Jennifer Baumgartner - You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

T his book is dedicated to those who have the courage to make their lives better one piece at a time.

Unending appreciation and thanks to my parents for providing an example of constant service to those in need and giving me everything and anything at the sacrifice of their own needs. I love you both more than you will ever know. To my sister for selflessly helping me turn thought into word. To my brother who, by example, gave me the courage to follow my bliss. To my Grammy for her effortless style and for saying what everyone else is too afraid to say. To my love, Johnnyhow lucky are we to watch each other follow our dreamsand to the Royse family for supporting us through this exciting process.

To my friends Lynn, Jennifer, Sally, Mike, and Dunbar for providing constant support, inspiration, and hours of therapy. To Rachel Simmons, Cindy Loose, and Heather Jones, whose decision to make the world a better place through their writing and willingness to help has brought me to the completion of this book. To Matt Hutson and all of those at Psychology Today who have given me a platform, The Psychology of Dress, for my dream. To the staff at Fletcher and Company, particularly Rebecca Gradinger, for their believing. To my agent, Lucinda Blumenfeld, for her tireless work to help me stretch, realize my goals, and accomplish them. Thank you for fueling the fire! To Katie McHugh and all those at Perseus Books who have taken a chance and given me my voice.

To God for always illuminating the path for me to follow.

Introduction

The InsideOut Connection: Discovering the Psychology of Dress

H ave you ever asked yourself, What was she thinking? after witnessing a fashion flub? Why, after losing so much weight, does a girl continue to wear her oversized sweat suit? Why does a fifty-year-old mom seem to have raided her teen daughters closet for leggings and a mini? If you think these are merely examples of fashion ignorance or style apathy, you are underestimating the real meaning behind your clothing choices. Our clothing is a reflection of what we are thinking and what we are feeling. Often, wardrobe mishaps are simply our inner conflicts bubbling to the surface.

Clothing is an extension of who we are. Much like a turtle with its shell, we tell the world the who, the what, the where, and the when of our lives by what we wear on our backs. When we shop for and wear clothing that reflects our best self, we must consider, consciously or unconsciously, our age, size, culture, and lifestyle. We either work with these aspects of ourselves or fight against them.

For example, continuing to buy the same size clothing when you have lost or gained significant weight works against the reality of your size. Shopping at the teen clothing store when you have turned forty or buying a floor-length frock at Chicos when you are sixteen works against the reality of your age. Wearing hoodies to the office or buying embellished clothing for your job at a manufacturing plant works against the reality of your lifestyle. Your shopping may support defense mechanisms that have been reinforced over time, and you may have stopped actively noticing whether or not your clothing choices make sense for you.

Your clothes reveal more about your internal life than you may realize. Think of your closet as symptomatic. Every item in your wardrobe is the consequence of a deeper, unconscious choice. A closet full of baggy, shapeless clothes might belong to a woman who, underneath it all, is embarrassed about carrying extra weight. Perhaps she wears oversized clothes to cover the body she hates, to hide the shame she experiences, and to thwart criticism from others. Or maybe she chose these clothes because she doesnt want to lose weight, doesnt want to work out, and doesnt want to stop eating junk food, but is afraid to admit it. Maybe the closet belongs to a mom who doesnt wear nice clothes because shes pressed for time, but who might have to take notice of her failing marriage if she were less busy.

Maybe the overly youthful clothing in a closet indicates a fifty-something who finds the experience of seeing wrinkles and a couple of gray hairs just too painful to bear. Or maybe shes holding on to her past because she hasnt accomplished her goals in the present.

And some of our issues go far deeper than in these examples. Were clothing accumulators with anxiety, compulsive shoppers struggling with addiction, or frumpy dressers who suffer from depression. Our closets are windows into our internal selves. Every one of us attempts to say or hide something in the way we wear our clothes. But few of us can articulate what were trying to express or locate the root of the pattern, the pathos.

There are all kinds of stylists who can offer your image a surface fix: a little makeup here, a pencil skirt there. That is not what I do. I am a psychologist who analyzes closets. Together, you and I will look at the patterns of your wardrobe in a way that may spark a change in how you perceive your past clothing choices and how you perceive yourself in the future, mirror optional. I shrink your closet down to the core of who you are. Imagine if someone could walk into your closet, look at your clothes, and diagnose an internal problem you might be having (I can hide the body I hate in these baggy clothes). Imagine that this person then worked with you to remove the symptoms (burn the oversized MC Hammer pants) and identify the root of the issue (I was traumatized by bullying about my weight as a teen), before offering a treatment (I can learn to love my body in these trouser jeans). As in clinical therapy, I am the objective eye that you eventually internalize. Because you are what you wear, not only can learning to identify the internal reasons for your clothing choices help you improve your wardrobeit can change your life.

The Beginning

The day I discovered the InsideOut connection with clothing was the day I discovered my grandmothers closet. Looking through all of my grandmothers clothes, shoes, jewelry, and purses seemed no different than reading her journal or leafing through her photo albums. Buried in her closet were answers to the questions of who she was, where she was, who she was with, and when. Spending a day among the layers of her wardrobe became a full excavation of my grandmothers history.

The most memorable part of visiting my grandmothers closet was examining her button collection. I was dazzled by the detail and sparkle of these small objects that led to stories of her past.

I held up an amber rhinestone button. Whats this, Grammy? I asked. She rolled it back and forth in her palm to catch the light.

My mother, your great-grandmother, was a seamstress. This was a button from one of her very wealthy clients. A luxurious object like that during the Great Depression was a treasure.

And this? I asked, pointing to a large brown horn button. It belonged, she said, to the first suit she wore when she landed a job on the opening day of Macys in New York City. The line went around the corner. But with my tweed fur-trimmed suit and brown pumps, I was hired on the spot, Jennifer.

I handed her a large, black, onyx-faceted button. I wore this to a sweet sixteen party when I met your grandfather. As soon as I saw him, I told my best friend I was going to marry that man.

The pile of metal and glass pieces that soon collected on my grandmothers bed became seeds out of which her story grew. I was enthralled. Whenever I visited my Grammy, I headed immediately to her closet to look for more of her.

From that day on, looking at peoples wardrobes became the critical way in which I conceptualized them. And I dont mean that I made snap judgments or easy categorizations: I was looking for clueswhat people wore, how they wore it, what they didnt wear, patterns of dress, what they bought, and how they organized their wardrobesso that I could understand the whole person. My fascination with the link between external and internal human mechanisms led me to simultaneously pursue a doctoral degree in clinical psychology and to take a job as a sales associate at Ralph Lauren to pay the bills.