The Emotional Value of Dressing Well

2008-09-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

"Personality begins where comparison ends."– Karl Lagerfeld

Your authors spend a lot of time mulling over clothing and how a person's outfit affects perception and emotion. For one of us, it's a career. For both, it's an obsession. There are questions we'll never stop asking:

Is brown leather more accessible and less intimidating than black leather?

Why do I feel like women who wear ballet flats with sweat socks need my help?

Why do I feel so much better about myself on days when I wear shirts with two front-flap pockets?

What is it about Uggs that both repels and attracts me?

Without mincing words or getting too psychological about it (at least not right now), we care about clothes. We get as excited about well-dressed people as a BFA does about a fine painting. Our mothers told us we should never be afraid of being the best-dressed person in the room. Neither of us will go out of the house unless we're wearing precisely the set of clothing we want to wear that: Each day is an event, sartorially speaking.

This isn't about narcissism, though. This is about self-identity. One of us is a social worker who focuses on teaching disadvantaged women how to "dress for success," the existence of which job we're all really happy about because it shows that someone out there realizes the psychological power of style.

We realize this is going to take some explaining.

Dressing yourself well has gotten so much play these days, given the wake of wake of cable television and the collaborative criticism of the internet. The barrage of shows on How to Dress or What Not to Wear and promising a Guide to Style is overwhelming.

Think for a moment about the candid filming of the subject in makeover shows: We see them walking around, doing whatever it is a person like them usually does. They're wearing hideous clothing that is ill-suited for their body, making gaffe after style gaffe, seemingly oblivious to the effect their clothing has on their opportunities for advancement, interaction, and respect. Some have serious issues: we have large women who hide in clothes, tiny women who also hide in clothes, older women who shop only in the juniors section. All these speak to a greater need: They're screaming for an overhaul of their self-identity.

The tears usually start after these people have been jumped by the style mavens. They had no idea they looked so bad. No idea that people would be so concerned about how they look. It's as emotional as an intervention. What you hear most is that friends and family want this person to dress as brilliantly as they feel this person acts, and they're heartbroken on their behalf that it's not happening.

Fashion Vs. Style
Let's take a moment to distinguish between "fashion" and "style":

Fashion is a method of expressing aesthetic ideals using the "person who wears clothes" as a canvas. It is, in a word, impersonal: fashion applies aesthetic ideals of architecture and color, and sociological interpretations of cultural reference and sexual identity, evenly and without regard to the differences inherent in each person. Fashion isn't necessarily bad. It's just that the aesthetics of fashion are easy to apply to one's own life in ways that conflict with one's personality.

Style is about expressing one's perception of self using the medium of clothing. Style refers to an individual's ability to use clothing to complement and enhance their personality. True personal style requires self knowledge. It requires one to acknowledge and own one's limitations.

To paraphrase a saying, the fashionable person brags about their newest piece of clothing, the stylish person about their oldest.

See, personal style is about self perception, and that self perception requires self-knowledge, and that self-knowledge is deeply intertwined with self-actualization, you see where I'm going with this? Personal style is about psychology.

We know that clothing affects how others perceive us, but it's easy to forget that clothing affects how we perceive ourselves. One's clothing profoundly affects one's mindset and attitude. Your outfit should, at least subtly, be a costume: it's you dressed up as you on your best day. If you wake up feeling like a 3, dress like a 10, and it'll improve your spirits immensely: split the difference and you'll end up a 7.

We may think we have decent self-esteem but if we aren't showing up each day looking like we, it will permeate who we are. Who you look like isn't just a function of who you are: it influences who you are.

"I interned at a women's prison and the uniform for them was tan scrubs. The women had choices between long shorts, a knee length skirt, or pants. They could have a combination of all three. It was the South, so sometimes the shorts were nice.At the interview I was told not to wear anything revealing, but fortunately that's rarely my problem. I never wore heels because I had to walk over the compound, but I dressed like myself, which is pretty feminine. I wore skirts. I have never received so many compliments in my life, and not in a lascivious way, but in a truly appreciative way.

