LINKS BETWEEN OUR CLOTHING AND EMOTIONAL STATES

LINKS BETWEEN OUR CLOTHING AND EMOTIONAL STATES

“Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness, like. Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. So, I think beauty, in that sense, is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.”

- John O'Donohue - poet, theologian, and philosopher writing on beauty, friendship, and how the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual, intertwine in human experience.

I will start this post with a personal story and a little bit of background of when I was trying to decide what career I want to pursue. I was convinced I want to do fashion design. I wasn’t exactly sure why; I couldn’t explain it, nor I was a gifted talented illustrator or drawer. But…I was only 14years old at the time and my mom was determined to not let me go to an arts college. She’ll say “You have to study for a proper career, get a real job and make a life for yourself. Studying arts, it’s not school or proper education.” Like many parents do in trying to protect, educate and prepare their children for life. Don’t get me wrong. My mum is amazing, and she gave me quite a lot a freedom of choice usually, but this time… I knew that she won’t give in. So… I had to start thinking of alternative options and after some thought, I decided that I want to study psychology. In my 14-year-old brain was the idea that if I master psychology well enough, I’ll be able to look at someone for a few short minutes and I’ll be able to read their minds like an open book. An interesting perspective for a 14 years old, don’t you think? So, I focused on that for the entire college. All the way up to 2 months before my bachelor’s degree, I was convinced that I will go to University studying psychology when suddenly... a reminder of my original wish emerged from wherever I had buried it 4 years earlier. I thought that now I am old enough to decide for myself what I want to do with my future. Said and done. Very last minute, with no preparation whatsoever I went to apply for an arts university and now I am a proud owner of a fashion degree.

For a long time, I couldn’t understand how I went from fashion to psychology and back. All I knew was that whenever I was feeling a little down, putting make-up on, dressing -up & doing my hair will almost magically make me feel better. Today I know that whatever is happening to me on the outside is absolutely related to what is happening on the inside. I know… I am still a geek for psychology and personal development.

In an interview for On Being with Krista Tippett J. O’ Donohue explains his view on beauty as per below.

Ms Tippett: You also suggest, in your book about beauty, that beauty can be a kind of antidote, even to our most pressing global crises. How do you think of beauty as relevant in that sense?

Mr O’Donohue: Yeah, I think it’s not just relevant, like, but I think it’s actually necessary because I think that beauty is not a luxury, but I think that it ennobles the heart and reminds us of the infinity that is within us

Many people think clothes, fashion & the beauty industry are just superficial things. But they are so much more than that. Regardless if you are aware of it or not, what we wear affect us, speaks to us or shapes us. It’s up to us to understand this and choose how to use clothing, fashion and style. Fashion has an impact not only on how others perceive us but most importantly, has a huge impact on how we perceive ourselves.

You don’t believe that what I’m saying it’s true? Think about it…

• How many times you got up to put some make-up on, not because you had to go somewhere, but because you weren’t feeling that great and you knew that’s going to make you feel better?
• Who do you dress for and get yourself pretty every single day? For yourself or for others?
• How do you feel when you dress well (=for yourself) versus when you left the house wearing something that’s not really you but you had to put that suit on for a meeting that you had that day (because that’s what society expects of you)?
• Did you ever went through a lifechanging, vail revealing experience in your life and as soon as you had that sense of clarity you had started changing your entire wardrobe?

Why do you think that is?

We attach memories, emotions, thoughts and perceptions to the clothes we wear. There have been studies that show that what we wear can make us smarter or increase our attention to details. Look at the enclothed cognition study 

Also… we have The Fashion Psychology Field which is an applied academic discipline commonly defined as the study of the impact of clothing choices (this, for me, it’s amazing news). Dr Caroline Mair, the founder of the world's first master's degree program in Fashion Psychology at the world-renowned London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, says “Fashion is about people! It involves perception, attention, memory, creativity and communication and social interaction. Fashion designers, producers, retailers and consumers, reason, make decisions and solve problems. Fashion is psychology! Although it has been interpreted anecdotally in psychological terms for centuries, applying psychological science to fashion is new. The common understanding of psychology applied to fashion is an interpretation of what our clothes say about us, but psychology matters far beyond this.”

IF FASHION MATTERS SO MUCH, HOW COME WE ALL HAVE SO MANY CLOTHES AND WE ARE NOT EXUBERANT WITH JOY?

When Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most about humanity he replied “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never fully lived.”

In almost everything else we do the same. We are born with a great sense of awareness and great confidence. When we are children, we know exactly who we are, what we want to be and do and most importantly…WE KNOW OUR POWER. We know no fear and we know that no matter how many times we fall in our learning process we don’t sit and cry for days, weeks or months thinking that we will never learn how to walk. As little children, we get up and try again as many times as necessary in order to learn how to walk. Have you ever seen a child giving up on walking because he stumbled a few times? NO! Then what happens to us as we grow older?

After 27 years of confinement for a wrong he never committed, Mandela said: “What we are afraid of is not so much our limitations, but the infinite within us”.

And I think that one of the most denied fears of humankind (for both men & women) is the fear of becoming invisible. You know why? Because WE WERE NOT BORN TO BE INVISIBLE NOR TO FIT IN. And we shouldn’t be! Still, here we all are, trying to figure life out and trying to make everyone happy, slowly forgetting who we really are, forgetting that we have a voice and something to say. Battling between the fear of becoming invisible and the fear of seeing and living the infinite within us.

That’s why we have a full wardrobe that doesn’t feel like us. Because we lost our true selves and that reflects on how we dress and how we feel. There is a silver lining to this though. Guess what we do when we lose something? We start looking for it 😊

How to find my true self and dress for happiness?

Pause for a second and go back in time.

WHO WERE YOU? Who were you back when none of this world rules and voice got to you? Who were you before slowly sliding into the society boxes unconsciously trying to fit in?

There is a piece of great news. As Meister Eckhart, 14th-century mystic said, “There is a place in the soul that neither time, nor space, nor no created thing can touch.” John O’ Donohue rewords this beautifully saying that “what it means is that your identity is not equivalent to your biography. And that there’s a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where’s a confidence & tranquillity in you.”

 FIND THAT YOU! Hold on to that. Write it down and for that YOU, the REAL YOU, you will dress for from now on every single morning.

Watch this video from Stasia Savasuk if you need some extra encouragement. She is absolutely adorable and the story she has it’s amazing. 

As Connie Schultz says “Do not wait to be invited to make a difference in the world. If women waited for the invitation, we still wouldn’t have the right to vote.” That little monster from under the bed that says:” Who do you think you are?”, “Why should anyone care about what you have to say?” etc… Don’t listen to him. Because we were all born to make this world a better place. So, please! Surround yourself with people that believe in you and are lifting your spirit as you are lifting theirs. Find your tribe of great souls and live a joyful life.