An Outfit, or Shining Armor?

On the pressures of dressing to fit in

Author’s Note: When I was writing last week’s post, this piece I drafted on “clothing as armor” came to mind. I wanted to incorporate it but decided the style post was getting lengthy and stood well enough on its own.

That said, I was still thinking about this component and wanted it to see the light of day, for I think it’s an interesting metaphor for something all of us do, every single day.

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I’ve never particularly enjoyed packing, no matter how excited I am for a trip. It can be two nights or ten, but the feeling is the same. Dread at the thought of packing. I save it for the last minute, often having dreams (nightmares?) about not being packed in time to leave for the airport. 

In fact, thinking about it now I think this dream visits me nearly every time I’m flying somewhere. I have never actually missed a flight (knock on wood), but suffice it to say I am always packing until the last possible minute, scrambling out the door with heavy breath.

This is usually the case with road trips too, save for the preceding nightmare about missing a flight. 

For the longest time I had chalked this up to my running-a-little-behind tendency. I never thought about what elements of the packing process in particular I was afraid of. I knew that it had something to do with the combination of wanting to be prepared and not knowing what to expect (i.e. control!!). But I had never considered how the social + ego element of dressing oneself fit into this. 

When I attended a self-exploration retreat last summer, the topic of clothing briefly came up during one of our sessions. Our facilitator, psychotherapist Satya Doyle Byock, used the phrase “clothing as armor.” I don’t remember the context but it stuck because I immediately wrote it down and have thought about it a lot since.

My only journal mention reads:

“Clothing is armor and a quick way to transform. Easiest way to control outside perception of oneself; conform, fit in, or stand out.”

As someone who grew up loving clothes and shoes and shopping sprees with my mom, I always thought of clothing as a fun way to express one’s self. A way to show your personality and have fun with one of the necessities of life—getting dressed. (Kate Spade was the true embodiment of this for me, RIP.)

I had never thought about clothing as protection, i.e. the armor we choose everyday when we enter into the battlefield that is our school, our office, our society.

That really stuck with me. Why do I dress the way I do? During my adolescent years I think there was a healthy balance of fitting in with the crowd by keeping up with trends and making certain fashion choices because I simply loved them, even if they did stand out. Today I’m thinking more intentionally about my style and honoring what feels true to me.

Regardless, getting dressed for me has always been an enjoyable thing because I love clothes and appreciate fashion. I enjoy dressing for people, so to speak, like if I’m going to the office or out on the town, going to an event, etc. That’s my favorite kind of dressing.

Then there’s the dressing for travel or new environments. Enter total chaos mode.

As I mentioned above, I’m not a fan of packing. I also have a tendency to overpack because I don’t quite know what I’ll need or want to wear, based on the weather, itinerary, mood, etc. So therefore I pack a bunch of different options.

Sounds simple, but it wasn’t until I thought about “clothing as armor,” coupled with my experience packing for the retreat, that it clicked on a deeper level.

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The preparation email we received for the retreat had said to dress comfortably because “we're not here for fashion; we're here to be cozy!” This felt a bit odd for me as I certainly keep my healthy dose of casual clothes, but I also feel most confident with a good pair of denim and a cute top, or a dress depending on the weather. But given I was entering into this experience where I didn’t know what to expect and they quite literally told me what kind of clothes to pack, I leaned into that hard. Save for my one pair of denim cutoffs I put in at the last minute, everything else was athletic or athleisure apparel. Even my tops were my most casual of t-shirts.

So when I got to the farm where the retreat took place, I was surprised to find that everyone had brought cute “normal” everyday clothes. Even the facilitators themselves, which somehow made me feel even more left out. I spent a good part of the first 24 hours of the experience sweating my wardrobe I’d brought, as I couldn’t help but feel ill-prepared. And grungy in comparison.

As it turned out, clothing was very much my armor when I entered into a situation where I knew nobody and was putting myself completely out of my comfort zone.

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In rereading that retreat preparation email now, I read it with an entirely different perspective than how I’d interpreted it last summer.

“Bring what makes you most comfortable! We're not here for fashion; we're here to be cozy!”

I took it at face value—cozy and comfortable = athleisure. But I hadn’t considered what made me comfortable psychologically. I ignored my overpacking instinct and which clothes make me feel my most confident. 

It ultimately ended up not mattering once our group built psychological safety, which happens a lot quicker on a therapeutic retreat where everyone is prepared to get vulnerable quickly.

But dressing for the occasion, despite the circumstances, still has its place. In a nod to my birthday which occurred the last night of the retreat, one of the women decided to wear a dress for the occasion. Several others followed suit.

When she told me this was happening, brief panic set in—“but I didn’t bring a dress!” I exclaimed. Having already thought of this, she so kindly took me to her room where she let me try on several of the dresses she had brought.

It was one of the sweetest memories of the whole experience—clothing not as armor, but as a symbol of celebration. 💖

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