Gemma Spake

I think the magical thing about fashion and personal style is that clothing is obviously one of the most immediate and obvious forms of self-expression that we can have.

And that is what makes it so mentally significant because it's basically...

Looking at what somebody wears every day can help us decipher so much about how they want us to see them.

Your clothes aren't just pieces of fabric.

They are a first impression.

They are a profession for some people.

They are an identity hallmark and they cause a reaction in other people.

A 2023 Canadian study found that people immediately make some pretty rapid and pretty on-the-nose conclusions about everything from our cognitive state to our social status to our aesthetic status within seconds of seeing what we're wearing.

And they're very accurate assessments.

And as people...

We know that.

We know that whether we like it or not, people are making broader assessments about us based on our clothes.

It's why we agonize over a first date dress or we agonize over what to wear to a job interview or what color of jeans is best when they all kind of look the same.

Those reactions we get to our clothes are part of what actually informs our personal style from a very, very young age.

I think we take personal style for granted sometimes and we think that it's just kind of like appeared or it's just based on trends.

But from very early on, we are actually conditioned to choose the kinds of clothes that we continue to wear for the rest of our lives.

And I think that is something not many of us know.

Our childhood is a huge fundamental part of our fashion choices.

And this is because of a very fundamental psychological process called associative learning.

Essentially, at some stage, your brain begins to link clothing choices with certain feelings and certain outcomes that were either good, bad, neutral, exciting, terrible, or something else.