The Psychology of Fashion

"Eventually, Bergler tells us, he excavated the unconscious motive for her gray attire: beginning in her late teens, the woman had spent six years composing music and devising ballets, but she gave up when the work on which she'd pinned her highest hopes-a tragedy about moths attracted to a great, beautiful light, who all end up burned to death-was rejected. Bergler grew convinced that, after her artistic dreams were thwarted, she'd begun to identify as one of these burned moths."

"One senses that there may have been more to the woman's silence than awestruck agreement, but Bergler cheerfully adds her to his portfolio of case studies, in which patients' sartorial peculiarities are unfailingly traced to episodes from their pasts. An artist who always wears red claims to find the color "reassuring," a feeling that Bergler comes to understand as rooted in an early exposure to Cecil B. DeMille's film "The Ten Commandments" and its depiction of Moses parting the Red Sea."

Case studies link clothing choices to unconscious motives and personal histories. One patient wore endless gray after an artistic rejection and came to identify with burned moths. Other examples tie color preferences to formative visual exposures, such as red reassurance associated with a cinematic image of Moses parting the Red Sea. A patient who pursued married men paired green and gold attire, interpreted as rebellion against a mother who favored dramatic dress. Clothing can therefore both reveal unresolved psychic material and provide a means to adopt alternative selves temporarily.

Read at The New Yorker