Phase i: observation
Throughout my whole life, I’ve been told constantly that I’m like a blank book — unreadable. My astrology friends believe it’s because I’m a Capricorn. I don’t exactly know what that means but apparently they're not so good with sharing their ~feelings~. My parents think it’s my face.
I’ve been told I fashion a RBF.
Regardless of what it is that makes me so “unreadable”, it’s true, I’ve always have had a tough time being vocal about my feelings — especially the kinda deep ones. It’s funny because I am a very honest person and I’ll tell you how it is if you ask me to. But I will never first open up to someone. Butttt if you ask me to I will! :)
So I guess you could say I’m an open book only if you ask nicely.
However, people that REALLY know me, know that my mood resides in my choice of attire for that day. Obviously it’s not always the most accurate but I do try to choose my outfit of the day depending on the mood I wake up in.
Like many people, fashion for me is a way of self expression and I’ve come to really use it as my identity.
Outfit in the making
Unfortunately, there is not much I can tell you regarding my process of finding out what my mood is for the day — I just wake up and decide. But the process after that is a bit more complicated.
For example, I could wake up and decide, wow today’s a pretty crappy day.
So the mood today is crappy. Done.
But here’s the complicated part — I have to decide what kind of crappy day it is. So I could decide it’s just too much work to look presentable (usually this ends in sweatpants, a hoodie, slides, and no makeup) or I could decide that I want to be comfortable but still look cute.
I’ll be honest, 5/7 days it is a “crappy” day for me. So I guess it is safe to say that I’m not exactly the brightest person.. but I do have some small bursts of happiness from time to time and they do show up in my outfits.
After choosing my mood of the day, it’s time to look through my closet and pick my outfit. Sometimes this can take just 10 minutes to pick an outfit and be out the door, or it could literally be an hour and a half before I even find a shirt I want to wear.
The next step is probably the most crucial part of my outfit picking process. Accessories will completely change an outfit. Literally can go from earthy-hippie girl to edgy girl.
here’s an example:
See what I mean?
Accessories will make or break an outfit. The clothes itself is simply just the foundation; the accessories are what change the entire mood of the outfit.
Makeup is also a form of accessory for me. Sometimes, when I’m feeling a bit more edgy, I’ll draw a black wing on my eye. If I’m feeling a bit more “natural” or simple, I’ll try to soften the look with a brown wing or no wing at all. Obviously, you don’t need makeup to complete an outfit, but to me it’s the finishing touch to expressing my mood that day. (Sometimes i incorporate jewels and glitter — that’s always a fun day.)
phase ii: expansion
Seeing how my mood reflected my outfit, I was curious to see what would happen if my outfits were chosen the night before. I haven’t done that since middle school like when there would be a field trip the next day. Honestly, going into this little experiment, I was hoping that I could find a way to basically “force” myself to be in a specific mood. I know that for some people, wearing a cute outfit or putting on makeup can boost their self confidence and make them feel happier. I was wondering if it was the same for me; since my identity for the day relies heavily on my outfit, I was hoping that I wouldn’t go into like a.. crisis? Will I feel not myself?
I was curious.
So here was my plan.. (or nudge):
I wanted to see how important my outfit was. If I were to change any of the steps, would it change my entire day? I really had no idea what I was getting myself into
I completely chose my outfit the night before, including accessories, hair, AND makeup.
- Next morning, I wore exactly what I had put out the night before.
This experiment seemed like it would go well. And it did.. until it didn’t.
the test:
Before picking my outfit, I decided to look for inspiration on my pinterest. Instead of just guessing my “mood” that I could have the next day, I decided that it might be interesting if I just picked an outfit that I thought was super cute and something I would want to wear in the future.
As you can see, I kinda went for a brown, neutrals, look. Super cute.
So, I chose my outfit accordingly and came out with this:
I decided on a brown zip up hoodie, a brown crop tank top, a maroon (brownish maroon, not too much of red tones) plaid skirt, cheetah print corduroy bag, cheetah print doc martens, and gold jewelry. For my makeup, I decided on a small brown wing and the rest super simple and natural.
Interestingly enough, I was really excited to wear this outfit in the morning. I woke up ready to wear it out and take pictures. Honestly, I was a little disappointed that there was not much more I could document for this little experiment. Everything went smoothly and I was completely happy with how the outfit matched my mood. I don’t know if it was because I went to sleep excited about my outfit that it rubbed off into the next day, or because my cute outfit forced me to be in a good mood.. my regardless I was even more curious to see if I could get different results the next day. So that’s exactly what I did.
test 2:
That day, same thing. I was extremely happy about my outfit.
