by: Madi Miller

“I have nothing to wear.”

“Nothing is going with my mood.” 

“I hate this outfit.”

“I do not want to put together an outfit for today.”

“So and so wore this last week, so I bought it yesterday.”

Saying any of these things is doing more harm than good. The mind controls how we act, but fashion controls the mind.  Fashion may be boring and overrated to some people, but Carmen Lopez’s article, “LOOK GOOD, FEEL GREAT: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHING” discusses this assertion.  “Whether or not we like it, ‘judgment’ is a part of our society,” Lopez said. “People will make a split decision about you within the first eight seconds of meeting you. Usually, this is impacted by your handshake, greeting, and clothing.” 

Fashion allows us to express personality and alters our behavior and mood. 

In Anabel Maldonado’s article “Clothes As Therapy: When & How Does Enclothed Cognition Work?,” she talks about how buying an expensive bag may seem materialistic and unreasonable. “From years of observations of what and how things sell in the luxury fashion industry, and as someone who dresses for herself, I find this largely inaccurate and overly simplistic,” Maldonado said. “For example, I didn’t spend $1,250 on a Saint Laurent bag to prove anything to my friends. That would hardly be worth it. I spent that saved-up cash on the bag because of how it makes me feel.”

How each person styles using materialistic things such as bags, jewelry, and other accessories opens the opportunity to control how the day goes. It allows us to alter our perceptions of one another and control how people respond to us.

E.K. Hudson wrote “YOU ARE WHAT YOU WEAR: INSIDE THE WORLD OF FASHION PSYCHOLOGY” based on  Dawnn Karen, an influential fashion designer.  “She spent almost a year traveling through the Middle East, Asia, and Australia, taking on new clients in every country she visited to discover how her fashion psychology theories could be applied in different cultures,” Hudson said. There are so many different cultures and areas in the world that branch out to different kinds of fashion. Fashion makes each area of the world unique.

The feeling we choose to portray through our fashion choices creates a domino effect. Influencing others and giving each other feelings is what life is all about, so when narrowed down, it all comes to fashion. So choose wisely!