Fashion Friday: Transformation

1: It’s a Friday evening, and there’s a party Ingrid and I said we’d go to. It’s a Friday evening, which all too often means Ingrid and I are exhausted by our work weeks, and we are not feeling it. But we promised we’d go to this party. And it’s sort of work-related for me, there’s some business I need to take care of there. And there are, in fact, people there we want to see. Or, more accurately, there are people there we want to want to see, people we would normally want to see if we weren’t so fried.

So we sigh, and we dutifully change clothes. We crawl out of our day clothes, and resist the urge to just crawl into bed, and get into our party frocks.

Greta in party outfit
And like that! — we start to feel it. We start to get excited. We get a second wind, an infusion of energy. We think about the people who are going to be at this party, and suddenly we don’t just want to want to see them — we actually want to see them. We look at ourselves in our mirrors, at these gorgeous, elegant-yet-sexy, stylish-yet-friendly party people, and we think, “They look like fun! We want to hang out with them! If they’re going to be at the party, it’s sure to be awesome!”

2: It’s an overcast afternoon, in more ways than one. I’m struggling with depression, and it’s hard today. I’m in my bathrobe, rotting on the sofa. It’s hard to do anything, to want to do anything, to even imagine wanting to do anything ever again. But I know, intellectually, and even emotionally, that if I can just get myself out of the house, even for half an hour, I will feel better.

So I take a quick shower, or maybe just take a birdbath in the sink, and I force myself to put on some clothes. Not even interesting clothes, necessarily: just jeans, or a plain skirt and tights and boots. Something other than a reeking bathrobe.

And I feel better. I don’t feel great, but I feel better. I no longer feel like a lazy pathetic loser wasting her one short life sitting around on the sofa in her bathrobe feeling sorry for herself. I feel like a functional adult. Or at least, like a potentially functional adult. I feel like a person who is capable of leaving the house, capable of running a couple of errands and getting a little exercise, capable of getting out into the limited but not trivial sunlight that the day has to offer.

3: I’m at a conference. Or rather, I’m in a hotel room at some un-fucking-godly hour in the morning, getting ready for a conference. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a morning person, and I am fighting the urge to say “Fuck it,” to return to the big comfy hotel bed and sleep for six more hours, to stay in the big bed all day watching TV and masturbating and ordering room service. But I remember, vaguely and distantly through my groggy haze, that I actually do like this work, that I am wildly fortunate to be able to do this work, that once I’m at the conference I will want to be there doing this work. Also, I remember that the conference organizers are paying me to be there, and if I don’t show up they’ll want their money back.

So I put on whatever dressy suity thing I brought, whatever combination of jacket/ dress or skirt/ interesting stockings/ jewelry/ dressy-but-comfortable shoes I spent an hour picking out when I was packing for this trip. I look in the mirror.

Greta at panel
And I feel like a grownup. I feel like a professional. I feel put-together, authoritative but friendly and approachable. I feel happy to be seeing my old friends and colleagues, excited to be meeting new people and getting exposed to new ideas. I feel like someone who gives a damn. I feel like someone worth listening to.

4: I’m sick. I don’t mean that I have a cold: I mean that I’m recovering from cancer surgery. For a couple of weeks now I’ve been in bathrobes and pajamas nonstop, loose comfy soft things that don’t make me hurt worse than I already do. But the doctors said that I need to start leaving the house and taking short walks outside. And besides, I’m sick of it. I need a change. Now.

So I put on some clothes. I don’t even remember what now: I was in a Vicodin haze at the time, I don’t remember much of anything from then in much detail. Probably a loose-ish dress, or a loose-ish skirt and top. Something not too binding around the waist, where it still hurts like hell. Something not too different from pajamas, really: but something that doesn’t read, in the current language of fashion and style, as pajamas. Something that reads — minimally, barely, adequately — as clothes.

And I feel like myself. Or more like myself, anyway. I don’t feel like an invalid. I feel like a sick person still, but I don’t feel like I am my sickness. I don’t feel like I’m drowning in my sickness. I feel like a person who has a sickness. I feel like a sick person, who is getting better.

*****

I’ve written a lot about seeing fashion and style as a metaphorical language, a form of expression: a way of telling the world who we are, and how we feel about ourselves, and how we see our place in the world, and what our attitude is towards whatever situation we’re in.

What I haven’t written about as much is how this language isn’t just expressive. It’s aspirational. Fashion and style can express how we feel… but it can also shape how we feel. It can help make us feel the way we want to feel. It can help us express who we are… but it can also help us feel like the people we want to be.

Some of this aspirational quality is largely pragmatic, more functional than personal or emotional. Work clothes are the most obvious example. People with ambitions in the workplace are consistently advised to dress for the job they want, not for the job they have. People going on job interviews are consistently advised to dress as if they already have the job. (Advice with some limits, obviously — if you’re interviewing for a job at a fast food restaurant you’re not going to wear a bright orange pantsuit and a paper hat — but generally good advice.) If there’s something you want in the work world, dressing as if you already have it sends a signal to the people who have the power to give it to you: it signals that you understand what it is you’re aspiring to, and that you respect and value it, and are willing and indeed eager to take it on.