I was starting to question my philosophy about how my outfit correlates to my mood. Either that or I was extremely good at guessing my future mood. I felt like I was having sort of like an identity crisis. For the last almost 10 years of my life I chose my outfit depending on my mood — it was never the other way.
But I decided to try one more time. I was determined to prove that my identity factor was not flawed.
test 3:
That night, I looked at pinterest again and came upon this outfit —
So I chose my outfit and everything and went to sleep.
The next morning I woke up in the worst condition ever. I had a huge headache and a burning fever!! SO fun during covid season.
I COMPLETELY disregarded the outfit I chose the night before. There was no way I was going to wear a dress and that was the end of it.
(btw, i didn’t have covid, yippee!)
Although I felt terrible, that day while I was sick in bed, I was thinking about this experiment that I was doing. Even though I was basically dying in my bed, I realized that this was exactly the outcome I was looking for to verify my mood-outfit philosophy. This made me want to believe that the first two tests were simply out of luck.
So, I decided to try one more time.
test 4:
Let’s cut to the chase —
- I put out a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie the night before expecting myself to still feel bad in the morning.
- The next morning, miraculously I was feeling amazing and not sick at all. (thank you nyquil)
- Even though I wanted to wear a cute outfit, I decided to forced myself to wear the sweatpants and hoodie.
- I wore it for 3 hours and changed because it was making me feel really ugly and sad.
I never realized the impact my outfit would make on my starting mood. It really shocked me how fast my mood changed. As I was feeling depressed, it made me think about the time when I was in 1st grade and my mom made me wear a blue sweater with a sheep on it (yes, I remember this because it was traumatic that I couldn’t wear my bratz shirt) for picture day and the entire day I was so sad that my teacher had to call my mom in to bring me a new shirt before the picture. My mom never dropped me off a new shirt so I ended up taking the picture feeling ugly. (I look back at it though and think the sweater was really cute hehe)
anyways,
here’s what I ended up changing into:
This day completely confirmed that my outfit really had to match my mood or else it would completely turn my whole day around. Like I said before it’s kind of rare to have days where I’m feeling energetic and wanting to dress cute; when I have those days, I have to take action because I don’t know when my mood will be like that again.
Overall, I was really happy about my results and I knew for sure that I should not ever pick my outfit out the night before again for no reason. It was not fun.
phase iii: transform
Wanting to see if other people had the same relationship to clothes as I did, I decided to do a little research.
In a blog called Why Personal Style is the Best Form of Self Expression, Kaylee Dris talks about how in our society, everyone is always trying to be “on top of” the fashion trends, but we shouldn’t let that discourage us from finding our own personal styles. I loved how she worded this because it’s so true; in our society, being a part of the newest trend is so important — the newest phone, newest clothes, newest shoes.. but we should never let that get in the way with how our genuine style is!
Dris mentioned a quote that really caught my attention:
“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” — Rachel Zoe
I feel like with social media, it’s recently been really easy to discover different people and different styles, especially tiktok. With tiktok, since it is entirely an explore page and works on algorithm, it’s been quite straightforward finding out what your “style” is. For me, i’ve seen my explore page change from just dumb titkok dances to entirely fashion and art based just because tiktok is so good getting the algorithm correct for your liking. I feel like because of tiktok and other social medias, a lot of people have seen a lot of different people (especially during quarantine) and it’s been really interesting seeing people develop their sense of style through fashion. I think the “trends” are more evened out with different styles now instead of just one. It’s interesting how much things have changed just over quarantine I feel like.
While I was researching, I also came upon the term “Enclothed cognition.” Basically, it was talking about how the clothes you wear changes the way you feel and the way you act. This was really interesting to me because I felt like I might’ve seen this happen during my experiment. For day 1 and day 2 , I was really excited to wear my clothes that I picked out and I was feelin myself the entire day. This could’ve been due to enclothed cognition and I think that’s freaking awesome.
This video explains experiments that showed how enclothed cognition effected people when wearing a lab coat. People that were given a lab coat or a doctor’s coat were more likely to answer brain questions correctly. They explained it like certain clothes gave people “super powers” and I thought that was really cute.
