Latest / Art of the Question / The Fascinating Psychology of Fashion - Dr. Carolyn Mair - #42

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The Fascinating Psychology of Fashion - Dr. Carolyn Mair - #42 · Art of the Question

• Julius Moorman: Carolyn, so good to have a conversation ⁓ with you today. I was ⁓ very excited for this episode because I think fashion is something we encounter every single day. We know what it is. I mean, I think we feel like we know what it is, but I think a lot of people don't really realize the interesting psychological dynamics that involve around fashion. So Yeah, very happy to talk to a a psychologist who ⁓ yeah is is specialized in this ⁓ specific area and I think it would make for for a great conversation. So ⁓ first of all, I was interested to know when did your interest in studying the psychology fashion first ⁓ come from and and why did you find it so interesting. That's a great question. And actually I I've always been interested since I was a a young teenager, really, in understanding what makes people tick. So the idea about psychology, even before I knew it was psychology, had fascinated me. Why do people do what they do? Why why are some people different from others? And what how do groups form? So I I was interested in this from a very young age. And in fact Psychology was a a ⁓ growing discipline at that time. It was fairly new, particularly in the UK. ⁓ and I've also always loved fashion. So but I I didn't necessarily connect the two. So as a teenager I began to make my own clothes. I I couldn't see clothes that I wanted to wear in the shop, so I would travel up to London, buy nice fabric and make my own clothes. ⁓ And then I started making clothes for when I had children, for my children, and then for other people's children, and then for for friends and so on. ⁓ so fashion has also always interested me. And I noticed when I wear clothes and when other people wear particular items of clothing, that their personality seems to change. ⁓ and by personality here I mean their behavior changes. They act differently and we also act differently ⁓ in response to what other people are wearing. And that that resonated with me. And then when I got an opportunity to go to university later on as a as an adult, I studied psychology because that was my primary interest. What makes people tick? Why do we do the things we do? So ⁓ I went to university and I studied psychology and ⁓ computing ⁓ because That was a a course offered at my local university, which was an amazing course. ⁓ then I carried on, and I did my PhD, which was in cognitive neuroscience. And after doing my PhD, which was purely theoretical, ⁓ experimental and theoretical, I really wanted to apply the knowledge that I'd accrued over all those years to make a difference in the more immediate future, let's say. And I was very fortunate that I got a ⁓ a lectureship, then I was promoted and promoted and I became a professor of applied cognitive psychology, where one of the options I introduced was imagine for the students to d to do this. Imagine you're a cognitive psychologist, you've been appointed by a particular industry to improve an element of their industry that could be internal, it could be com consumer relations. It could be shop displays and so on. ⁓ I gave the students a lot of freedom to do this. And one of the most popular topics that came up was working in the fashion industry. So ⁓ again, ⁓ as fortunate as I am, I met someone at a conference who worked at London College of Fashion. And I asked about were there any psychologists there? And when he said no, I said You know, this is a gap that needs filling. This is the gap. Fashion is all about who we are. It's about our identity. It's about telling, it's about communicating who we are, who we want to be, who our friends are, what our values are. And also the industry at that time and still does have a lot of problems that psychology can be extremely useful in helping to address. So cut a long story short here, it's already a long story, I'm sorry. But to cut it short, I was invited to London College of Fashion, I gave a presentation, I was invited back, and then I ⁓ was fortunate enough to be able to set up the psychology department, write the master's courses. This was way back in twenty twelve, and they're still running very successfully now in twenty twenty six. That's an incredible story. And please take as much time and and go as long as you want. This is the beauty of having conversations like this. It's it's not ⁓ not a BBC televised item where we have ⁓ 30 seconds to ⁓ to rapid fire some some answer. So we can take as much time as we need. And I love that. That's so incredible. So it's also kind of an entrepreneurial story in a sense where you you're you're spotting a gap and you're combining Two interests of yours and br give something back to the field and create a field and then move it forward. So that's incredibly interesting. And before we we dive into the specifics of all the interesting findings and perhaps surprising reasons why we may feel very confident when wearing something, and how we even are able to perform better and how other people treat us when we wear something. Let's first Dive into the the word of of fashion. What what is fashion? What does that mean? Can we how do we define it? Well, fashion's a very interesting word, and I'm not sure how it translates ⁓ in Dutch or in other languages, but in the in British English and American English, fashion has lots of meaning. We can use it as a verb to fashion something, which means actually to To change the shape of something, to make something different than what it was originally. ⁓ fashion relates to all industries actually, not only to the clothing industry or the the footwear industry or even the beauty industry. And yet we talk about fashion now as if it really relates to that that industry that is concerned with the body. But we have fashion in terms of ⁓ cars, in terms of holidays in terms of every item that that humans consume or or enjoy ⁓ there i is fashion. There's fashion even in in flower ranging, let's say, you know. ⁓ so but in the in the context of this this podcast, fashion relates to the entire industry. So this is what what I'm concerned with as a psychologist working in fashion, not only the end product, not only the clothing and the impact and the influence that that has on on human behavior, but I'm also interested in human behaviour in the industry. So for its workforce and even prior to becoming within the the fashion companies to those who produce parts of the item or the whole item. in in other areas of the world and how those fabrics come to to be. So through soil, ⁓ you know, we're talking right back to to seeds and planting ⁓ and the earth. So yeah, it's a huge, huge ⁓ notion what is fashion. But for terms of this, we're talking about the fashion industry. Yeah. And it's interesting that you mentioned there that of course fashion can be something different than than just clothes which is how we use the term most of the time. