Quarantine and the rise of the work from home outfit has made me think about the real reasons for dressing. There is so much thrown about on social media about not “being able” to dress for anything anymore – which for me, begs the question of why you wear what you wear in the first place. If clothing is more than a uniform for you (and for most people, it is in varying degrees), what are your motivations for dressing the way you do? Practicality is a must, but aside from that, the uncomfortable questions surface quickly, don’t they? Issues around others’ expectations, fitting in, downplaying the significance of ordinary moments all start to flare like buzzing neon signs.
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A Sensory Thing
Sometimes I wonder if one of the reasons why humans wear clothing and jewelry, no matter the culture, comes down to a sensory thing. As if just the feeling of air would dull the edges of a brain that needs constant input, but also constant comfort. Maybe it’s all those anthropology classes I took in college, but I think there’s something to that.
Isolation has unmasked how reliant we are on social structure, contact, and norms, and our clothing reflects that. Fashion, in laymen’s and in industry terms, is innately social. It springs up throughout an office workweek, cocktail hour on Fridays, weddings on the weekend. Often, our goal – stated or no – is to stand out while fitting in, cementing the fabric of who you are and what your role is in whatever circle you’re a part of. Now, that’s been peeled back, and all of a sudden, fashion is cast aside as nonessential. The joyless exercise of waking up, climbing out of your pajamas and into your athleisure, and back again because there is no one to impress.
Reasons for Dressing: Smoke and Mirrors
But if fashion brings you an earnest type of joy, you’ll find that at your core it is never about impressing someone else, not if its fashion worth partaking in. Just like art, it’s about the human experience of it all, whether enjoyed collectively or individually. Art made just to impress the public isn’t art, that’s something altogether different: politics. And while fashion is for sure political, that fact is simply a by-product of it’s fundamentally human, artistic core, as with any art form.
So after all the smoke and mirrors of wedding receptions and parties, the sartorial expectations of job interviews and dinner with the in-laws, the necessity of sweatpants to mop the floors and mow the lawn, what’s left for you? Who’s it all for, if not for YOU?
Chic-Lit of the Arts
There’s this idea that fashion is frivolous, unnecessary, the “chic-lit” of the arts (I’ve used the term “chic-lit” with full knowledge of it’s gendered nature, yes, and purposefully so). I used to shy away from even admitting that I loved it, because Serious People, Meaningful People, don’t care about things like that, do they?
Whether it’s your old sweats or a designer gown, you are wearing sculpture, the only kind that moves with you, that takes up the same space as you, that you feel on your skin every second of the day (with some exceptions, because if you’re showering clothed, I have questions). The feel of a garment, both physically and how it makes you feel psychologically, can have tremendous impact on the psyche. It can legitimize who you want to be in a given moment, provide comfort, challenge you to see yourself in a new way, or simply add a tactile depth to your routine.
On Connecting with Others
All that said, although there are a million very powerful, very real reasons for dressing, cutting back all the noise and the fluff leaves one vital element. Connection, it seems, is the tie that binds. Such an earnest, pure part of fashion is found in connecting with others, much in the same way we use clothing to connect with ourselves. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss that element, of putting together outfits and going out to dinner, feeling friends and family all around me. Perhaps what we really miss when we complain that we have nothing to dress for are our communities, of being exactly who we are (style included), surrounded by loved ones.
Who wouldn’t miss that?
love,
Stig
PS. For more on intuitive dressing, check out this post 🙂
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