#2 The Phenomenology of Dress

Existentialism, solitude and the dilemma of what to wear.

What to wear?

An aspect of fashion that has always fascinated me is the varied meanings and associations that clothing can carry. Often, when revealing my interest in fashion, the person I am conversing with will comment on something they are wearing. Mostly, this will be to explain that their outfit is ‘just thrown on’, emphasising the alleged lack of thought that went into its construction. What’s enthralling though, is that even when no apparent thought has gone into what a person is wearing, it still says a whole lot about the wearer.

Take my dad for instance, his focus when choosing what to wear is driven by whatever is on top of his clothing pile. If the garment fits him and is functional for whatever he has planned, his choice is made. At the other end of the scale lies one of my best friends, she has an inventory-style list that catalogs every item of clothing she owns. The list is broken down into various categories so she is able to regularly audit her wardrobe, identify potential gaps in outfits she has curated for specific occasions, and update her clothing collection accordingly.

Regardless of intention, both my dad and my friend are communicating something about themselves with their differing approaches to dress. With their respective positions on bodily adornment, they both use clothing as a tool to communicate fundamental aspects of who they are. Crucially, getting dressed is an unavoidable daily task and our clothing choices inevitably say something about us. Whether the objective is purely to clothe oneself in an *appropriate* manner or the goal is to curate an outfit that conveys a particular aspect of ourselves, we can’t escape the daily decision of what to wear.

In his 1945 lecture, ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’, Jean-Paul Satre put forward that as human beings, we create ourselves through every choice we make. The philosopher explored the way human beings are 'thrown' into existence and forced to make choices, highlighting that even deciding not to choose is a choice in itself. When applying a Satrean perspective to fashion and dress, I think of his declaration, ‘In fashioning myself I fashion man', asserting that our choices reflect our ideals.

My ideals have always been communicated through clothes. At age fourteen, my school held a ‘mock interview’ day, an event that transcended the levels of excitement I usually felt because I saw it as an opportunity to play the part of who I would be in the future. A lot of thought went into the construction of my interview outfit. I wore a pinstripe pencil skirt from Peacocks, a puff-sleeve shirt with hook and eye fastenings down the front, grey suede ankle boots that ripped my feet to shreds, and a red polka-dot chiffon scarf tied around my neck. Although my parents would not humour me enough to buy a crocodile-skin briefcase for the occasion, the painstakingly planned outfit was (more or less) a representation of the ideal version of the grown-up me I dreamed I would become. Funnily enough, I don’t recall much else about that day, whether the interview was successful or what it entailed. But the way I felt in that outfit is burned into my memory.

For as long as I can remember, my clothing and identity have been intrinsically linked. Even in seemingly mundane outfits, my memories are enriched by the affective aspect of my clothing choices. From around nine years old, clothing has illuminated my experience of living and given me the material tools to experiment with and embody who I want to be. When I recall certain instances from my life, they are all augmented by recollections of the outfits I wore. In hindsight, my predefined relationship with clothing has evolved into an ongoing, rather Goffmanesque performance. My ‘backstage’ experimentation (as is common with the majority of young people) played a large part in the carving out of my identity and continues to inform my relationship with clothing today.

Throughout my teenage years, my aesthetic exploration of self was predominantly done in solitude. I spent a significant amount of time off school due to beilng epileptic and because of this, I missed out on a large portion of ‘front stage’ experimentation with clothing. Whilst my outfit choices were markedly removed from the influence of my peers, at the height of my sickness I would fill sketchbooks with fashion drawings, pour over historical design books and (badly) sew clothes for myself, which deepened my love for the transformative power of clothing. Almost certainly, the solitude I experienced in my early teenage years cemented my romanticised approach to the construction of outfits. Experimenting with what to wear allowed me to be taken away from the reality of being a sick child. I could reclaim my body by adorning and decorating it until I was transported into the future and embody whoever I wanted to be.

As I began to attend school more regularly and my sickness eased, I of course began to partake in various mainstream trends. I squeezed myself into skinny jeans, box-dyed my hair jet black, and went to the market after school to have piercings puncture the perimeter of my left ear (and thereafter infect it). However, as I spent more time with my peers and eased into regular social settings, my intimate relationship with fashion remained a deeply personal one driven by my experience of being a teenage misfit pondering over the person I dreamed of becoming.

Pt II: An existential clothing dilemma.

