The Psychology of Fashion

Humans communicate a great deal about themselves using the medium of personal style and dress. We see it as all being about individuality, expressing our unique nature. The problem is, personal style can become a straight-jacket, in the the same way our behavioral habits often do.

There is a new term floating around - “Enclothed cognition” . It describes the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes. There are two independent factors at work here: the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them.

There have been a whole bunch of bizarre little experiments done on this stuff by actual, honest-to-God scientists with degrees and everything. I guess they have nothing better to do. They experimented on women's mathematical capabilities whilst wearing a lab-coat versus wearing swimwear and guess what? The women tested performed considerably better when wearing the lab-coat. In swim-wear it seems the ladies had noticeably diminished capacities.

So it seems there's a powerful connection between a person’s clothing and the way they act and feel about themselves. I guess it's always been clear that clothing has an emotional impact on those around us – whether a positive or a negative one – but is it a shift in perspective to consider the emotional effects our outfits have on ourselves... the emotional karma we are reaping from what we choose to pull out of the wardrobe each day.

Here's another thing to consider.

If we constantly dress down due to a lack of self esteem and the people around us – not just friends and colleagues, but also just the folks we pass on the streets - treat us in a certain way because of that, isn't this likely to create a feedback loop which affirms that status to us?

Or the opposite might be true. If we dress in uptight clothing and get treated accordingly, the treatment from people around us only serves to establish more firmly in our minds a certain role we feel pushed into acting out when actually we might be naturally carefree deep down inside.

This stuff is happening with more subtle social dynamics all the time.

The challenge here is to dress outside of yourself. Push out of your comfort zone. If you are used to being outlandish and provocative, try going the other way for a while just to see what happens inside and out. If you dress dowdy, spice that shit up. Break a few rules.

The right clothing can change who we are, how we think and how we feel. We should not underestimate this power.

There are more subtle aspects we could consider here too. For instance, a young woman with let's say a generous figure, she watches some catwalk fashion shot on television, sees a style that looks amazing on this tiny stick-like being and thinking it's going to make her look like that, goes out and buys a similar cut. When she puts that outfit on and all the bulges push that fabric out of shape she's going to feel way worse than before, right? It might seem like an obvious thing. But she doesn't want to feel like that, so instead of recognizing that she was dressing inappropriately for her body shape, she pushes that feeling down, seeing it as shame, then she puts on even more revealing clothing out of a strange rebelliousness. You can imagine the looks she'll get on the street. And the feeling of sadness and shame grows but she refuses to feel like that because she deserves better and she knows it and the spiral continues. It's not an upward spiral with a happy end, I hope you know. The simple solution for this particular girl is just to recognize her body shape and dress to accentuate it's beauty.

Dress choice is shaped by unconscious forces. We might not always understand why we wear what we wear, but our choices are rarely accidental and clearly, they are always psychologically motivated.

We are a lot of us muddled about what suits us, confused about the style that matches our personality. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that half of the folks out there don't even know who they are so how would they even begin knowing how to dress best for themselves? That's why dressing from the inside out, from your true nature is vital.

Here's another piece of slightly deeper neuro-science to consider. The unconscious reasoning behind dressing in clothes with pizzazz. Or not dressing that way.

Back in 2006, Drs. Nixo Bunzeck and Emrah Duzel showed that the area of the brain associated with what you might consider the reward circuitry, is stimulated when presented with something new. From an evolutionary perspective, if we encounter a new stimulus in our environment, strictly on a survival level, we must give it our full attention in order to assess any possible threats or benefits it may pose. What does this tell you about the way you dress or any desires you may have to be on top of the most current trends?

There is an obvious flip-side to the novelty-chasers which I think has become more apparent over the last decade or so. Those who chase the new like there was no tomorrow in the hope of bolstering their own sense of individuality, they generally don't have any. The fashions are so fleeting and attempting to follow them to show you are 'up with the new' is simply showing that you are a follower. There is such a pressure to remain current in the fashion world as well as the music and art world, but that pressure is increased by those folk in the industry who stand to profit from your currency. It may seem obvious to some of you, but surprisingly, it isn't obvious to all.

On a final point... the return to femininity in the fashion world denotes important sociological implications. Feminine fashion was used, back in the day, to keep women in their proper place. As women claimed greater rights and freedoms, opportunities for success and independence opened up and their fashion choices shifted. The softer, elegant feminine styles were rejected and women embraced 'power' clothing, which translated into masculine cuts. It's a serious relief for me to see that softer grace creeping back in and I can only hope that it signifies some deep psychological shifts with women holding their new independence and power whilst reclaiming those deeper feminine aspects.