Why Do I Hate All My Clothes?
Assess what you're really upset about before you start throwing stuff away.
By Katie Way
BROOKLYN, US
July 6, 2021, 8:00am
How to actually stop doing the things you know aren't exactly good for you.
It almost seems like clockwork: spring springs, I glance into my closet and am struck by how much I despise its contents—despite the fact that I, at some point, lovingly purchased (or “permanently borrowed”) it all. Are there bigger problems in this messed up world? Absolutely. But that doesn’t make a difference when I’m locked into a deep psychological struggle with a couple of t-shirt dresses and some sandals I bought off Garmentory in a fugue state during some bygone end-of-season sale. 00:11 / 05:58
I know I’m not the only one who experiences the occasional pang of hate when it comes to my closet—earlier this week, a New Yorker writer lamented the “Dread of Getting Dressed” in an essay on wardrobe ennui and the burden of using clothes as a vehicle for self-expression. So, what makes us want to pour kerosene on a previously beloved denim collection, light a match, and toast some marshmallows over the Madewell-scented flames?
It turns out there are a few different factors, most of which have nothing to do with what your actual clothes look like. Instead, it’s all about how what you’re wearing makes you feel. “One enduring myth around fashion, and clothing specifically, is that it is frivolous or meaningless,” Daniel Benkendorf, an associate professor of psychology at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told VICE. “Rather, clothing is rich with meaning and purpose. The link between clothing and emotions is reciprocal—how we feel impacts what we think about our clothing, and it guides our decisions about what to wear. But what we wear also impacts how we feel and what we think.”
Of course, that means before you start cleaning out your literal closet, it’s important to do a sweep of your own emotional state so you can get to the bottom of what you actually want your clothes to do for you. That means checking in on how you’re feeling about your body, your life, the influences you surround yourself with—and chucking stuff out accordingly.
You’re unhappy with your body—and blaming it on your closet
“Wardrobe dissatisfaction and body dissatisfaction go hand in hand—body dissatisfaction is often at the root of displeasure with the way we see ourselves in the mirror,” Ashley McHan, a therapist who specializes in anxiety, trauma, and eating disorders, told VICE. “With up to 30 percent of both men and women experiencing body dissatisfaction any day of the week, it's not a surprise that people struggle to find something they feel good in.”
Whether body dissatisfaction is something you’ve struggled with long term, or something that’s arisen more recently thanks to body changes over the course of COVID quarantine, McHan said it all stems from equating the way you look to what your worth is as a person. “When someone uses the way they look to assess their worth, they can easily appraise themself as not good enough if their clothes don't fit just right, aren't the newest or coolest—all of which is in the eye of the beholder.”
McHan recommends bearing in mind that a new wardrobe won’t change the way you feel about your body and—most importantly—that you should step away from the mirror if the way you look is making you upset. “The closet and its contents are a resource. They aren't the solution,” she said. “What we wear will not solve issues of self-esteem and challenges with body dissatisfaction and if we aren't aware, we are more likely to allow the way we see ourselves in our clothes to dictate our mood, state of mind and relationship with ourselves.”
You’re going through a major change and want to telegraph it
Odds are pretty good that your desire to trash your clothes isn’t coming out of thin air—and if it doesn’t stem from body feelings, larger emotional or life changes might be the culprit. “Having an ostensibly limitless variety of options available, we can increasingly use clothing as a major vehicle for the expression of identity and emotion. When we seek to reinvent ourselves or when we find ourselves in a period of transition, a wardrobe change can be very appealing.” Benkendorf said. “While some changes are harder to make (e.g., weight loss, personal development, self-improvement) changing our clothing is a comparatively easy and public way to mark a transition.”
Casting off “old” clothes might also stem from the impulse to cast aside the memories you associate with them. “Closets tend to hold a lot of history for people. If [your closet is] feeling out of resonance in any way, take a deeper look at what you are storing in it,” Lili Pettit, co-founder of holistic home organizing service Clutter Healing, told VICE. “Oftentimes we forget about the divorce papers, a dress that reminds us of a dark time, or [other] things that simply don't belong in your closet.” Pettit said not to be afraid to purge items that straight-up give you bad vibes (as in, “Ugh, I wore that to the DJ set the night I met my ex!” or “Damn, those were the earrings I had on the day I got laid off.”) in order to feel more in-tune with the things you own.