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's so true. There's recently I don't know if you've heard of HyROX, but it's this like ⁓ fashion very fashionable, very new, very trendy ⁓ sports competition that some people hate it, some people love it. I've I've never done it, but ⁓ I immediately had to think of something that is like super fashionable. People post it to social media and there's contrarians and there's trendsetters and it has all the aspects of of what fashion has. But if we're just talking about fashion in the clothing sense, when did we first when did fashion first become a thing? Because I assume like if we go way back in time, like Cl when we started losing our furs and and and the hairs on our bodies, we started to wear clothes, right? But these clothes were very practical. I mean, I assumed they were made because people would get cold otherwise. And then slowly but surely they somehow transitioned from just merely surviving to perhaps also in age of the Egyptians or or the Roman Empire to immediately signify someone's importance. And I assume this goes back thousands of years. I assume the Chinese have a very rich history with with empires. And you get where I'm going with this. I'm I'm very curious to to know, do we know when when we first started making statements with clothing rather than just protecting us from the cold or or the sun, for example? Well you're right. It was millennia ago. ⁓ people started using adornments, embellishing the actual practical garments they had to signify ⁓ status or to signify other aspects. It could be seniority, ⁓ authority, those kind of elements. ⁓ and they started marking their bodies when they couldn't mark their clothing. So ⁓ for example, branding or or tattooing or marking their bodies in some way to show ⁓ their their who they were, their identity. ⁓ so clothing has been around for obviously like you say, animal skins, but also ⁓ clothing was made from hemp thousands of years ago, thousands, thousands of years ago. ⁓ but it started to become much more of a a commodity through ⁓ the industrial changes that we saw in the nineteenth early nineteenth century, mass production that ⁓ happened through technology. But earlier to that, the people who could afford what we might call fashion, who could afford to change their clothes, ⁓ were royalty, ⁓ those kind of ⁓ people who, I don't know, less than one percent of the population, ⁓ a minute proportion of the population who wore clothes that had clothes made for them. And the rest of the population continued to wear ⁓ material that was somehow covered their bodies for practical reasons. And some of those would then adorn those, if they could, embellish those practical clothing to show their status. But the majority, the huge majority of the population, did not have access to Elegant clothing, let's say, or clothing that was beyond practical. Lots of them didn't have access to even practical clothing either, so there was a real divide. And when mass production came in the nineteenth century, it made it possible that clot I'm not gonna say fashion here, but clothing became democratized. More people could buy clothing, then along with that came fashion magazines. And department stores. And with this th it became that women for the first time had money that they could spend. And this produced a great interest in appearance. When you you imagine you have the fashion magazines, suddenly we're seeing people who don't look like our neighbours. We're seeing people who are different to us that we haven't seen. It's hard for us to imagine that now because we can see Anything and everything. ⁓ and even if it doesn't really exist, we can we can make that up now through AI. So, you know, it's hard to imagine this. But this came around in the nineteenth century. ⁓ women started to be interested in clothing and their appearance, and this has escalated since then. And then about thirty years ago, there was a massive change with democratization of fashion, even more. Through ⁓ stores like H ⁓ Group, for example, starting with Hennes in Sweden. and then we have now Inditext ⁓ and and lots of other conglomerates who practically own the entire high streets ⁓ between them. Yeah, it's so interesting because ⁓ as I understand it, it started out to To kind of signify like, hey, I'm wearing something that is very scar scarce. So the the scarcity of nice materials, of nice fabric, is what made something exclusive and is what amplified someone's significance, is someone's importance. But then as more people gained access to clothing and and and and to fashion if you if you would already call it that. It might materials are still important, like don't get me wrong, like a golden necklace or or diamonds or or like a very nice piece of leather, like people suede, right? We we still enjoy beautiful materials, but I feel like there's also some transition, especially with the HMs, that rather than just wearing exclusive materials. Also creativity became a huge part of it, right? And it's how we use these materials that are accessible to millions of people. It's how we combine all these different ⁓ clothing pieces that are out there and turn it into something that is unique and that is ⁓ desired. So I feel like creativity became a bigger part of it rather than just the exclusivity of the materials. Is that correct? to absolutely and that's a really good point. And the creativity, not only in terms of the artistic creativity, but the entrepreneurial creativity that allowed this concept to happen and grow, ⁓ that has led to the democratization of fashion. You're absolutely right. And where we still love fine fabrics, such as silk, I'm thinking cashmere, leather, suede, there are artificial now. fibers that feel very, very similar to the to the real ones, to the actual silk. And there is ⁓ environmental concern with both silk and cashmere around the the harm that we might be doing producing these beautiful fabrics. I mean silk is a obviously a wonderful fabric to feel and and to see ⁓ but what damage is it doing? But then we have on the other hand these artificial fibers ⁓ also creating damage as well. Yeah. And what's so interesting to me is and it's kind of what sparked my interest in this topic and and it's why I wanted to know more more about it, is fashion can have fashion is always changing, right? It's ⁓ a pe pendulum, if you will, or there's at least a cycle. happening. And as I picture it, as I assume it it happens nowadays, and might be wrong, but I'm I'm very ⁓ eager to to hear that from you, of course, is that people wanna be creative. And these can be influential people, they can be ⁓ movie stars, they can be influencers, football players, whatever people they want to show to the world how important and how different they are, like like the kings, like the Roman emperors. They want to show like, hey, I'm wearing something different than than you are, therefore I am important. And then people look up to these people, and then they start to copy their styles. And then slowly but surely these styles will become more mainstream. But then The the contrarians, the trendsetters, if you will, they see that their style is now becoming mainstream and therefore by definition want to change it up again because they still need to signal to everyone else, hey, I'm not part of the mainstream, I'm a unique person. And that's this continuous cycle. There's a delay happening there, but that's my gut feeling as to why fashion is always changing? Is my feeling is that pointing in the right direction? Or is there any ⁓ theories as to why fashion is always changing? Because in a sense it it it's weird, right? Like we figured out clothes, like like they fit well, they look kind of nice. They've been they've been good quality for for for decades now. Like why why should we ever change what we wear? Why why do we do