Usually, I revel in my intimate relationship with getting dressed. But when an existential clothing dilemma strikes, I forget the magic involved in choosing what to wear. I am thirty years old next year but still my friends and I periodically fill our group chat with wistful moans about wanting to throw out our entire wardrobes and ‘start again’. An existential clothing dilemma involves nothing feeling right, as if who you are can not be effectively translated by wearing items of clothing you already own. Intermittently when this occurs, I am unable to feel the pleasure of self-discovery I usually experience when choosing what to wear.

I am not sure whether to attribute my current existential clothing dilemma to the shift in seasons, living in a post-pandemic world, my distaste for fast fashion, the impeding approach to a fresh decade of my life, or a combination of the aforementioned. I can say for certain that now I work in fashion and spend my days viewing clothing in a professional capacity, my proclivity for shopping has dimmed somewhat.

Moreover, upon being faced with solitude once again (this time due to working from home, saving for a house, and therefore attending fewer social events, etc), I have succumbed to mundanity and in turn, become stuck. Instead of solitude strengthening my intimate relationship between identity and clothing, I seem to have lost the magic and tend to stick to outfits driven by practicality. With the ghost of domesticity lingering over everything I wear, my choices have become rooted in routine and ease rather than self-discovery.

Amidst the cost of living crisis, a dizzyingly-fast trend cycle, and a body that craves comfort over most other things, my priorities have shifted. Many times in recent months, I have strapped myself into a pair of uncomfortable heels or teetered atop chunky platform shoes only to change into trainers two minutes before I leave the house. Similarly, upon the approach of a new decade of my life, I am progressively becoming more aware of my knees. They are the first area of my body to feel the cold and I am now actively avoiding short skirts whilst seriously considering investing in knee warmers of some sort. With the sleep and loungewear industries booming, my generation’s collective pursuit of comfort is reflected in my recent daily uniform of leggings, oversized T-shirts, and fluffy socks.

Until the last few days, I have not been able to find a solution for my existential clothing dilemma. In fact, it was not until I started writing this piece that I remembered the significance clothing holds for me. Sometimes I forget that by getting dressed, I am able to tell the lost stories of who I was and embody the person I dreamed I would become. From tiny bandage dresses loud with unremembered 4 am conversations to the bobbled blue sweatshirt that has held me in its darkest times, my body has lived through nearly three decades of affective clothing experiences.

Upon reflection, I think my most recent clothing crisis has been due to the fact that I have been focusing too heavily on the concept of *becoming*. Whilst clothing is definitely a wonderful tool for exploration and transformation, the comfortable, sentimental and playful aspects of getting dressed is what sparks joy. I still see certain pieces of clothing and get flips of excitement in my stomach, like the vintage metallic maxi skirt I recently found on eBay that shines green and gold in different lights. Right now, smaller stylistic statements have become an easier way for me to express myself and as of late, I have taken to stacking gold and silver rings on each finger and enjoying the flash of metal as I type.

Ultimately, the love I have for dressing up is the very thing that gave that epileptic girl hope all those years ago. As well as an aesthetic exploration of who I want to be, my clothing has been my material companion. It has travelled on my body to real interviews, funerals, parties, and events in my life that have played a part in making me who I am.

Some important pieces include:

• My faded pink dressing gown, stained with bleach marks around the neck from the multiple times I fried my hair. This has warmed me after surgery, nursed me through sickness, and absorbed my tears.

• My silk dress, although worn only once at my graduation, this gown has been lent to my friends for celebratory events and carries our collective memories of success.

• My leopard-print platform boots have gone untouched for years, but they still stand proudly on my shelf, like a trophy reminding me of happy summer nights at 17 years old smelling of Charlie Red and sharing a bag of chips with my best friend.

• The wool suit that I slip into when I’m nervous about a presentation. Although it can’t ease my shaky voice or remind me to pause for breath, that suit immediately fills me with confidence in the same way my mock-interview outfit did.

Nestled amongst one another, each piece in my wardrobe reflects the layers of who I am, celebrating the multi-faceted aspects of my identity and my experiences past, present, and future. With this fresh perspective, it seems I am easing out of my existential clothing dilemma. I know that the outfit choices I make also convey who I have become. Every morning, whether making the choice to wear my dressing gown or a floor-length lace dress, I shall continue to use getting dressed to tell the story of how I became the person I wanted to be all along.