Gemma Spake

We so often choose the safe outfit.

The one that we, yes, know we feel comfortable in, but the one we know won't get any comments.

The one that won't make us feel too visible.

Because a lot of the time, I think we're dressing not for ourselves, but we're dressing for the imagined audience, right?

Most of us, I know I do, carry...

around with us a mental panel of judges whether they are colleagues whether they are strangers whether they are friends or an ex people on instagram there's this panel of people who we almost present every outfit we wear to before we walk out the door it's this weird like they're not there but it's this weird social monitoring that we have in our head

How is the general public going to feel about my outfit?

We put that before how we're going to feel.

And that is why we constantly come back towards three or four outfits that we feel the safest in because we feel they are the easiest.

What's important to know is that we tend to really overestimate how much other people notice us.

Psychologists, I think we spoke about this only a couple of weeks ago, call this the spotlight effect.

It's that feeling that if you wear something bold, everyone's going to stare, everyone's going to comment, everyone's going to judge you or remember you.

Everyone will see how the fabric pulls slightly or that your bra sticks out a bit, that it's a bit different from what you're used to.

They know it.

We know it.

It's this weird thing.

So we should just take it off.

We just shouldn't wear that.

It's so funny because in reality, most people do not give a flying F. They're not thinking about you.

They're thinking about themselves.