Dressing Up
Phase i: Observe
Dressing up is a very big process for me. Without it, I feel like I am missing a part of me and my entire day is thrown off. When I put on my outfit for the day, I feel like I am whole and that my general sense of being is complete. I’ve noticed that the kind of outfit I wear for the day also determines my mood and a bit of my personality. When I am dressed casually with little to no accessories I am more relaxed and chill, but when I dress up and go the nine yards, I feel more confident and more self-aware of everything that I am doing.
Cast of Characters:
Phase ii: Expand/Contract
Ideation:
To begin my process for phase ii, I decided to write down ideas for what I wanted to change in my routine of dressing up. I decided to focus on nudges that disrupted my process and make it more difficult and unsatisfying for me to complete this usually enjoyable task. I wrote down the ideas I had on sticky notes and clustered them into groups based on how they affected me, whether it be physically, mentally, or emotionally.
To evaluate the levels of impact and interest these ideas had, I placed the sticky notes on a sheet of paper with a graph that measured the levels of impact and interest.
I then circle the groups that stand out based on how much they open my mind to new ideas for my routine and by how constricting they feel.
In the end, I decided to choose the idea of letting someone else choose my outfit, seeing that it had the most impact on me and it seemed to be the most interesting.
This nudge is comprised of three micro nudges:
- Reaching out to an outside source
- Wearing an outfit not chosen by me
- Walking around with no sense of independence
In testing this nudge I hope to find out if my sense of self is reliant on my independence to choose what I want to wear or if I find true joy in just wearing nice clothes.
The Test
I tested my four-pronged solution once. First, reached out to my friend, Emily, to see if she wanted to pick out my outfits. Luckily for me, she responded quickly and agreed to be a part of my little experiment.
Then I took a bunch of photos of all my clothes and accessories and sent them to her. After that, I waited. My outfit would now be generated by a mind completely separate from my own. I was very anxious to see what I would be wearing that day, the lack of control over this personal process made me feel extremely uneasy and uncertain. Once she responded with what outfit I should wear I went about picking the clothes from my closet to fulfill Emily’s request. Once finished wearing the outfit, I looked at myself in the mirror, “ huh it's not that bad, I quite like it “.
After testing the nudge, there were three takeaways I realized:
- I spend less time worrying about what to choose. Usually, it takes me about 10 minutes to finally decide on what to wear. Outsourcing for my outfit cut a lot of steps I had in my original journey map. I no longer went on my phone to find inspiration or looked at previous outfits because I wasn’t the one making the decision of what to wear.
- I feel much more anxious when wearing my clothes. The lack of control over what I had in my body made me feel very uneasy and anxious. My outfit has a huge effect on my emotions and overall sense of self so to have that choice of what to wear taken away from me made me feel very nervous to put on the clothes.
- Looking at my outfit in the mirror is less satisfying. Usually, I have a positive yearning to see what my outfit looks like in the mirror, it is the part I am most looking forward to in my dressing-up process. However, now that I have not chosen my outfit, walking up to the mirror to look at my outfit felt almost mechanical. I checked the mirror to see if the outfit looked okay, not good. It felt more like a chore to look at my outfit in the mirror.
A new journey map reveals this design is less fulfilling and more of a mechanical process. It cuts out many of the yearnings I had on my original map.
In conclusion, due to the nudge, my day wearing clothes that I had not chosen was quite bland and I found myself not as excited to go out or take mirror selfies.
Phase iii: Transform
During this phase I looked deeper into the world of fashion and what it meant to get ready in the morning by dressing up.
At first, I tried looking for articles and exposes on how fashion and subgenres can help form a communities’ identity and sense of self-worth. However, after spending about two hours looking, I ended up with nothing. That is when I changed my approach and began taking personality quizzes on various sites to see what style or fashion subgenre I fit in. These quizzes helped me to see how the general public viewed individuals in different fashion cliques.
The Quiz
The first quiz I took was on a website called Playbuzz, it was the first quiz that came up when I searched for personality quizzes based on aesthetics.