The tan scrubs were killing these women's self esteem and their sense of identity (don't get me wrong, I understand their purpose), but you never expect women in prison to be so attentive to style. I love color and shape and I stood out from the sea of tan scrubs and correction officers' uniforms. But I also cared deeply for these women and another way I could show it was to dress like I wanted to be there, that I cared what I looked like because it made me happy, and happiness in a prison is not an abundant commodity."

The Hegemony of Fashion
We love street style photography blogs. Nothing makes us happier than seeing what other vain people are doing on a daily basis: we really appreciate the aesthetically conscious. We love it when people look "better" than they need to, when ordinary people make an effort to look more elegant or theatrical. Make every day a costume.

We're fans of the usual: the Sartorialist, of San Francisco's Fashion.ist, and of Seattle's Pike/Pine. We even, somewhat guiltily, like the Vice Magazine Do's and Don'ts (although the Do's are much, much more satisfying than the Don'ts). And, while its subjects are often insufferable in a way that we imagine is only possible in New York City, the New York Magazine Look Book has wonderful photography and unique subjects.

That said, there is a pretty solid set of criticisms that we can level against street style blogs: They fall for one of the biggest pitfalls of the fashion industry (in fact, arguably its only pitfall): they focus on the ideal person, one selected less for his or her appeal as a human and more for his or her appeal as a blank canvas.

The perfect model or subject of a street style blog is thin, but not in a healthy way.

Beautiful, but not alluring.

Their features are symmetrical, but not in a way that makes you subconsciously want to sleep with them.

Everything about them that's human is missing or sublimated: their history, their ethnicity, their desires and personal tragedies, their emotional state at the moment when they walk down the catwalk or pose for the phototshoot, that's all gone.

This is why men lust after lingerie models but never fall in love with them: there is no one there to fall in love with. And the converse is important, too: A person can condense so much personality into the way they look at you or the way they dress that they stick with you for years. This is why people post in the Missed Connections on Craig's List. This is why we fall in love with people whose eyes we meet on the street for a fleeting five seconds.

Why Fashion Changes Quickly
Fashion regurgitates what it has already done, amping it up for modernity's sake. Fashion changes quickly, and we have always wondered why. The two factors typically credited are cultural saturation and the demands of the marketplace. The economic point of view is that fashion is an industry and the industry demands obsolescence…which is to a certain extent true, but does nothing towards explaining the motives of designers within the industry to come up with new things. If it was just money, they'd just be partnering with Swarovski or fragmenting their brands even further to sell as much logo merchandise as possible. There's clearly an artistic impulse at work here.

We have a hunch there is a connection between the fact that fashion changes quickly and the fact that most fashion models all look the same. Fashions change quickly because the canvas imposes no constraints.

Has Brad Pitt ever worn something that he looked bad in? I've never seen a photograph of George Clooney where he looked badly dressed or ill-at-ease. Kate Moss looks great in ripped jeans or a cocktail dress. She can wear anything.

But can you wear anything? Have you ever worn something you looked bad in? Hell yes.

Once you find something you look good in, what do you do? You stick with it. An individual is defined by their limitations. You have limitations.

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are. If you're not confident in wearing what works for you, you'll rely on fashion to tell you what does. But we are not models. We can't wear just anything. And we shouldn't.

Some people will tell you that they hate shopping. They'll always use those words, too, and hate is such a strong word that when an adult uses it you kind of notice.

"Oh, I just hate shopping."
"Why?"
"Because it's scary!"

There are always so many choices and spending time looking at your body and truly knowing it and knowing what works on it means scrutiny and honesty and that's not fun. It means spending time looking at yourself, at your body, at your nose that maybe you think is too big, at your posture that you for the life of you cannot correct.

But the payoff! The payoff is that once you complete that task – once you know yourself aesthetically – you rest assured that you can breeze through a store with tunnel vision, bypassing all the trends that work for you, going straight for clothing that makes you feel like you on your best day. Then you can wear a costume that disguises you as yourself.

Shopping is EASY after that. That scrutiny? It's time invested in putting your best self forward for everyone, including you, to see.