When I saw this video, I was thinking about how my mood is while wearing certain types of clothes and styles. I realized that it is true, when I am wearing sweatpants and feeling ugly, I’m more likely to be in comfortable state — but more likely to be productive in working or studying. But when I am wearing something cuter, I am more likely wanting to go out more and take pictures.
Looking through my quick research, I was compelled by a few reoccurring words that I found: self-expression, aesthetic, mood, and style.
Speculative ideation
Looking at the words above, I decided to choose one — aesthetic — and thought of speculative versions of picking out an outfit.
In my ideations, I realized there was a lot of futuristic technology involved. I tried to look into what could make choosing an outfit easier with all aspects involved like weather, mood, occasion, etc. I felt like a lot of outfit making technologies revolved around the early 2000’s realm. There’s not much of outfit making technology shown in many movies or shows made in present time. I felt like this kind of technology had a very y2k aesthetic so I tried to look into past favorite tv shows and movies that featured these kind of technologies: Hannah Montana, icarly, Clueless, and many more.
- self organizing closet: An organized closet is a very important aspect when choosing an outfit. Having an unorganized closet can lead to frustration finding certain clothing articles and finding correct seasonal clothing. Having a self organizing closet would be beneficial since everything would be in specific places. It would be interesting to see different clothes sectioned off into different aesthetics. It would also especially be beneficial when finding black clothing. I have so many black articles of clothing so it’s a nightmare when everything in clumped together when I’m trying to find a specific thing.
- digital outfit maker: This was inspired by my favorite shows/movies growing up! Clueless and Hannah Montana. They had these really cool futuristic digital outfit makers. I loved the idea of it then and still do now. I really wonder why they haven’t made anything like this yet. I think it is so beneficial to just lay in bed and scroll through all your articles of clothing and picking an outfit there and then. It would also be so helpful having a miniature you fashioning the outfits you make so you know how it would look like on you. Love it. There definitely is a certain aesthetic paired with this technology. Just like the organizing closet, I would be interested in seeing how certain clothes are organized in specific places in terms of aesthetic. Since it is a digital realm, I was thinking there could be repeats of certain clothings, like basics, in multiple different aesthetics.
- A.I. outfit helper: I think this idea would be so cool. Having your own personal stylist in your glasses helping you put together your outfit of the day. I was thinking it would be interesting wearing the glasses and having sort of like a scanner go through your clothes in your closet. I think this would be so fun because all you have to do is literally just look at your clothes and talk to you A.I. and they help make your outfit depending on your preferences. This one also incorporates basically the same things I talked about for the first two in terms of aesthetic. How would the A.I. figure out aesthetics, personal style, and mood? I would assume you would need to develop a personal relationship with the A.I..
Out of all my ideations, the one that I wanted to expand on was the digital outfit maker. I felt like it was probably the most realistic out of the three and also it made 10 year old Esther really happy.
making a storyboard
I began making my story board by writing down some “titles” or “steps” when using the digital outfit maker.
- Wake up and pick a mood.
- Go into the app and choose outfit.
- Put on the outfit.
After finalizing my steps, I decided to draw some thumbnails to how these would look like!
The pictures I drew definitely communicated to me the word aesthetic — picking out a mood and choosing an outfit based on that mood. Everyone’s idea of an outfit fitting their specific mood is different; it depends on your aesthetic which I think is pretty cool. Also, I just feel like no matter how modern the app looks/is formatted, it will carry a very nostalgic early 2000s aesthetic in my heart!
Closing
After exploring the act of choosing my outfits through auto ethnographic study, designing a nudge, and a speculative design, I was pleasantly surprised how much there was to picking an outfit — and how much more there is to discover.
Here are some key discoveries:
- Choosing an outfit for me is not just choosing what looks good, but rather choosing what reflects my current mood for the day.
- DO NOT CHOOSE OUTFIT NIGHT BEFORE WITHOUT REASON — or else I will be sad
- Outfits can give super powers! :)
Now that I’ve deepened my knowledge on the act of choosing an outfit, I’ve come to appreciate the process in how I do so. Everyday I wake up and think about the little journey map that I drew. I laugh because sometimes I don’t even follow through at all — sometimes I really just stay in my PJs the entire day.
Keeping enclothed cognition in mind, I think I’ll put on a headband to channel Blair Waldorf vibes when I’m feeling extra devious. Or maybe in all black streetwear to channel Rodrick Heffley vibes when I’m feeling rebellious.
I guess you can say I’m excited to what outfits I can make in the future with my new knowledge.
bye:)
