为什么你的衣橱里永远缺一件想穿的衣服 ？

There’s a difference between getting dressed and getting dressed. Assess what you're really upset about before you start throwing stuff away.

According to Pei-Han Cheng, a New York–based therapist who specializes in body image concerns, it’s completely understandable to have anxiety about your appearance in this moment. First, the pandemic has been incredibly stressful, and took away our everyday routines as well as many of the activities that typically make us feel good about ourselves, including spending time with loved ones.

 “When we don't have access to our typical coping or self-care practice, it can really increase our vulnerability to anxiety, negative body image, and self talk,” Cheng said.

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. Daniel Benkendorf, an associate professor of psychology at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said. 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.”

People have long used clothing for self-expression, but doing so got easier after the Industrial Revolution made cheap, mass-produced garments widely available. “The fashion impulse is universally present,” Justine De Young, an art historian at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said. “It’s a question of attainability.” 

Today, the expressive urge is even stronger - not because textiles are serving as texts, but because cultural and economic forces encourage us to broadcast our identity at all times. Supplemental “texts” in other words, are everywhere: favorite television shows, preferred fonts, the neighborhood bar you suggest when a new friend wants to meet up.

At times, it can feel as though anything you do will be turned into data -essentialized, fastened to your “brand,” and, probably, sold. 

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“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.

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.”

 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. 

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 .

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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. 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.

And when it comes to shopping at fast fashion retailers specifically, 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.