it? It's kinda strange if you think about it. It is. ⁓ and you make a very good point. I mean, most of us never need to buy anything else again for the rest of our lives. But, you know, the fashion industry exists. It's a huge global economy. So clearly they want to make money. And you're absolutely right about fashion innovators, the avant-garde, let's say. And this has been documented in lots of different areas, the diffusion of innovation, it's called. where you have the trend setters, the innovators coming in at the beginning, a very small percentage who s who may spot something they they wear or go or just wear something, influencers, footballers or something, as you say, very ⁓ topical. And that then gets slowly taken up by more more of the population. Then when it becomes fashionable, taken up by the masses, something that is fashionable is no longer fashionable. Yeah. And so the trendsetters, the the innovators, the new people, I mean, are they they start something because they want to be different. They want to look different. So ⁓ they may well have in their mind, I want to be a fashion innovator and I'm going to choose a style that no one else is wearing, but I doubt that. I I believe what they're doing is showing their individuality expressing something about themselves at a time when no one else is doing that. And then it gets taken up because this person has followers or influences is influential, influential in some other particular ways. ⁓ but fashion changes one on one hand because of this, but not only because of that. We change. So there's three reasons there are three reasons here at least. So one, ⁓ the fashion companies need to make some money. If we don't buy clothes, they're not gonna make the money. Two, we have the avant-garde, the trendsetters who when something becomes fashionable, it's no longer fashionable. And then we have the simple psychological factor we change. We need clothes for different contexts. We have different situations, different environments. Throughout our lives, we may have an outfit to wear for a a a context, a situation that we've been in before, but it's quite unlikely that for every single situation we're going to be in for the rest of our lives. We have a a a suitable and appropriate outfit. So we buy clothes for that. But not only for that reason. Our identities change. Our values change. Our bodies change. Our social groups change. Our values change. Our personality changes. So we used to think personality was fixed across the lifespan. We now know that personality is not fixed. It changes. And it can change During a day, let's say, for an individual, depending on the people who they're interacting with, the situation they're in, we need to adapt our personality. So over a lifetime, this can change dramatically as we become more or less confident. ⁓ the lifestyle that we have changes. So fashion changes because we change. Yeah, it's so interesting. So all the incentives and and all the mechanics are in place. For fashion to to continuously change and there's multiple reasons for it. And I think I feel like it's almost a similar dynamic as to why rebellious teenagers want to do everything different than what their parents are doing, right? They wanna express their individu individuality by ⁓ they they say, I mean, I don't have children yet, and not especially not teenagers, obviously, but they ⁓ they well I I've heard a saying that If you wanna prevent your your your teenager from doing something, do it yourself because they they won't they won't wanna do it. So I feel like there's a like a contrarian ⁓ message in there somehow. Yeah. But what ⁓ what is interesting to me about the the change in in fashion Is how strong the the the reaction can be. I remember that I used I used to ride BMX bikes, right? So I was in the skate park ⁓ many, many hours and many years of my ⁓ younger ⁓ teenage years, of my entire teenage years rather. And what was fashionable in the skate park were skinny jeans. And that was part of ⁓ the practical reasons because We are whipping the bikes around and we have ⁓ the sprocket and the chain. So if you have very loose pants, it didn't really make sense because your your your pants would get stuck. So we would wear like actual, like like super skinny jeans. And I mean that in like ⁓ we would go to like HM for for for for girls ⁓ to to buy our jeans there ⁓ because they were the tightest that we could find. And that was what everyone was wearing in the skate park, right? We literally Wore girls' jeans. And I remember going to high school and people were making fun of me, right? But I didn't care because my I wanted to be cool with the kids from the skate park. I didn't care about the people in high school, which is one interesting observation, right? So one dynamic was more interesting to me than the people in in in high school. But then something interesting happened. I was wearing skinny jeans in the skateboard for I had been doing it for years. But then all of a sudden, skinny jeans became cool and skinny jeans became the mainstream. So now all of a sudden everyone in high school was wearing the the skinny jeans. And it wasn't because of me. That was like a a global at least threat within the US and and and Europe, I feel like. ⁓ so I I wasn't getting bullied for my skinny jeans ⁓ in high school anymore. So that was ⁓ that was good news. But I always remember these moments when I wanted to ⁓ leave the house and I had a few of my very skinny jeans, but then some of my sometimes they would be in the laundry and then I would still have some older jeans that weren't as skinny as the ones I was now used to wearing. And I remember this very uneasy, almost visceral feeling of not wanting to leave the house because I just felt so unhappy when the jeans were a bit baggy. And I I just couldn't imagine wearing any of my old jeans. And now, flash forward fifteen years, I'm wearing very baggy jeans. Even in the skate parks, we are wearing baggy jeans again, even though they get stuck in in the sprocket constantly. We don't care. ⁓ baggy jeans just look cool. and now I can't imagine leaving the house in in skinny jeans. It would seem terrible to me. I don't know how I could ever wear those. So long story short is why is it that it can give us such a visceral, such a strong reaction if we have to wear something that doesn't align with our own sense of fashion anymore? But the whole the body is one thing. It works as a system. So this idea that the brain and body are separate is is just a myth. So we have a visceral response because our brain cell sends hormones ⁓ throughout the body. So when we dislike something strongly, ⁓ we get this cortisol, this stress response. that will feed down to our organs, this visceral response that can make us feel absolutely that something is abhorrent, this strong feeling about it. This could be in your case, because you had such a powerful relationship with skinny jeans in the first place, that the the the contrary ⁓ creates this kind of sense of That cannot be possible. This can't be right. This idea it's almost to the extremes of ⁓ liking, disliking. ⁓ but the reason that that you say the fashion why when it was just the skaters in your skate park wearing like girls' skinny jeans, ⁓ and then it catching on was simply that sport and fashion are closely related as well, and increasingly so and it Could be that I mean I don't know the the years we're talking about here, it could be that you were