160. Getting Dressed – Erika Veurink
The Dresses of Frida Kahlo exhibit at Museum Frida Kahlo, Mexico City
Writing fiction, I dress my characters before any scene or dialogue. Through their dress, I can imagine their private hopes before the day—before joy or fear or trauma.
There’s a phenomenon known as “enclothed cognition.” It's the scientific way of saying what we wear impacts how we think and how we remember. I was introduced to the concept during a first year lecture at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Clothes meant enough to me to leave the Midwest, move to New York, and enroll at FIT. Dressed in a striped shirt rescued from a local Goodwill and jeans I saved up a week of babysitting to buy, I listened in reverie as my professor spoke of the universality of what I already believed to be the greatest common denominator: getting dressed.
“People think they’re outside of fashion,” she said, her heavy beaded necklaces thudding against her chest, “but everyone gets dressed in the morning.” I looked around at my classmates, my fellow escapees and future artists, friends, and competition for coveted fashion week volunteer slots. The morning sun gleamed against our leather jackets, filtered through our polyester from the night before, and it pooled in our bright eyes.
Our clothes are our armor, our witnesses. Some days, they’re the only thing we can control. We dress to tell ourselves, and others, how we feel. Think of Joan Didion’s packing list: the leotards, the mohair throw, the cigarettes. She writes in The White Album, “Notice the deliberate anonymity of the costume.” Her clothes allowed her to disappear.
Even invisibility is worth noticing. When reinserting myself into memories as an essayist, I start by dressing myself. I try to remember what I was wearing and what it felt like to move in that outfit. Writing fiction, I dress my characters before any scene or dialogue. Through their dress, I can imagine their private hopes before the day—before joy or fear or trauma.
Karla Welch, a stylist I admire, always says, “Good clothes open doors.” But as a creative device, the clothes don’t have to be good. Try thinking of clothing as a tool to understand your characters more fully. Let it change the way you dress. Let it change the way you write.
– Erika Veurink
