Conversations around mental health became more prevalent during the global Covid19 pandemic. Perhaps the world coming to a standstill has forced us to pause, place a microscope over our lives, and really reflect on our wellbeing. Our style in clothing has definitely shifted too, and we can’t help but wonder – how much influence does clothing have over our mental health, and, how does our mental health influence how we dress? 

The Founder of the Fashion Psychology Institute in the United States, Dr Dawnn Karen, created theories linked to fashion and our mood, namely: Mood Illustration Dress, Mood Enhancement Dress and Repetitious Wardrobe Complex. We had a chat with Dr Karen and she described the theories that she developed 12 years ago, “Mood Illustration Dress is dressing to perpetuate one's mood, Mood Enhancement optimises one's mood, and Repetitious Wardrobe Complex is where you wear the same outfit or variations of the same outfit daily to maintain your mood or increase productivity.”

The one closely linked to enclothed cognition is the Mood Enhancement theory, also known as dopamine dressing, defined by Dr Karen as “a form of selecting clothes that increase your happiness, raise your spirits, and make you feel better, stronger, safer, or more empowered. This then releases the dopamine chemical in your brain.”

We often talk about how ‘when you look good, you feel good’. Enclothed cognition “speaks to the clothes we choose to wear, influencing the way we feel, behave, and see the world,” says Ruby Staley for Fashion Journal.

According to Erica Julson for Healthline, “when dopamine is released in large amounts, it creates feelings of pleasure and reward, which motivate you to repeat a specific behaviour.” Dopamine dressing has the potential to assist with improving your mental health as it mainly deals with creating an attitude of fulfilment based on the clothes you wear.

Colour and Mental Health

Society has, over time, associated various colours with different time periods. For instance, spring and summer are usually associated with brighter colours, while autumn and winter are linked to darker shades.

To unpack the effects that colour has on our mental health, we spoke to counselling psychologist from South Africa, Nkateko Ndala-Magoro. Ndala-Magoro is the managing director and owner of Pretoria Psychologists.

Ndala-Magoro started the conversation by saying, “colour does not necessarily affect our mental health, rather, it is mostly the triggers in the colour that has an effect on our mental health, based on past experiences.” Ndala-Magoro highlighted that a colour that is dominant during a traumatic experience has a high chance of carrying a negative connotation. An example was provided with the colour red; this colour is mostly associated with danger mainly derived from the colour of blood. Colours yellow and green are mood boosters for individuals who love nature and associate the colours with the brightness of the sun and the calming effect created by nature.

When asked about the colour you wear when wanting to communicate the mood you are in, Ndala-Magoro says, “It sometimes does and in some cases it does not. We should be careful not to channel people’s moods based on the colour that they are wearing, but rather identify colour as a form of expression.” To elaborate, some women wear black or darker colours to look slimmer while others could wear bright colours to showcase their personality. “Choose a colour based on what makes you feel good on the day and how you want to be perceived in public,” says Ndala-Magoro as we closed off the conversation.

Sizing of Clothes and Mental Health

A South African study, limited to the province of Gauteng, titled ‘Determining Female Consumers: Perceptions of garment fit, personal values and emotions when considering garment sizing’, published by Josephine Kasambala, Elizabeth Kempen, and Reena Pandarum in 2015, outlined the effects of clothing sizes on mental health. Kasambala says, ”Using open-ended questions, this study aimed to discover the role of female consumers’ perceptions on garment sizing and the resulting emotional effects of garment fit on their purchasing decisions.”

The findings of the study outlined that the following: women were unable to attain their personal values through the fit of a garment due to inconsistent, unreliable and inaccurate sizing, secondly, that garment sizing is unsuitable for various body shapes, and lastly, that certain clothing sizes were unavailable in ready-to-wear garments. The study emphasises the importance of manufacturers understanding the market they produce garments for in order to improve shopping experiences and to boost women’s perceptions of their body shapes.

Shopping, for many, is a mood booster, however it can also affect how we perceive our bodies in the clothes that we desire to own. We often disregard the type of cut made by the manufacturer, and instead end up questioning our bodies for not looking desirable in a clothing item. Kasambala says for Business Insider SA, “If a dress fits poorly, it robs the woman of all the personal values and ideas of herself that the dress symbolises.”

Fashion, like mental health, is personal, meaning that what works for you might not necessarily work for the next person. Improve your mental health by wearing what makes you feel good, wear colours that carry good memories, dress how you want to be perceived in public, and wear a size that makes you feel comfortable.