on the cutting edge of that. But skating has led a lot of fashion. And I was quite surprised to hear you say that as a a skater you wore skinny jeans because my immediate in my head I saw baggy, baggy jeans. ⁓ because that's my idea of skater fashion. my grandsons both them okay. love it. They love their skateboards. so yeah, so I think this visceral feeling, well not I think the visceral feeling comes from the brain's strong sense of dislike. And we talk about a gut feeling, the gut and brain have a very close ⁓ relationship to the gut feeling, the visceral feeling we get when we dislike something, whether it's clothing or or anything else, is unsurprising really when we think about the body being just one system, made up of multiple systems, and the brain feeds and the gut feeds. And so the relationship is there. ⁓ so it's not surprising that you feel this about about a trend that comes and goes. And and, you know, even going back on your ideas about not caring about what your friends at school thought about your tight genes. You were so proud of being a skater. That's what you wanted to show. And that is is really lovely. And that's a a demonstration of social identity theory where we are super proud of the group we belong to above everything else. And you probably thought all those other kids in your high school, what uncle And your your group was superior. And it gives you a sense of pride. You exactly explained that. This social identity theory is really important. We want to feel part of a group. And we do that through our clothing. So that's a very simple way to show that we're part of that group to to people who either engage with us or just see us. It's obvious it's there. It can be head to toe. And so, you know, we use fashion for that very much. This is why fashion changes as well. As we change our our groups, so in your case your your skate group, you move into a different group, ⁓ which maybe could be just a b a sports brand. Or a ⁓ you know, perhaps you like an influencer who has strong values about something. Or or a person might follow a politician or something. A little bit more unlikely, but you never know. It's so interesting what you mentioned about the the groups and ⁓ how changing groups immediately or not immediately but pretty quickly also changes ⁓ your desires as to how you you dress and what you express. Because after I stopped riding BMX bikes and after I stopped going to the skate park as much. I had a gap year and in this gap year I got a lot of new friends and these friends were all going to university and I also wanted to go to university and then in ⁓ university I went to law school and then I became ⁓ part of a fraternity in ⁓ in a small student town in in Leida, which of course was a very different vibe than than the people from the skate park. The skate park is a bit more alternative and the fraternity was a lot preppy. I be everyone was wearing a Polo Rolf Lawrence shirts and ⁓ they had their hair ⁓ slick backed and the the style was was very ⁓ very different. And immediately if I look at pictures from that era when I when I joined, I you could see you could see it. I was wearing leather shoes all of a sudden and cocky jeans and and Rolf Lawrence shirts. So immediately I wanted to signal that I ⁓ fit in within this ⁓ new group which is which is interesting. Yeah. So that's that's that's ⁓ the I I I can definitely ⁓ speak from my own experience that the the group like wanting to fit in is ⁓ is a strong one. But ⁓ what what's so surprising to me when when discussing all of this is if we look at the entire evolutionary history of Walt species on earth, but also just if we look at ⁓ history of ⁓ of humans and where we where we evolved from the the period that we like start to wear clothes as a fashion statement that the that the majority of people so I'm not talking about some Chinese emperor who had this expensive ⁓ robe on or whatever. I'm I'm talking about like everyone, everyday people that know what fashion is and are engaging in fashion. It's such a tiny, tiny, tiny micro percentage of our evolutionary history as a species. But still it is so important. When I got that visceral reactions about my my my genes being a bit too baggy or or or too skinny perhaps nowadays that I don't even want to leave the house. It's it's really it's it's it's interesting that Even though it's such a ⁓ fashion is such a a s a small part of our history, if we zoom out, ⁓ that it can produce such ⁓ strong reactions still. Yeah. ⁓ what what do you make of that? Well, in the past, items w some well, survival was more important than clothing. So having enough food, having enough having shelter, the actual basics of staying alive. were more important than our appearance. And we lived with people who were like us. So we lived with people who were very similar. If we w we didn't have money thousands of years ago, we lived in a group of people who didn't have money either. So, you know, we're not talking about the Chinese emperor. ⁓ we're talking about ordinary people who fought for survival every single day. So just covering their body for practical reasons or functional reasons was the best they could do. And not all of them could do that. And so they died. So, you know, we've come a long way and technology has helped us. ⁓ for better or worse, appearance is now one of the most ⁓ important elements of a human being. And I think that's a pity. I think it's problematic because fat you know, clothing is one thing, ⁓ head to toe appearance is another. When we see images of perfection, and especially now in the last five years, decade, I'm not quite sure, where we are able to edit images so simply that we believe that people l can look like the images and not only can look like the images but should look like these images should present themselves as perfection. And for me this is a problem. So yeah, I mean if we think how trivial not wearing the right style of jeans is, you know, I mean we we need to be concerned. And yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you. That can cause a visceral reaction. It clearly did with you, but it it obviously does with lots of other people too. Not having the right outfit for that situation can be a stomach churning ⁓ experience. But there are bigger things in life than that. Nevertheless, at that time, that matters. I can remember going to an interview and it was a long time ago. It was an interview for a job in a ⁓ a global bank ⁓ wouldn't have suited me at all. ⁓ so it turned out probably for the best. But I knew I had to wear a suit and I've never been like a suit person. I love seeing ⁓ women and men in that for that matter, but I love to see a woman in a in a beautiful tailored suit. So at the time lilac was very fashionable. So I went along and bought a lilac suit and I rocked up to this ⁓ ⁓ it was a whole day of tests and things for this b big global bank in another city. And I w I walked up and I had my lovely lilac suit on and I thought, ⁓ yeah, I really look the business. And I walked in, every single person was in navy or dark grey or black. And I had that visceral reaction that you had. And it was like a it from coming up there and I thought, I am, I look I look nice in this. lilac suit. I just think now how ridiculous. I didn't I I hadn't done my homework. I just wanted to be fashionable above being appropriate. And I had that visceral response as well. ⁓ needless to say, and I I won't say it's a hundred percent