio Gramsci, activist, theorist, and founder of the Italian Communist party
Gramsci was concerned with how power works: how it is wielded by those in power
The power of cultural hegemony lies in its invisibility. Unlike a soldier with a gun or a political system backed up by a written constitution, culture resides within us. It doesn’t seem “political,” it’s just what we like, or what we think is beautiful, or what feels comfortable. Wrapped in stories and images and figures of speech, culture is a politics that doesn’t look like politics and is therefore a lot harder to notice, much less resist. When a culture becomes hegemonic, it becomes “common sense” for the majority of the population.
Culture, in this sense, is what allows us to navigate our world, guiding our ideas of right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, just and unjust, possible and impossible. You may be able to seize a factory or storm a palace, but unless this material power is backed up by a culture that reinforces the notion that what you are doing is good and beautiful and just and possible, then any gains on the economic, military and political fronts are likely to be short-lived.

Researching in to the cultural hegemony theory has brought up new ideas that can be talked about throughout my essay, the line of 'culture is a politics that doesn't look like politics and is therefore a lot harder to notice, much less resist' brought up ideas of the way in which the fashion industry, in terms of advertising and styling are able to use aspects from other cultures as an element within the image/look and the viewer may not realise that cultures are being appropriated due to the fact that recognising the difference between aesthetic and appropriation can be hard to notice, if the viewer doesn't have prior knowledge. 
This has also sparked an idea for the practical project, creating something which informs people on different cultures, making them aware of certain clothing, accessories, make up and hair styles which clothing brands use to advertise/sell their products are in fact taken from different cultures, educating people in order for them to make an informed decision about the products they're buying.