Of course, it's financially burdensome to turn over your whole wardrobe—but armed with this info, you should feel OK taking the cute wool trousers you got dumped in out of your closet completely instead of shoving them in a drawer and hoping your feelings will change… eventually.
You’re letting social media and the churn of fast fashion get to you
Comparison is the thief of joy, but after more than a year of mostly living through our phone screens, it’s all too possible to get sucked into TikTok dresses and the online sale cycle—especially if you were barely spending money on anything else. All that window-shopping, whether it’s on your friend’s feeds or your favorite retailer’s website, can make the things you already own feel inadequate, fast. “If a person looks at an image on social media and believes it to represent happiness or belonging, they may subconsciously assess that to mimic it will lead to their own happiness and sense of belonging,” McHan said. “Then when real life and the insta image don't line up, they fall short of the happiness they hoped to attain from the jeans or that dress in their closet.”
And when it comes to shopping at fast fashion retailers specifically (brands like Forever 21, H&M, and Zara are a few popular examples), Benkendorf said there are psychological and practical factors in play. “In the era of fast fashion and social media influencers, trends shift rapidly, leaving the fashion-conscious consumer with a lingering anxiety that their wardrobe is out-of-date because there is always something new,” he said. “Additionally, because fast fashion often compromises quality in terms of materials and finish, seams rip, colors fade, and items fall apart with little use, leaving the consumer in need of replacements.”
It’s hard to resist all the messaging that drives us towards consumption, especially when it’s packaged as attainable. “A generation or two ago, unless you were a king or queen, it would have been unthinkable to toss out your entire wardrobe and start over,” Benkendorf said. “Now people in the middle of the socioeconomic ladder can participate in this kind of reset.”
Cool off, then go ahead and dump stuff (within reason)
None of the experts we spoke to suggested taking a sledgehammer to your wardrobe as soon as the impulse arises—but all of them said that, within reason, it makes sense to act on it after you take the time to think about why you want to do so.
If body dissatisfaction is an issue for you, McHan wholeheartedly recommends starting a closet clean-out with anything that doesn’t fit you anymore. “Don't keep the jeans!” she said. “Donate them. Your closet will no longer feel like a testing site. Allow it to become a friendly environment.”
If a life change is at the root of your desire to throw your clothes away, make sure you’re making decisions a few days after the sting of a breakup or the excitement of getting into grad school wears off to ensure you don’t toss anything you’ll want later. “If an item holds symbolic or sentimental value, it is likely worth waiting until you are in a cool emotional state where thoughtful deliberation is possible before you decide to toss it,” Benkendorf said. “But often, we do not miss the items we donate and so dropping off these unused and unloved items at your local thrift shop is prudent.”
Pettit said she tells clients who are insistent on doing a major overhaul to weigh a few different factors, like what they hope to accomplish via decluttering, whether they’ve done a major overhaul before, and whether something like a childhood memory triggered their desire to get rid of their clothing. After considering for a few days and making a pros and cons list, she said the last step is to dive in and throw things out—with the caveat that they need to do so responsibly.
“Please recycle and donate clothing,” she said. “Clothing is one of the top 10 environmental polluters and when you donate clothing and recycle items that can't be donated (underwear, bras, socks, some swimsuits, etc.) you give the garment two additional years of life and keep it out of the landfill!”
Let go of the avatar of the “perfect” wardrobe
If you don’t have the resources to throw away a bunch of clothing or find the idea of actually organizing your closet to be more trouble than it’s worth, then you’re going to want to work on changing the way you feel about your clothes versus the actual clothes themselves.
“I would recommend keeping a clothing journal or, if you already keep a journal, adding a section referencing your clothing,” Benkendorf said. “You can keep track of what you are buying, what you are wearing, and what you are tossing. You can set goals for your wardrobe. This will enable you to observe how you feel about your clothing and gain self-awareness. The hope is that as we take steps to achieve our goals, we gain skills in mending our dysfunctional relationship with clothing.”