because of the lilac suit, but what I will say is that feeling so uncomfortable psychologically, ⁓ in that situation affected my cognitive performance on the tests ⁓ that I had to do that day. There were lots of tests. There were there were group tests and there were individual, you know, tests, ability tests and and and so on, which I think normally I would have done fine not. But because I felt so uncomfortable, it really affected my thinking. That was in in front of my mind the whole time. So yeah, it's a real thing. But now I look back, I would have done my homework. I would probably still feel super uncomfortable in the wrong clothes, the wrong clothes. ⁓ but I also am able to see the big picture and as bigger things than this. You know, survival. Survival still matters. But we have opportunities to s to look after our survival a lot more now than we did before. No, it's true. But I think also part of the reason ⁓ at least I didn't study this, but it is my assumption that one of the primal instincts we do have is to prevent being ostracized, right? So if we get excluded from the group, that used to mean death. And ⁓ back in the day we didn't have fashion to signal that we are part of a certain group, but now we do. So we immediately adopted this primal behavior as we want to be part of this group. We want to show that we're part of this group. As yeah, the the same primal instinct and the primal fear of being ostracized. So ⁓ wearing something completely different by accident, for example, or being underdressed, being overdressed, like these are terms like scary moments. ⁓ I think it stems from that primal fear of being ostracized and not being part of the group you desire to be part in, probably. Exactly. Yes, that's a very, very good point. Yeah. So what are ⁓ the the the role of ⁓ we we've discussed the fashion cycle, right? ⁓ contrarians, trendsetters. I can imagine that social media has ⁓ sped things up quite a bit because we used to have ⁓ a few famous people, or ⁓ not a few, but a few hundred famous people. W back when there was no social media, you could either be an actor, you could play in movies, or or you could present a television show. That was about it. But now there could be people, there could be there there's probably influencers out there who have like eight hundred million followers that I have never heard about. Yeah, I'm I'm sure of it. ⁓ the internet is a big place, as they say. ⁓ so we now have so much more famous people, so much but it's so much easier to reach a large audience that I would assume that this has a significant impact on the speed ⁓ of the the fashion cycle. Is that true or or is fashion still is it's yeah, d didn't it really speed up ⁓ alongside social media? Yeah, I think social media has a huge part to play. It amplifies news, let's call it, through imagery. and fashion is about imagery. So it we we've become a completely image based society where what we wear not only puts us in a particular social group, but it it expresses our status and it can express our values. and our identity, our role, our profession. Even in students, I would say it's not difficult to be able to identify what course particular students are studying by the clothes they wear. ⁓ and I I love that because that's quite interesting because it happens at a time particularly for undergraduates when they are still kind of playing about with their identity, trying to ⁓ experiment with clothing. But yeah, I mean the internet, because you say anyone can be an influencer now if they just manage to get in at the right time with the right thing, particularly on on TikTok. So yeah, I'm a hundred percent certain that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of influencers ⁓ that I have zero idea about. But other people who who know very well and follow them for a particular reason. So this is why potentially we don't see one trend at the moment. So we spoke about skinny jeans becoming trendy, then baggy jeans becoming trendy. But actually, if you go out in any type of jeans now, in any colour, even like the old stonewashed jeans and then the the ones that were a little bit bleached and ripped jeans even that were in. And not particularly something that you could not wear now. So the trends are much broader now. There isn't one trend. And we see people wearing like anything and everything now. And this could be because there are influencers showing different things that ⁓ I don't have a c a c a clue about. But when we look at this it's all psychological. Well, there is a fear of missing out, the fear of not looking like you're part of that group. Perhaps a lot of people, particularly younger people, are experimenting with with who they want to be, with their identity, with the groups that they want to belong to. They try things out and they see how they fit in with particular groups. This fear of being ostracized, I mean that's a very, very important point. And a very good point you made. That's very important. If we have that desire to belong and suddenly we're we're not, that rejection is a deep seated you know, a very awful fear fear for people who are s who want to belong in a particular group. And perhaps people want to be seen as trendsetters. ⁓ they want to be different. Fashion allows us, and this is a nice way of thinking, we want to fit in, but we also like to show who we are as well. And fashion allows us to do both. ⁓ At the same time. So when we fit in with one group, we're distinguishing ourselves from other groups. ⁓ and we can do that. We can then follow that that influencer that has millions of people. But but social media, I mean, without a doubt, it affects how we see ourselves ⁓ and our consumption habits, not only in terms of of looking at it, but also the ease of buying things online. Yeah, just to like that. You don't Yeah. Bought something. And then of course you don't have to pay now. You buy now, pay later. Yeah. And so it's just super easy to buy. And it's in your face. It's in your face. It's in your hand actually. All the time. So yeah, I mean without a doubt. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, all the the friction has been removed. So it makes a lot of sense. Are are there any significant differences between men and women when it comes to the speed of the fashion cycle? Because I have a feeling and it's just a feeling, one man observation, if you will, that male trends aren't going as quick as ⁓ female trends. That that me the the way men dress it's it's bit more timeless. Sure there are some some more subtle trends going on and it also depends on on which part of the group, but that in general it's not like you wear something and then next week it it's over for you. Whereas with ⁓ women and this could just be because I don't know enough about it, but it it kind of feels like it's going faster. Is that true? Yeah yeah I mean it's going faster there's more of it. So there's less assortment for men. you know, the the choices that men have are fewer than the choices women have. ⁓ not only in terms of items. So women can wear everything men are wearing. And I'm not saying men can't wear everything women are wearing, that's absolutely fine. But it's less likely that men are going to wear all the assortment that's available for women. Whereas women can wear a t-shirt and trousers, jackets. waistcoats, all the clothing that men can wear women can wear as well. So the assortment is much, much larger for women. And so the opportunity