Fashion and clothing and appearance management Wendy Moody (Fashion Retail Group, Textiles and Paper)

Research topic • • • •

Self-concept (self, social and body perception) Personality Emotion Mood

Multi-disciplinary approach • •

• • • • •

Fashion and textile design Fashion illustration - visual exploration of the psyche and narrative self individuality and self expression (symbolic aspects of self-concept, self-esteem, personality, emotion and mood with fashion/clothing) Visual exploration of scientific and social theories using fashion and textile design and art Fashion, clothing, identity and art Fashion and clothing and symbolic consumption Neuroscientific methods (FMRI) - body, self, social perception with fashion/clothing Potential commercial, clinical and social use

Theoretical landscape This research investigates the role of clothing and textiles with psychology and neuroscience. This investigation of clothing is of scientific interest in terms of selfconcept, social appraisal and social judgment, and uses an understanding of the impact of design on the wearer and the wearing and selection process. It was hypothesised that this work would provide insight into the effects clothing has on the self-concept from an art and design perspective whilst informing the psychological and neurological areas. There is an arguable case that a theory of the self-concept is central to any theory of psychology. Thus parties as diverse as the media, psychologists and neurologists have recently taken an interest in the self-concept. Markus and Wurf (1987) claim that internal self-representations are a shifting and changeable verbalised process of the social self, i.e. possible selves. Clothing is intimately associated with the psychical self-image and therefore with the self-concept. Wearing garments renews or reinforces recognisably individual self-concepts (both visually and verbally encoded) to create these possible

selves, i.e. actual, ideal or ought selves (Markus and Nurius 1986). Young (1994) suggests that we use a process of 'theatrical imagining' when contemplating clothing (for instance in a shop) which reconstructs or maintains our self-concept, or possible selves through a reflection process. Fashion and clothing have also been shown to express one's personality (Conner, Peters and Nagasawa 1975). Costa and McCrae (1985) developed a five factor model (NEOAC) to demonstrate why people behave differently. This includes Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. This research focuses on the reflective and expressive elements of personality but also how one can regulate their personality using fashion/clothing. Boultwood and Jerrard (2000) see the physical body as an area of internal self verses cultural and social conflict and interaction that we seek to resolve and control through dress, with the body. In a social context, contributing to a self and body image concept, fashion and clothing positively or negatively effects, controls and regulates our moods, emotions (Kwon 1991), and personality where we retrieve autobiographical memories during the process. Fashion allows us to experiment with our identities, exploring time, place, people and roles during the initial search, the selection, and then actual wearing of the clothes. Emphatic associations are created, 'it is as though the fabric [of our clothes] were indeed a natural extension of the body or even of the soul' (Bell 1976) - like a second skin or 'epidermis self-awareness' (Eco 1986). When a wearer goes to buy a garment and sees it, tries it on, observes it worn by others or in the media, we can presume that an evaluation of the garment with the self-concept occurs - an evaluation of how that garment, if worn, would affect their self, emotions, moods, and personality, and depending upon the needs, values and goals of the wearer as well as the social meaning of their decision. Thus we appraise the design variables inherent in the garment: colour, print, texture, drape, style, shape and line and their visual and tactile associations or symbolic meanings. We would consider how much they are used to modify, e.g. accentuate the body, and how they are used to disguise, distort, distract, or enhance the body's boundary of size, height, and proportion (body-image).

Figure 1 - Dancers

Figure 2 – Just Clothes

Similarly, the modification of self-concept also occurs using the same design variables. Emphatic attachments to clothing hold multiple meanings that are constructed and used as stabilising factors (emotion, mood, personality and possible selves) that cement individual identities and therefore sense of self, effecting self-esteem, and body esteem (Franzoi and Sheilds 1984) and therefore self-development. This contributes to levels of control and motivation or function in a social world and is claimed to be more acute in women than men (Tseëlon 1997). Self-referential judgment and, more recently, human body perception have been carried out using FMRI experiments. The neural basis of self-referential processing uses positive and negative self-descriptive words, where processing of internally generated selfrepresentations (Kjaer 2002) is retrieved from a verbal memory, affecting the selfconcept and therefore self esteem. The 'self' is primarily located in the frontal lobe region of the brain (Fossati et al. 2003). Social perception has been located in the Superior Temporal gyrus (Chan et al. 2004; Pelphrey et al. 2004). Downing et al. (2001) found low-level modular processing of human body representation in the human visual cortex called the extrastriate body area (EBA). This primitive part of the brain is responsible for the detection of the human body. Artists like Cindy Sherman and Nikki S. Lee focus their work on their own identity, taking photographs of themselves whilst exploring different identities. Cindy explores social roles of a woman whilst Nikki has explored and recorded socio-cultural identity. She dresses up and lives the life of different social groups for three months, e.g. as a punk or an old woman. Parallel to FMRI experiments, psychological experiments in association with fashion and textile design have been carried out to show the effects of fashion and clothing on self,

personality, emotion and mood. Fashion illustration and other art work are also being developed to reflect and explore the theoretical and scientific content of the research.

Figure 3 - Just Clothes

Figure 4 - Doll

Concluding Poem - from workshop Pivate and Social Landscape of Identity The individual clothed body A material landscape of different identities Layered, organic and manmade symbols of change And, yet, stillness of time Expression, reflection and regulators of self Further, in posture, image and belief Of anxiety and freedom The clothed body A metaphor for the land and its contents The land, a landscape of social identities Organic and manmade Layers of change and stillness prevails Expression, reflection and regulators of society Belonging felt and seen in posture, image and belief Of anxiety, freedom and belonging [email protected]