At first, I took the quiz as honestly as possible, it asked many questions about what accessories I would wear and other questions about the things I liked to do or the things I related to.
After answering many of these questions, I ended up getting the grunge aesthetic. The caption under the results was very interesting, though. Even though most of the questions revolved around what I would most likely wear, the description under the results revealed personality traits that I most likely exemplified, such as being bold or outspoken.
After I got my results, I wondered if the exact description of a personality would appear under the other results, and what they would be. So I took the quiz again and changed my answers drastically. This time I got the “ girly aesthetic “. And sure enough, it described my personality again, saying that I was caring and emotional.
The Commentary Videos
After taking the quizzes, I went on to Youtube to find out why a personal aesthetic determined one’s personality. In a certain youtube video by one of my favorite creators, Frugal Aesthetic, he says that what one likes and does not like in clothes is based on one’s personality. Therefore, individuals who display certain personality traits will most likely be drawn to a certain way of dressing themselves. This is why it is easy to draw conclusions from a person based on their style of clothing.
The fact that one’s personality draws one towards a certain subgenre of fashion also reveals why a subgenre can help an individual form a sense of identity. A group filled with like-minded people will help draw individuals out of their shells and aid them in becoming themselves and outwardly showing that.
Speculative Ideation
Based on all of these new ideas I had discovered, I decided to come up with speculative versions of dressing up in the morning.
In my ideation, I realized how my emotions and interests played a big role in what I was going to wear that day. The biggest, obstacle I faced when dressing up was what I would put on since what I wear is an outward reflection of who I am as a person.
With all of this in mind, I typed on sticky notes what ideations I could create in order to make the act of dressing up more focused on one’s personality and feelings.
In these designs, the everyday practices of dressing up might include:
- A mirror that determines your aesthetic
- A website that generates outfits based on one’s personality
- A quiz that takes previously saved data to generate an outfit based on past interest
- A chip that extracts one’s feelings and uses them to create an outfit for the individual
- An app that suggests various outfits after determining one’s mood once they wake up.
After considering all of these ideations, I decided to go with the fifth sticky ( An app that suggests various outfits after determining one’s mood once one wakes up. ) due to the level of interest I had in this ideation.
This sticky note really seemed to capture the direct correlation between one’s personality and their sense of style. The fact that it would produce various outfits also left some individuality for the user. The user is not being forced to wear one specific outfit, instead, they have a choice on what outfit they wear which gives some variety and a sense of freedom to the individual.
In addition, the app would not suggest outfits based on one’s personality because a person’s personality could change over time. If the app were to have a quiz one took to determine the user’s personality, it would keep suggesting outfits based on how the user felt that day. If the app determines the individual’s mood daily, then it could formulate the user's personality throughout a longer period of time rather than their personality on the day they took the quiz.
Speculative idea: An app that suggests various outfits after determining one’s mood once they wake up
This app would be activated once the user wakes up. It would read the user’s brain activity through a chip installed in the individual’s brain and it would determine how the user feels and would feel throughout the day.
Based on how the user is feeling, the app would use its database to formulate three different outfits the user would be most drawn to wear based on the user’s mood.
The user would then choose which outfit they like the most and the app’s database would save that information in order to be more accurate with future suggestions. The user then wears the clothes and enjoys the outfit!
The Storyboard
Closing thoughts
As I did my research on fashion, I realized that the reason why I felt more like myself when I wore the clothes I chose was that fashion is an outlet for self-expression. Wearing cute or cool outfits is not the main reason many dress up. Many individuals use fashion and their style as a way to brand themselves. For many, clothes help define who they are and what their personality is like.
The act of choosing those clothes, though it is tedious, is fulfilling and is an integral part of dressing up. Having someone choose those clothes for you, is like having someone choose your personality. Though the app helps people come to a decision on what to wear, it does not fulfill the emotional yearning that fashionistas have for dressing up.
Dressing up is important, not only physically, but emotionally.
