The Psychology of Clothing and the Danger of Aesthetics
Image Courtesy: Instagram
I did something very frightening the other day: think. As I brainstormed what to write about for this article, I found myself reminiscing on my own clothing style— my blouses and thrifted silk collared shirts, my loafers and long, often floral, maxi skirts, my Moxie Vintage corduroy purse, cardigans, and excess amount of sweaters. If all these things were to be bundled together and put in a box, someone might refer to my fashion sense as “grandma core.” I wouldn’t completely disagree. I’ve had way too many close calls in public places where me and the 65-year-old man in aisle ten were wearing the exact same button down shirt and white Reeboks and I had to exit the store immediately before he demanded one of us go home and change. But putting a label on my style is when it hits me: my ideal bedtime is like 9:30. In the daytime I’m probably reading, as English majors do, or longing for the day I have a garden of my own to plant yellow trumpet trees and birdwatch from my porch. My role model is the Sleepytime Bear, and if that weren’t bad enough, my part time job is singing at nursing homes. Me and the guys over at Allegro are, like, best friends.
I might be a senior citizen. I found myself in a predicament over these revelations that I’m secretly an old woman, not because being an old woman is a bad thing, but more in their correlation with my own clothing style. Do I dress this way because this is who I inwardly am, or have I started buying physical copies of newspapers because of how I dress? Who wears who?
I say all this because “enclothed cognition” is a real thing. Coined by Hajo Adam and Adam D. Galinsky, the two researchers found that clothing can have a significant impact on our behavior. Using lab coats in their experiment, Adam and Galinsky discovered that the subjects were much more attentive to details in the puzzles presented than those who didn’t wear lab coats. The simple act of just putting on a piece of clothing– one associated with science, logic, and reasoning– suddenly transformed people to perform higher.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
Not much research has been done on the subject, but in the age of aesthetics, it makes me wonder about the effects of sticking to one style and what that can do to a person’s psyche, especially when these new styles often feel like advertisements for new personas. If you like the look of dark academia, with its trench coats, black tights and sweater vests, studying all day in the library almost seems like a requirement. Clean girl’s Lulu leggings and slickbacks seem illegal if you’re not in the gym by 6:00 am or face masking it every night. And are you really Y2K if you’re not blasting Britney or brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack? Of course, these aren’t bad things in themselves (except for the Jack Daniels thing. Don’t do that). What’s concerning is our generation's constant reliance on consumerism to dictate who we are, letting an aesthetic, essentially a brand, drive our decisions. The effects of fully committing to one aesthetic may be even more harmful when we find that once our clothing has gone out of style, so has our personality.
Despite the traps that may form from enclothed cognition, there is a beauty to this psychological phenomenon. It’s something I’m sure everyone has noticed at some point, that certain clothing has a tendency to bring out different, hidden aspects of yourself. In baggy sweatshirts, boyfriend jeans and sneakers, I’m more loose, playful,and a little boyish. On date night, when I’m in my form-fitting black maxi dress and drop pearl earrings, I’m suddenly 30, sitting up straight and ordering a glass of Merlot with a sudden need to attend the symphony. Even in the smallest things– in my white flats, I’m poised. In a red graphic, I’m bold. Sporting my giant realistic fish purse, I’m an indescribable…third thing. Like learning a new language, clothing can give us the ability to explore different facets of who we are.
So I’m not actually that stressed out that I might be a senior citizen. Because tomorrow, I could be a frazzled businessman on Wall Street, or an over-the-top art student, a relic of time, or maybe someone who just really likes green. It all just depends on what I’m willing to try on.
Strike Out,
Sophia Massebeau
Saint Augustine
Editor: Maya Kayyal
