Durning this interview, Mia expressed how place, schedule, convenience, organization, weather, color, shape, quality, size, allergies, and comfort, all impact her daily dress practices. She is from California, which affects the fit of a garment that wears. Her schedule dictates how long she has to get ready in the morning; Her organization influences the way she sees her clothing options when she wakes up. The weather also has a big impact on the way and type of clothing she decides to wear. Mia chooses to wear color as a expression of joy, and to contradict her more serious side. She also can not wear certain items due to skin irritation and allergies. Self also impacts the choices she makes when dressing and how she wants to portray her “self” to the world.
Funny enough, Mia and I have talked about clothing and closet organization in great detail before, so most of what we covered within our interview, I already knew. One thing that I didn’t know, was her reasoning for wearing color. It is interesting now, after the interview, looking back and remembering that I have never seen her in all black, or white! I am very much the opposite of her in this way. I typically have a very bubbly personality, unlike Mia’s more serious one, yet I wear mostly black or neutral colors when at all possible. I do this because I think the color looks more serious, therefore, giving me an older more professional look so that others will take me more seriously. I find it interesting that for both of us, our identity of self, is purposely contrasted using color. These subject position are two that I wouldn’t have thought had such a impact on either of our dress practices. This goes to show what an impact something that seems as simple as color can make on one’s whole dress practice. I have been having fun watching others around me and looking for how their personality/self is contrasted or supported by the color choices they make with their daily wardrobe. To support the connection between dress and self, I found this quote from Joanne Entwistle’s “body dressing”: Dress, then, forms part of our epidermis – it lies on the boundary between self and other. The fact that we do not normally develop epidermal self-awareness tells us a lot about our routine relationship to dress, that is, that if forms a second skin which is not usually and object of consciousness. (Entwistle, Joanne, and Elizabeth Wilson. Body Dressing. Oxford: Berg, 2001.)
