We do not always dress to express who we are
Updated: Sep 13
Sometimes, we dress to discover who we might become.
Reading The Secret Language of Fashion, by Ida Galati, made me reflect on a less visible function of clothing.
An outfit does not simply communicate an identity already formed.
Sometimes, it creates a temporary space in which another identity can be tested.
A more authoritative silhouette.
A colour we have never dared to wear.
A garment that changes the way we enter a room.
Before becoming a message to others, clothing may be a permission we give ourselves.
This is where fashion becomes psychologically interesting:
the body can experience a possibility before the mind has fully accepted it.
Perhaps the “right” clothes do not change our lives by transforming us into someone else.
Perhaps they make visible a part of us that was already there but had not yet received permission to appear.
What we choose to wear may reveal not only who we are, but which version of ourselves is asking to emerge.
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