Part of that dysfunction, according to McHan, comes from misunderstanding what “the right” clothes can do for us. “No outfit will bring lasting self-confidence, enduring happiness, but it is also OK that sometimes we feel good in the clothes we are in.” she said. Instead, check in and make sure you feel good about why you’re getting dressed, too. “Ask yourself: Are these people I really want to spend my time with? Is there where I truly want to go? Could getting out and being in these places and with these people contribute to me feeling the way I want to feel? If so, throw something on and forget the mirror scrutiny.”
How Unsustainable Are You? We Asked a Pro About Our Consumption Habits
By Pahull Bains
Date November 8, 2018
Are we becoming more conscious consumers? How unsustainable are our clothing habits? Can we learn to make more ethical shopping choices? We posed some of these questions to Dr Daniel L. Benkendorf, an associate professor of psychology at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) whose work focuses on sustainable and unsustainable consumer behaviours, for our Sustainability Reboot issue.
What should consumers do to make responsible purchases?
“Consumers should ask questions about products, like ‘Where did this come from?’ and ‘Is the price of the product reflective of the true cost of making it?’ If you see a pair of jeans for $20 at a fast fashion retailer, ask yourself: is that the true cost of the product? There are costs we don’t see—to the environment where it was produced and to the quality of life of the people making it. Consumers need to think through that process when purchasing something instead of just looking at the price tag as we’re so conditioned to do.”
Besides seeking out sustainable and eco-conscious brands, what are some simple things consumers can do to make a difference?
“Find second-hand stores and thrift shops in your neighbourhood. Also, set up a budget for new clothing and be willing to spend a bit more on pieces that are better made and will last longer. So even if that blouse is not a sustainable garment, if it’s well made, you won’t have to buy another one next month when this one’s seams rip.”
Why do you think there seems to be more awareness around conscious eating, but not conscious shopping?
“I’ve heard many people either in my classes or other people that I’ve spoken to talk about that disparity we see in decision-making particularly between food and fashion—what we’ll consume and put into our bodies versus what we’ll wear and put outside of our bodies. I think one of the big differences is that when we’re talking about food, we’re often talking about an industry for which there’s greater visibility.
With food, it’s a decision that we make more regularly, at least the typical person. A lot of people may not buy clothes every week and certainly not every day; it’s less frequent. So the food represents a different domain of our lives that’s just a little more visible, a little more conscious and it also has health implications. When you put something into your body you’re not just concerned about the practices and the farmers and the quality of life of the animals (if you eat meat), you’re also concerned about your own health and I think that’s a key difference. When we talk about fashion, there’s a lot of obscurity around the industry, people just don’t know how their clothes are made or where they’re from, and it’s not something that’s necessarily harming our health, when we put on a pair of jeans.”
Will consumers ever be willing to pay more for higher quality or eco-conscious items?
“Young people today have a greater sense of what’s going on in the world, and that has contributed to a lot of movement, whether it’s toward social justice or toward sustainability and the issue of climate change. They’re looking for the information; they’re hungry for it. We’re seeing that they do care very much about these questions and are interested in making an ethical consumer choice.
The argument for buying organic food is that you’re making an investment in your own health. And I think that same kind of argument could be made for clothing where maybe it’s not individual health per se, it’s the health of the world.”
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW SOULE. STYLING BY SARAH JAY. CREATIVE DIRECTION BY BRITTANY ECCLES. HAIR AND MAKEUP, SABRINA RINALDI FOR P1M.CA/BURT’S BEES. FASHION ASSISTANT, ALEX PETROPOULAKIS. PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANTS, WARREN HRYCUN AND SEBASTIAN POLITOWICZ. MODEL, SANDRINE JODOIN FOR CIOTTI MODELS.
THIS IS HOW PSYCHOLOGY EXPLAINS THE CURRENT FASHION OBSESSION WITH LOGOS
The original article appeared in Spanish and is available here. What follows is the Google-translated English version, which is not the best. I will be posting a better translation soon. Apologies!
READING TIME: 5 MINUTES
Burberry is the latest luxury firm to change its logo, but this is just the beginning of a revolution to which we are all called to fall. Returns (again) the logomanía.
AUGUST 5, 2018
"It's been fantastic to see you today. Here is the final logo we agreed upon. Peter. " With this terse email the century-old British house Burberry revealed this week a change of era through a renewed logo and a new pattern, a gesture that the fashion industry has already interpreted as the beginning of a revolution .