to change the the the fashion element of those items is clearly there. Even colour, colour trends, colour becomes fashionable and it goes out of fashion. ⁓ particular sleeves, tiny elements, frills, not frills, buttons, these kind of things that are simply just small features that may be of less interest to to the general population of men. But I'm saying this as if there's two types of consumers. Clearly there aren't. I mean there is much variation between ⁓ and within women as there are ⁓ between women and men. So we we mustn't think men are one thing and women are another thing. ⁓ clearly they're not. But I I think because there's less assortment, men have less opportunities to change their style. Nevertheless, we do see fashion changes for men, like for example, the shape of the legs on jeans, but also suit jackets. Boxy straight, short. There was a time when jackets were short and they looked like you're wearing your younger brother's suit jacket very tight and very short. I think that trend has has passed now. but yeah, other other aspects. Yeah, I think it's all about opportunity. I don't really want to say that men have other interests other than fashion. I'm not sure about that. but they may have. Sorry there. Did you hear that? ⁓ sh a no notification cell, but it's fine. Is it do you want to do that again or not? No, no, it's completely fine. No, no, no. Okay, sorry, you've got to cut this bit out now. Yeah, no, that's ⁓ that's completely fine. No, but ⁓ I I agree. I feel like there are ⁓ less things, less variation that men can apply to what they wear. ⁓ but that also again stems from a certain desire, right? If if men were had a strong desire to to wear ⁓ fifteen different kinds of pants or whatever. tha there would be a market for it and and and we would, but ⁓ for some reason we we we have less desire for for extreme variety. I I mean the culture is somehow is is shaped by by by certain desires. I I I I feel like ⁓ but I wanna I wanna get back to something you mentioned ⁓ before about the the job interview and how you didn't perform as well because you ⁓ was you were wearing something different than the rest and it had this impact on your ⁓ mental focus and and abilities. ⁓ I believe ⁓ I came across something ⁓ during my research which is called the the lab coat effect. Yeah. Yeah, it's it kind of it was a great example of the lap coat effect. would you yeah, w would you maybe want to explain to me what the lap coat effect is and we can maybe dissect that a little bit because it really to me it's such a beautiful indicator of how strong of an impact fashion can have on someone. Absolutely. ⁓ so the Labcoat study was a study from twenty twelve by two North American ⁓ researchers. ⁓ and it's a it's a fantastic study to demonstrate the power of what we wear on our performance, but there is a secret ingredient. Okay, so they did lots of different studies. ⁓ but the final study is the one that that I'll talk ⁓ about here. So they had asked prior to doing the experiment at all for a group of participants to describe the characteristics of a medical doctor. What are the characteristics that a medical doctor would would show? And the most popular characteristic was attention to detail. So they then, throughout their different studies, instructed different groups of participants To either read a story about a lab coat that was associated with attention to detail or to look at a lab coat, different scenarios of this lab coat. In the final study, they had two groups, n two new groups of participants who hadn't taken part in previous studies, so they were naive to the to the study. One group was told that the lab coat they were going to wear belonged to a painter. The other group was told the lab coat they were going to wear belonged to a doctor. And then they were given three different types of tests used to test attention. So ⁓ one was a spot the difference test, a sustained attention, and there were two other tests as well. But they were also told that they they wear the lab coat. Okay, they had to wear the lab coat when they did this is super important. They had to wear the lab coat that belonged to a doctor, or that belonged to the painter when they were doing the tests. And in every one of those tests, those participants who were wearing a lab coat they believed belonged to the doctor outperformed, significantly outperformed those who believed they were wearing the lab coat that belonged to the painter. And the researchers Suggestive from this finding that the symbolic belief about what we wear impacts our attention. So if you're not a cognitive psychologist, you may not realize the power that attention has on all our cognitive processes. Attention is key for every cognitive process, from decision making, problem solving, ⁓ communication. listening, ⁓ understanding, langu language in general, ⁓ memory. Attention is key in everything. So attention matters. If we can approve improve attention, we can improve all these other cognitive processes. So they concluded this symbolic meaning and wearing and the the point they made and they emphasize is that the two have to happen simultaneously. It's not enough just to think about wearing a lab coat that belongs to a doctor. You have to actually wear it and believe. And this also demonstrates the power of belief. So belief is super important. So in my situation, there wasn't a particular symbolic meaning around the the lilac suit. It was simply that I thought it was fashionable. It was fashionable. The colour was fashionable. The colour was in fashion. But the reason it impacted me so much was that it was stressful. It was stressful because it took my attention away from doing the cognitive tasks that I had to do. And also the social tasks, the group tasks. It took my attention away to that. To the stress. I always do this when I'm talking about stress because it's it's in front of everything. The stress of wearing something that was so unsuitable. And this is why, since that study, ⁓ the they called it encloshed cognition, encloth, E enclothed cognition. That the fact that this this sense of cognition can be so influenced by our belief in what we're wearing. So it's it's the belief in what we're wearing that matters. Yeah, it's so interesting, right? Because I ⁓ can understand why if you dress up well, you you put a suit and a tie on, you put your hair slick back and you walk across the street and you look amazing, that that can inspire a lot of confidence, right? Because when you look good, you'd think I also probably look good to other people. And when you feel confident, it translates into ⁓ your your your the way you speak, the way you act, the way you hold yourself. So I can understand why that's happening. But to see and to learn that it is not not just applicable w with regards to how other people view you, but also in a closed environment where you're just wearing the lab coat that you associate with doctors and you associate doctors with being very precise and and careful. That it's so strong that it allows you to perform better because you make that association. That was a really surprising ⁓ finding to me. ⁓ in one sense. And another sense, I I really understand it because I do a lot of work from home, right? I I I work for myself, I I do a lot of these shows here in my living room, I do a lot of my writing from here. So a lot of my time is spent in this room. But Sometimes when I'm tired, I didn't sleep well, I try to do some