But this “dress as who you want to be” thing isn’t just pragmatic. It’s not just about signalling to the world who you want to be. It’s also, sometimes, about signalling it to yourself.

what-not-to-wear
As regular readers of this blog may know, I’m a fan of the fashion makeover TV show, “What Not to Wear.” (I have mixed feelings about the show, but on the whole I like it.) And one of the things I find most fascinating about the show is the way that so many of the makovers turn into impromptu therapy sessions. Week after week, women on the show say that they can’t see themselves as anything other than a frumpy harried mom, or a sad sack, or a meek sheep who blends into the background. Week after week, women say that they can’t see themselves as ambitious working women, or as successful entrepeneurs, or as sexy and fun-loving. And week after week — through the process, not only of acquiring new clothing, but of talking intensely with Stacy and Clinton about how their clothing makes them feel and how they’d like to feel instead, about what they think their clothing says about them and what they’d like to be saying instead — they start to see themselves differently. Sometimes there’s a moment when you can see the switch flip; sometimes the process is more gradual. (And occasionally, the magic doesn’t happen at all.) But week after week, women on the show start seeing the possibilities of who they could be… because they’re seeing that new self in the mirror.

If fashion is like a language, sometimes we use it to talk to ourselves.

There’s a saying among some people who are recovering from addiction: “Fake it ’til you make it.” I think fashion and style can be like that. I think part of acting like who we want to be, until we become it or get closer to being it, can involve dressing the part. That can be short-term: if you want to feel a little less depressed, or a little more like going to the party, sometimes it helps to dress the part. And it can be long-term: if you want to be a sexual adventurer, or a serious adult in the professional world, sometimes it helps to dress the part.

It doesn’t just tell the world who you want to be. It tells yourself. It can help us feel like the people we want to be. And sometimes, it helps us become it.

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Fashion Friday: Transformation
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11 thoughts on “Fashion Friday: Transformation

  1. 2

    I’m a clean and sober addict, and I think that saying is repeated all over in the ‘act happy to feel happy’ meme, which has some basis in fact.

    Sigh, easier said than done, but I admire your tenacity, Greta. Aspiration is exactly what we lack when we are depressed. We can really influence our moods by what we look at, and you look great in your party outfit!

    I think dressing up and going out, anywhere, is great therapy. Thanks for helping me, I need this stuff too.

  2. 3

    I think a lot of the effect clothing has on myself is a side effect of empathy. Dressing a certain way allows my an opportunity to try and see myself as others may see me. To react to myself in a way that others may react to me. That gives me permission to act certain ways that are congruous with both my inner self and the expectations of the people around me.

    I feel more congruous, more myself, more understood and more accepted, even when what I’m feeling and communicating is ‘grumpy and isolationist’.

    That seeing how others might see me is, what can change my perception of myself as well, though. I feel it like an emotional echo chamber. There’s a social conformity force, and when I change how people see me that force affects me differently.

    I wonder if it’s ever been studied in much depth, or if I’m fooling myself 🙂

  3. 4

    Also, off topic, but the ad system worked today. Displayed a cute top, with text that promised to be able to fit and style to the individual (dunno if it’s true, but it felt hopeful and inclusive). And it was germane to the reason I like this post and what we’re talking about. And it’s a company I’ve never heard of until now.

    I clicked. Found a cute art deco inspired denim maxi-skirt, a little expensive but not crazy. Part of the customization was specifying my height, which at 6’1 & 3/4 (w/o shoes), is a bit on the tall side for general women’s fashion. The notion that I could get bottoms that are the right length for my body has made me happier than I expected.

  4. 5

    I know bugger-all about fashion, but I agree that clothes and emotions do affect and reflect one another, a sort-of “biofeedback”. To borrow from Billy Crystal’s character “Fernando”, you have to look marvelous to feel marvelous.

    To my limited knowledge, the key to clothes making people feel better is one-upmanship, but not ten-upmanship. A person who wears a suit or business dress to work fast food might feel and look ridiculous. But wearing business attire at a job where casual clothes are enough makes one stand out in a good way. (The same goes in reverse: nothing makes you feel smaller than being slightly underdressed for an occasion.)

    GC and her clothes on the photo fit that philosophy. She looks smart, likely better than other people where she’s going, but not too much better.

  5. 6

    Not just aspirational and transformative, the right look can help me also remember aspects of my personality that may have gotten buried along the way.

    I’m in the depths of thesis writing but I took the time to paint my toenails for the first time in about a year. I painted them metallic magenta, a color I would never wear on my fingernails. And I remembered… I remembered buying the polish, and the glee of the moment that leads to metallic magenta. I remembered that I am not predictable and dully academic all the time. That frees me up to be just as dully academic as I need to be (to get all of my references in proper order, for instance) because I remember that I can always come back to that magenta moment.

  6. 7

    I’ve just read Stacy’s latest book, “The Truth About Style”. I found it at the library. Her philosophy is generally similar to yours (look good, feel good) and in the book she “re-dresses” nine women in “looks that not only flatter them physically, but reflect and celebrate their personalities.”

  7. 8

    This is fantastic. It reminds me of one of the feminist fashion blogs I follow: Already Pretty. I think you’ve done a really great job articulating the way that self-presentation can create a positive feedback loop, giving your mind a kickstart. (Long-time lurker and admirer, first-time commenter. Thanks for the thinky thoughts!)

  8. 10

    I agree about what we wear affecting how we feel.

    But it bums me out no end that a lot of the things I might want to express and/or cause myself to feel like “successful career woman” or “fun party girl” require the wearing of things that I find uncomfortable to wear; and flip-side the things that I enjoy wearing often say things I’m not really interested in saying.

  9. 11

    I find that when I’m down, good grooming is paramount. It’s the first thing I let go, but if I go out unshaven with messy hair and clothes that could use a spin in the washing machine, that adds to my low self esteem, but if I take showers every day, and brush teeth, shave, brushed hair, and clean clothes, I feel way more at ease.

    I’m just saying that you don’t necessarily need to draw attention to yourself being too garrish. That makes me want to run and hide more.

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