The science behind why we wear what we wear

If you’ve ever pulled on a sharp-shouldered blazer to feel powerful for an important meeting, wrapped yourself in a cosy jumper when feeling low, or dressed to fit in with your peers, you may have unwittingly engaged in fashion psychology.

Dawnn Karen, a self-described fashion psychologist, has made an entire career of exploring it. In addition to founding the Fashion Psychologist Institute, an online learning portal, she is an adjunct faculty member at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and later this year will launch her first book, Dress Your Best Life: Harness the Power of Clothes to Transform Your Life.

Anabel Maldonado: “In understanding the why behind our personal style, we can dress optimally for ourselves.”Credit: Stocksy

Karen, who has a master’s degree in counselling psychology from New York’s Columbia Teachers College, says she wrote the book so that more people could access the work she does.

The book includes case studies of sessions with past clients and a breakdown of fashion psychology terminology, including “fashion identification assimilation” (the wearing of a certain style to fit into
a social group), “focal accessory” (an item that holds psychological value) and “mood enhancement dressing” (the act of choosing certain outfits to boost one’s mood).

Karen also analyses fashion’s role in politics, modern-day society and culture, and offers advice on how to break out of a style rut, shop more mindfully and improve both your sense of style and your outlook on life.

“You can use clothing to mask how you feel and you can use clothing to heal yourself,” says Karen of her approach. “Clothing is about more than just what meets the eye, or what is visibly appealing.”

While fashion psychology terminology won’t be found in an official psychology textbook, Karen says it has become more mainstream and understood as we grapple with social media, the need for personal branding, and an increased interest in unpacking the meaning behind what famous, powerful, and even disgraced people choose to wear.

“A couple of years ago, when I’d mention the words fashion and psychology in tandem, people would say, ‘What are you talking about?’ Now people suddenly click or have these light-bulb moments.

It’s really more relevant than ever. And we’re beginning to understand the science behind why we wear what we wear, and that there is a deeper meaning to it.”

Anabel Maldonado, founder of the Psychology of Fashion website and the soon-to-launch psychology-based shopping platform and aggregator Psykhe, is also a big believer in the role of psychology in fashion. Psykhe will use the Big Five personality test, the most commonly used assessment in academic psychology, in order to recommend clothing from leading retailers and brands to users based on their results.

“I launched Psykhe to change how we perceive the role of clothing in our lives, and using self-awareness around why we like what we like, to give fashion the depth it deserves,” says Maldonado, who has a degree in psychology from York University in Toronto and worked in paediatric diagnostics before moving into the fashion industry.

“In understanding the why behind our personal style, we can dress optimally for ourselves and drown out the noise we’ve created with marketing-driven trends, the seeking out of validation, and the culture of copying celebrity looks,” she adds. “Instead, we can dress in a way that’s aligned with our core personality, that improves our mood and that captures our values, identity and beliefs.”

She hopes the platform will offer users a way to find their best and most authentic style, and selves. “I really believe that the way we dress can shape our identity and our futures, and want to help provide a road map everyone can use,” she says.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale March 22.