What Would It Look Like If We Talked About Clothes Without Talking About Bodies?
Less wearing what we're told and sold, more dressing for joy
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How did you dress before you became conscious of your body, and the way society views your physique and appearance? How did you feel about getting dressed before you realised all clothing was assigned a gender and a set of stereotypes that come with it? What would you wear if you didn’t have to think about what you look like?
Current fashion preferences reproduce and reinforce an existing social order where we’re all supposed to dress a certain way, look a certain way, and stick within our predefined set of fashionable rules and ideals as dictated by societal standards. And in the process of all of this enforced fashion conformity, it zaps all of the fun we experience as children out of the joyous ritual of getting dressed. What we go through as children when we get dressed, the heightened feelings of elation and awe when we pair a fairy princess costume with wellington boots and a trucker hat, or when we hound our parents to wear a shark costume with Timberlands at the supermarket and come away feeling like we went to war and won, all of these positive emotions and associations seem to fade away the older we get.
At what point as we grow up is it drummed into our child-aged and adolescent brains that we must wear clothes that are acceptable, in the sense that they must fit in with what people expect us to wear? And when is it truly okay to go against the grain, and wear what we feel good in rather than whatever is trending? Somewhere along the lines, we lose the sense of fun and spontaneity that getting dressed as a kid can bring. And that's a real damn shame.
It’s natural that as we grow and age our bodies change - they never stop changing in fact - and naturally, this influences what we wear. When our bodies are shaped on the smaller side, it may be okay to wear short shorts and mini skirts and crop tops with 6-inch heels and figure-hugging dresses and nylon and spandex or anything so skin tight you can see the sweat pool underneath our clothing. That's hot, sexy, cool, it’s what we should all be doing. A picture-perfect ideal that aligns with many a fashion brand trying to sell us things based on what they think we should look like, not how we actually look. But if our bodies veer outside of what society deems socially acceptable and don’t look like the homogenous images seen on many Instagram feeds, then wearing such things isn’t so easy.
We can often hide behind a wall of shame when we don’t fit in with stereotypical beauty ideals, picking out clothes that obscure our bodies allowing us to blend in. Body shape will always influence what we wear and where we can shop, there's no getting around that, but that shouldn’t be at the expense of allowing us to experiment and enjoy clothing for what it is, not what it’s supposed to be.
Our fashion choices are not just dictated by whatever our fave celebs and influencers are trying to push on social media. Oh no, far from it. In fact, what we’re exposed to as children and the messages we subconsciously take in influence our taste and style throughout our lives, leading many to fear change and avoid taking fashionable risks that divert from the norm.
More often than not as kids we wear what we’re told, and as we grow up we wear what we’re sold. But what if we flipped the script, and took the fashionable reins back into our own hands? What if just for once, we talked about clothes without talking about bodies, and the pre-prescribed set of notions that come with them? How we dress influences how we feel, and how others may feel about us - but should we care so much what others think of what we wear?
Fashion can allow us to feel the euphoria experienced as children by dressing with the same joy we did before we became conscious of our bodies. It's time to forget the rule book, and wear what works for us, what we feel good in. And maybe it's time to start talking about clothes without having to talk about bodies at all.
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