of my writing, for example. W what I I just get out of bed, the deadline is coming up and my hair is all over the place. I'm I'm I'm not wearing like and I feel like it's it's not working. And then I like okay, I have to lock in, so I'll I'll take my shower, I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll wear my clothes. throw away the jogging pants, put on my my my my big boy pants, the regular, nice looking pants. I I put on perfume. I'm I'm by myself, but I I put on the perfume. I I now feel good again about myself, the way I look, and it immediately translates into my work. The sentences start flowing again. So it really is ⁓ a very interesting thing, I feel like. And it's something very ⁓ People can take if if if they have to take a away something from why fashion is important or or about why dressing is important is not only for for other people. It's also for you. If you look good, you you feel good and if you feel good, you you you perform better. So it's it's not just dress to impress, but it's literally like like dress for success, if if you will. We'll go back to the conversation in just a second, but first I have an important announcement to make. If you've made it this far, I'm going to assume that you're enjoying the show. If you want to support the show, you can do so by leaving a like or a comment if you're watching on YouTube, or by rating the episode if you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. However, the single biggest thing you can do to support the show is by sharing it with someone you think might enjoy this episode. This could be a friend, it could be a family member, it could be a colleague. It doesn't really matter. If everyone who's currently listening to this episode would share it with just one person, the show would blow up in no time. Which also means that I could go full time. That means more episodes, it means better episodes, and it also means a happy host. So Please consider sharing the episode. It really helps me a lot. And I thank you. Now let's get back to talking. Absolutely. Hundred percent. You're a hundred percent right. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's lots of evidence to support exactly what what you experience. Yeah. Yeah. You you also wrote a book called The Psychology of ⁓ Fashion. I mean I know what inspired you to write it. It's your interest in in ⁓ the field, of course. ⁓ but what w w when did you decide to write that book and and what were some of the the interesting findings ⁓ you you had while while writing it? So I was actually invited to write it, ⁓ which is by the publishers, which is a great place to be. I was thrilled to be invited, so yeah, I jumped on that straight away. So it was in twenty seventeen that I was first invited to write the book. I think it's twenty it could have been twenty sixteen actually. And there was very little research ⁓ about fashion from a psychological perspective. So most of the research in the in the book, particularly in the first edition, it's out in the second edition now. ⁓ was from psychology, purely from psychology, and then applied in the context of fas fashion, as we've done during this podcast actually. You know, we're talking about psychological theories and just demonstrating how they can be applied in the in the context of fashion. And this is what I did. This is what I what I expected in the courses that I wrote. And this is what I wrote in the book as well. ⁓ the findings for me, what's that surprised me throughout Bringing psychology to the fashion context was that it wasn't done before, that it wasn't really a thing. And even when I began to develop this this field in 2012, people were puzzled how on earth could psychology and fashion be related? and for me I find that astonishing and still do when we think about fashion is the closest thing to our bodies. It's it demonstrates who we are. And I always say our clothes don't just fall on us. You know, we make a choice and exactly when you're when you're doing your work, you're gonna get out of bed, you want to put on something that represents some self-respect, self-care, self value, ⁓ that you're going to do a good job. And that that's really what most psychologically healthy people would want to do. So In the book, the surprising thing was really that it hadn't been done before. There are texts from a long time ago that dealt with psychology of style, for example, very from nineteen thirty, I think. But nothing like the the the the big context of the fashion industry that I talk about within the book. ⁓ and then the second edition was ⁓ I thought would just be an update because ⁓ I was invited to write that in twenty twenty four. It came out at the end of twenty twenty four, that's right. So it was there at the beginning of twenty twenty four. I thought it would just be an update. I could update some of the research, but it turned out to be a total rewrite because the publications have I I'm trying to think of the word but expl exploded and get that word out, exploded, ⁓ in terms of the researchers now out in the psychology of fashion or as it's termed by other people fashion psychology. You know, in twenty sixteen there was virtually nothing. Here we are in or here we were then in twenty twenty four, absolutely mushroomed. So the the chapters changed. I mean, the influence of technology, AI, for example, there's a chapter on that. The future of fashion that I wrote about in twenty eighteen is very different to the future of fashion I talk about in twenty twenty four. And that would be different again now. I mean, the speed of technological change is just something that that is quite difficult to keep up with. Also sustainability. a whole issue about environmental sustainability and social sustainability. I talk about in the book in the second edition. That I did cover in the first edition, but it's changed significantly legislation and so on that's come in since that that first edition was published. So yeah, surprising things. well now I'm surprised how it's grown so much. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's that's super cool. And and I mean clothing is notoriously ⁓ bad for the ev environment in the sense that it's very labor well not necessarily labor intensive, but it's like ⁓ water intensive and it takes a lot of from my understanding at least, yeah, it's it it it takes a lot of work to produce clothing and and in a way that isn't great for for the environment while at the same time ⁓ technology is making it easier and easier to to buy clothes and because of social media trends are moving quicker than ever before and because like we've discussed we don't want to ⁓ feel ⁓ different or or we wanna keep up with the trend we are inclined to buy new clothes all the time. So there's a there's a tension ⁓ there. You also mentioned AI, how how does like technology play into fashion? What what role does technology play here? Because apart from ⁓ things like social media, ⁓ TikTok shop ⁓ for for example, I yeah, I don't have a great understanding of ⁓ how the two are intertwined. data collection for one thing, ⁓ so companies can and do collect data on consumer behaviour. They can use that for recommendations. They can use it for ⁓ selling on to other companies, ⁓ making more money from the data than they do from their their fashion sales. ⁓ yeah, dec technology AI is used now in all all aspects of the manufacture process, robots making things, but also ⁓ technology