Riccardo Tisci , the new creative director , and the creator of the new logo is Peter Saville , the graphic designer who also redesigned the logo of the new logo , with a new direction (Sans-serif de palo seco, more modern and minimalist). Calvin Klein last year at the request of Raf Simons.
What could be left in a niche news - the logo was not touched since 1999, when the final 'S' of the brand name was eliminated - is, in fact, one of those fluttering of the butterfly effect : today the logo and , somehow, next summer we are all wearing logos, or wishing a bag of 3,000 euros with a visible mark. In fashion the logos can be symbols of status, luxury and even irony (only that is how the DHL t-shirt of Vetêments, best-selling at over € 200, is explained) and what no one can miss is that the logo has returned.
In recent months there have been many brands that have wondered if they needed a new image, and if to get it, they should update their logos. Many have done it: Gucci , for example, has created the new Guccy logo (with and Greek, yes) for its Crucero 2018 collection, while Balenciaga has used one inspired by the US elections. The Italian brand Versace , for its part, found in its files a typography of the 80s with which it now writes its name. Dior, after several seasons stamping his name on dresses, shoes and suspenders, he has now recovered his famous bag 'Saddle' of the 90s, a creation of John Galliano (it seems that it is not pleasant anymore) stamped with infinite "D". Also Fendi , under the creative baton of Karl Lagerfeld, has taken his double "F" stamping everything, from skirts to handbags, stockings, shoes and coats, in his collection of new season. These movements seek to connect with the desired millennial pockets and have achieved milestones such as the best-selling Gucci t-shirt, made of cotton and printed with the logo of the house, sold out at a price of 500 dollars.
But why? What do the logos have to catch us so much?
Apparently, the answer lies in the emotional ingredient they transmit to us. And it is explained to us by Dr. Daniel L. Benkendorf , Associate Professor of Psychology at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. "All logos are a kind of heuristic signal. This means that they instantly provide a large amount of information, which allows rapid judgment. For example, when you see a golden symbol "MK" hanging from a purse, you know it's Michael Kors, which is high quality, which involves dressing up as a designer and it's not cheap. And you know all this in a fraction of a second. The logo of a brand is like a compressed zip file. That little logo will tell the world about you.And since we have control over the logos we use, we can control the messages we send. "
A logo, then, is above all, informative. He says: I have achieved it. "He tells us something about the product and the owner. When you a simple black polo, you do not get much information. However, if you look at a small Patagonia label, you can start making all kinds of attributions about the values of the user (pro-environmental, progressive), interests (nature enthusiast) and sensitivities (I would prefer to pay a little more for a better quality ?) Our ability to detect and send these social messages is what, from the perspective of the consumer, the most attractive of the logos, "he explains.
Luxury, in constant need of the new, finds in logomania some oxygen. "Yes, a logo is the official currency for a luxury brand. Fast fashion - the so-called Fast Fashion - will be able to reproduce many of their designs quickly and cheaply, but they can not use a logo without exposing themselves to a legal threat. "
IT'S NOT THE LOGO, IT'S YOU
Thus, when we want a bag with two "C's" it is not so much because of the bag, but because of what it means. "The logos have a more emotional than aesthetic ingredient. However, nice things make us feel good. Because logos are so rich in information, they can help us build all kinds of affective reactions. A logo of our youth can trigger nostalgia and resurrect all kinds of associated feelings. Something as simple as a logo can access the deep place where we store the emotional memories of our past. I think this is part of what is happening now with the logomania trend we see in fashion, "he adds. "Wishing is stronger than possessing.Psychological research shows with certainty that the accumulation of possessions does not improve well-being. In fact, the evidence suggests that it can get worse. Consumers are in a hedonistic circle in which we buy what we desperately wanted new, but the excitement of having acquired it quickly calms down and is replaced by the desire for something more. This is especially true in fashion: following a trend shows that we are socially connected, but looking for the new allows new rewards. "
According to Dr. Benkendorf, human beings long for a status and compare ourselves with others to determine that position. "It starts in preschool and continues throughout our lives. Social comparisons allow us to assess where and how we fit, with which group or groups we fit, and where we are located within the social hierarchy. As a deeply social species, all this has marked the history of humanity. Our status matters to us, so we will work very hard and pay a lot of money to get a superior position. "
In his opinion, the connection between fashion, identity and emotion is highly underestimated.
