The Connection between Fashion and Mood

It’s morning, your alarm turns on and you get up … to do what? Get dressed. Correct, getting dressed is one of the first things you do in the morning. For some people getting dressed is a bigger deal than for others. Based on that assumption, you can assume that there are two types of people. One who thinks that dressing up is just to cover your body and wear clothes, and the other who thinks of styling as a non-verbal communication, a way to express themselves as an extension to their personality or even to armour themselves up.

Dressing is an important part of how people see us. A first impression is formed in the first few seconds of meeting/seeing someone new, solely based on what a person wears and how they look. Even before your first word, the non-verbal communication has already started. What a person wears can tell a lot about them. It can give out their social status, mental state and even hint to their personality traits. However, what a person wears also affects the person themselves.

The connection between fashion and mood varies from person to person. The way we dress is based on the way we want others to see us. For example, for an interview we usually want to appear professional and confident to others, so we choose clothes based on that. 

Styling can also be a huge personal gain. It acts as an outward message. When you feel good, you put more effort into how you look, that’s called “Enclothed Cognition”. It’s a psychological phenomenon first described by Adam & Galinsky (2012). It’s based on the way our brain perceives what we wear.

The situation can also be reversed, you style yourself to feel good. For people like this, looking good equals feeling good. Seeing themselves look good, can help them feel better about the day ahead and can also make them perform better, because the clothes are making them appear and feel more confident.

Look good = feel good = do good

“Look good, feel good, do good”

Wearing clothes that bring you joy and make you feel confident can bring you small mood boosts, known as “dopamine dressing”. It describes knowingly choosing clothes, textures and colours that uplift your mood, bringing you a rush of neurotransmitter dopamine reinforcing the positive feeling. It's built on the psychological idea that positive self-signals and sensory experiences reinforce behaviour. 

Dopamine aka “feel-good” hormone.

Next time you dress to feel good, you will remember why you feel good and it will help you style yourself better.

XOXO, The Fashion Stock Market