TEN years ago, pretty much the only contact I had with fashion and beauty were through magazines I read during the occasional trip to the salon.

If I was lucky, a teacher at school would pick up a few copies of fashion magazines and kept them in our small library, but often these would be swept up immediately and pages removed. Sometimes, they would even go “missing”.

A friend of my mother’s or an aunt would at times hold “sessions” to give makeup demonstrations or have our “colours” done, figuring out which hues suited us best.

Even more rare for me was switching on the TV and seeing a fashion show; probably the closest thing I had ever come across to seeing fashion paraded were the live broadcasts of Miss World pageants, which were few and far between.

Over the years I’ve been able to afford magazines and the occasional makeover/styling sessions, but pretty much everything has changed now.

This year is drawing to a close, and we’re celebrating 10 years of technology and social media, and how it has changed the way we do everything from making friends to making money.

In the world of fashion and beauty, it has impacted us more than we may actually realise.

As a tribute to a good 10 years, here are some of the ways we have changed the way we view, consume and interact with fashion and beauty over time.

Shopping

Sure, we could get things dropped at our doorsteps through catalogue-ordering 10 years ago, but the Internet has helped take this a step further with blogshops and online fashion entrepreneurs.

No longer do boutique owners have to rent space to display their goods, all you have to do now is click on their blogshop link and you’re immediately treated to the wide array of clothes and accessories on sale.

Thanks to Internet banking – or services like Paypal – all you have to do is to “Add to cart”, make your payment and the item will be at your doorstep within days.

Shopping has never been easier!

What has made life even easier for online fashion entrepreneurs is how conveniently they can post new pictures online via their Facebook page, Twitter or their blog. Becoming a fashion mogul is no longer a dream for the privileged and wealthy. Now, you, too, can do this from your own home, on your own time.

Beauty tips

Gone are the good old days of going to a friend’s house for makeup demonstrations. Thanks to YouTube and the websites of dedicated makeup enthusiasts, you can now learn how to apply makeup and do your hair step-by-step and for free online!

Information on allergies, advice on colours and skin tone and heaps of other useful beauty tips are all there on the Internet.

You can even interact freely with experts who will give you tips when you need it. An example of expert advice is the salon Bombshell in Kuala Lumpur, which regularly updates its Twitter feed with notes on what to do with your hair for certain events.

Expressing yourself

Some of us may have dreamed of the day our picture appears in a magazine, but these days all you need is a blog to express yourself and to put your style out there for all to see.

Express yourself online!

If you can’t find the time to maintain your own blog, there are simpler ways of getting yourself heard and seen, like uploading your pictures to lookbook.nu or chictopia.com, fashion sites that are full of pictures of new trends from fashionistas around the world.

Fashion, when you want it

Who says you have to physically be present at Fashion Week in London, Paris, Milan or New York? These days within hours of a show, clips are already uploaded on YouTube for everyone to feast our eyes on. You don’t even have to peek across the crowded hall to see what’s on the runway, and you can pause and rewind a clip and watch it as many times as you want.

Fashion is no longer something distant and inaccessible that we only get to watch during beauty pageants or red carpet events, it has become something we can indulge in on our own time, as long as we have an Internet connection.