Now think about the final act of a makeover show. When this metaphorphosis finally takes place - after feet dragging, tantrums, and wobbly chinned introspection, the results are fantastic. The subject, who started out at best mousy and at worst unfortunate, is presented to the audience in new clothing that accentuates their good qualities, well-dressed for the first time in perhaps their entire life.

They're met with dropped jaws and effusive compliments and an increase in self esteem that's so tangible it almost has weight. They are smarter about their body and with that comes some gleeful savvy. Now they know. They feel independent and sharp. The newly well-dressed person breaks down in tears, because they're so overwhelmed by how good they feel about themselves. And what's changed?

The Hold Steady and Narrative Music

2008-09-22T13:07:00.000-07:00

The Hold Steady: Just as obsessed with religion and stories as Garrison Keillor?

Regis: Each new Hold Steady album is kinda like A Prairie Home Companion and Craig Finn is the post-punk Garrison Keillor I am just going to say right now that Craig Finn is probably on par with John Darnielle in terms of ability to create believable vivid characters and situations in song. I've never been in a destructive marriage in Tallahassee but because of that album I think I know exactly what it feels like because of Darnielle. And I've never been a confused scene girl who ends up doing too many drugs and trying to find some semblance of belief or solace in her Catholicism but I feel like I know what that feels like now too.

Garrison Keillor: Craig Finn, born forty years too early?

The fact that The Hold Steady cross-reference situations and lyrics from other albums will never stop impressing me. Finn sings the line "there's gonna come a time/when she's gonna have to go/with whoever gets her the highest" on three out of four of their albums and the amazing thing is that it works. That's part of the reason they're like Prairie Home Companion: each record is like visiting the same town.

Except in Keillor's case he's describing an idyllic Midwestern town while The Hold Steady are describing the archetypical directionless teen scene where everyone has these really intense but totally vague and unfocused desires.

Springsteen: More midwestern than you think?

Chloe: There's something about his voice I find un-placeable but oddly familiar. I want to say Bruce Springsteen but I know that's wrong. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by The Hold Steady because it seems like their songs are so jam-packed with stories and characters that I can't listen to it all and sort of tune out.

I like how the Mountain Goats uses the same lines in songs across albums too. That always impresses me and you feel like you're in on a secret as the listener. Even though everyone else who pays attention and listens regularly is in on the same secret- you feel a connection to the band that wasn't there before. I appreciate the thought.

I always thought Garrison Keillor was describing my family growing up when he said that all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average. And I felt like maybe I really was a Midwest girl even though I only lived in Minneapolis for a year as an infant.

Regis: I don't think the Bruce Springsteen comparison is wrong. The overall rhythm of Hold Steady songs - the way they build to a crescendo - is very Springsteenian. And Finn references Springsteen lyrics and situations a lot.

Springsteen: tramps like us...baby we were born to run.
The Hold Steady: tramps like us...and we like tramps.

Their songs are definitely not background music. It's music to pay attention to.

Chloe: Oh good, glad I wasn't off about The Boss comparison. I think both of them seem very Americana in the non-Wilco sense. Like blue-collar or common experiences for certain segments of society.

Regis: Springsteen is a huge fan of The Hold Steady. They have played together.

"Non-Wilco blue collar" is a very good description because Wilco (and most alt-country groups) affect this "real blue collar" stance which actually doesn't reflect the actual working class: it just conforms this bourgeois ideal of working class virtue: a Springsteen ideal without grit or bad food or chewing tobacco or shitty apartments.

The Hold Steady have this sloppy ugly sprawling picture of genuine American life that encompasses a lot more than that "ideal". Springsteen describes the common experience of being working class using the specific experience of being out of work and working class in post-Vietnam war New Jersey.

The Hold Steady describe the common experience of being directionless and young and full of intense desires and hedonism and curiosity and a need for meaning using the specific experience of being townies and music fans and middle-class methheads and skaterats and heshers in suburban America.

The Weekly Conference Call

The Emotional Value of Dressing Well

The Hold Steady and Narrative Music