It's not the logo, it's you.
Cinching waste in the fashion industry
May 2018, Vol 49, No. 5
Print version: page 54
Use less electricity. Drive fewer miles. Many conservation behaviors are often intuitive. But the clothes in your closet? Even environmentally clued-in consumers fail to realize where their garments come from—and how much waste results from creating and disposing of clothing.
"The fashion industry is one of the dirtiest industries in terms of its contribution to environmental degradation, resource use and pollution," says Daniel Benkendorf, PhD, a psychologist who teaches undergraduate psychology in the liberal arts program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
Cotton farming requires large amounts of water and pesticides, for instance, while production of synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, releases large amounts of greenhouse gases. While some clothing companies choose sustainable business models, many more take the opposite route, churning out cheap, trendy clothes that are virtually disposable. With such "fast fashion" on the rise, the annual number of garments purchased by the average consumer increased 60 percent from 2000 to 2014, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
What makes someone drive a hybrid yet fill their closet with fast fashion? Unfortunately, there’s scant research exploring consumer fashion choices from a sustainability angle, Benkendorf says. Those who study the industry must extrapolate from general research on consumer attitudes, intentions and purchasing behavior.
Shoppers are affected by a multitude of factors, from price tags to social pressures. But more work is needed to understand how people make clothing decisions—and how to encourage shoppers to make more sustainable choices, such as investing in more expensive clothing that lasts or paying more for garments made by companies with sustainable business models. "At the moment we’re left guessing," Benkendorf says. —Kirsten Weir
HOW TO MAKE SUSTAINABILITY STICK FOR CONSUMERS, ACCORDING TO A PSYCHOLOGIST
Hint: it doesn't involve scaring people with doom-and-gloom stories about climate change.
APR 11, 2018
For any brand, editor or influencer who's invested in making fashion a more sustainableindustry, figuring out how to talk about environmental concerns in a way that actually inspires people to take action can be tricky.
According to Dr. Daniel L. Benkendorf, an associate professor of psychology at FIT , the problem with translating sustainability concerns into action has little to do with a lack of awareness of the problem.
"Large surveys suggest that most people are aware of climate change and environmental degradation on some level," he said on Tuesday at FIT's annual Sustainable Business and Design Conference in New York City. "About 70 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, and about the same number believe it will cause harm to future generations of people and to other species."
And while that awareness has translated into some widespread behavioral modification — like the fact that recycling paper and plastic has become commonplace — it hasn't made a big enough dent in human contributions to global warming.
So if we know we're killing the planet we're living on, why won't we stop? According to Benkendorf, part of the problem arises from the fact that news about climate change creates the "wrong kind of fear." Unlike the action-inducing fight or flight mode aroused by obviously immediate danger, climate change's slower pace is more likely to cause a slow burn of anxiety, which Benkendorf says "isn't so helpful" and may lead to denial or other coping mechanisms, rather than action.
For ethical fashion advocates, that means that communicating a message of hope, rather than despair, is important for inspiring consumer action.
"This doesn't involve lying about climate change or avoiding the truth, but when you talk about climate change... it's important to talk about the possibility of solving it," Benkendorf said.
Beyond highlighting the potential for solutions to the climate change problem, Benkendorf offered two other pieces of advice for those seeking to inspire more sustainable lifestyles in their customers, readers or general spheres of influence. One was to encourage them to seek out like-minded people — a move that fulfills the deep human need for connection as well as making individual activism efforts more effective.
"Find your community and act locally," he advised. "There's an avalanche of psychological research that tells us that human beings work better together than in isolation… If you can join a group, you'll feel like you're getting something done."
Finally, Benkendorf said it's important to start with small changes. Maybe a consumer won't completely adopt sustainable shopping habits overnight, but encouraging them to take one step — like learning to thrift or seeking out organic cotton — can start a chain reaction in their life.
"We want to change all of our bad behaviors all at once, and that's unproductive, because it's really hard," he said. "Try one small change, and reward yourself when you do better. If you can do that, you can move onto the next change."