implemented in systems that are used by humans, such as design process. right the way through, then we think about AI being used for developing new materials. I know synthetic materials, ⁓ finding ways to reduce environmental damage. ⁓ but maybe while doing so they're introducing more damage in different ways. ⁓ also for the consumer being able to adapt the images. I mean we've spoken about ⁓ social media, but nevertheless adapt the images that they post that affects us psychologically. It affects the person who's doing it, might make them dissatisfied actually with their real appearance, but can of also influence other people's satisfaction about their own bodies and their own appearance, their own identities and whether they're doing that. so I think many, many ways, so we you know, ⁓ just the technology is advancing in such ways, even the way we talk about ⁓ fashion, the way we discuss, the way we communicate, is most likely mediated through AI. Chat bolts are getting more and more human like. you know, and the machine learning elements that we use, the large large language models that are you know Chat GPT and and other ones, they are becoming more and more sophisticated. So they do impact fashion communication, fashion campaigns. They're able to think of ways, because they're developing so quickly, ⁓ of Getting to the consumer in ways that perhaps the fashion journalists or or communicators hadn't thought of previously. Yeah. And one thing that comes to mind immediately now that we're talking about this is the try-on f features, right? So you can like it used to be very clunky if you want to wear like new sunglasses, like there was this like superimposed like glasses on your face, but it looked kind of silly. But now you can just upload a picture. Upload a different picture from the glasses or the t-shirt or whatever it is that you want to try on. And like a hyper realistic picture of you wearing that piece of clothing is generated within seconds. So that's cool. I mean, ⁓ maybe it h will help prevent people from buying stuff they don't need, but maybe probably more likely ⁓ people will buy more stuff. ⁓ they ⁓ presumably don't need all that much. ⁓ is there ⁓ is there is there anything ⁓ Carolyn we've discussed a lot of things, but is there any ⁓ thing now that we're on the topic of psychology of fashion that you feel like we haven't ⁓ touched on that is ⁓ still important ⁓ to do ⁓ the only thing that we haven't touched on and we we have ⁓ mentioned it but not by name is the ethics of the fashion industry Yes. ⁓ and that really came to mind just now when you're talking about try-on. So we submit our images. we need to know what happens to those images. Particularly, okay, glasses, not the worst thing if we're just showing an image of our face, but if we're showing we want to do the the try-on for for an outfit and we we submit an image of our bodies either in our underwear or in not a lot, what happens to those images? How are they ⁓ Anonymized, what where is the data stored for that image? Where is the image stored? What happens to that image? Is that actually set sold off to other companies as well? ⁓ and do customers actually know this information? Is there access to the information and can they ⁓ ask for that information to be removed or destroyed? ⁓ and obviously you can't have it destroyed if it's been sold on unless you know the hundreds of companies that have bought it. So I think there's that's an ethical problem with tryon, ⁓ that's existed since day one. And we need to be very careful about that. Is it enough to blur the face? you know, say somebody has ident identifiable tattoos or or a particular body that is identifiable. you know, this obviously there are cases like that. So we need to be very careful. I think ethics around data collection is super important. I would also like to to think that we engage with fashion because it enhances us, it enhances our life, it helps us feel better about ourselves through helping us look the best we feel we can. Beyond that, I hope that there's some kind of literacy around appearance that perfection doesn't exist, and that many of the images we see online are not reality, that they've been edited, and that there are other values about a person that are not appearance based, such as you know, generosity, kindness, authenticity. And we talk about these words, but what do we really mean by them? And I think those values are getting a bit lost because we're so image based. Of course we want nice fashion. Of course we want to be considered fashionable if that's our desire. And we want to be part of the modern world, most most people do, who engage with the model world modern world. But it doesn't come at the expense of everything else, of ⁓ our self respect. and our identity and our authenticity because that doesn't sit comfortably with us. If we're just dressing in a way to suit a group we want to belong to for some other reason that doesn't sit well with our values, then we're not going to feel comfortable. And w we might wear the clothes, but we don't act in that way. So I think these are things that I would like the you know, to come out of this podcast at least that appearance matters. 100% it matters. But it's not the be all and end all. ⁓ perfection doesn't exist. No, I th I think ⁓ the appearance ⁓ matters in a way that you feel comfortable with it. ⁓ we we we discussed the lap coat study ⁓ and and and some other examples. So it's It's it's more more so for for for yourself, if if at all, than than trying to to impress ⁓ other people. But it's it's complicated, right? I mean, all of the advancements in technology, the incentives, the influencers, the the the speed of which we can buy clothes, are currently it d they don't make it easier to prevent ⁓ people from from buying stuff they don't need and They don't make it easier for people not to follow trends. If I do have to still make an argument for the other side, it would be that we've discussed that there are now much more influencers than there were 50 years ago, for example. So ⁓ now there could be more ways to fit in, if that makes sense. So if I just give an example, like back in the day, Marilyn Monroe might have been One of the very few like role models that women could have. But now that there are millions of influencers out there, it is e there's more variety, if you will. So it it's kind of easier to pick something that aligns with your own values rather than being forced into a beauty beauty ⁓ ideal that is ⁓ just very singular and and doesn't really provide a lot of options if I if I have to like take away some some positive thing from ⁓ from it all. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Totally agree. Yeah. And that means that whatever we wear, if we wear it with confidence and with belief in our in ourselves, self belief, yes, that that can work for us. Beautiful. Yeah, Carolyn, I think that's a beautiful way to to wrap it up. ⁓ I think you're great. Thank you so much for today's ⁓ discussion. And ⁓ it was so interesting and yeah, you're you're you're extremely knowledgeable about the topic and I had a lot of fun today, so thank you for that. Where can where can people go if they wanna keep up with ⁓ the work that you're doing, perhaps buy the book and ⁓ yeah, stay up to date on ⁓ everything else that you're working on. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure for me as well. ⁓ I would love people to stay in touch if they want to. So I'm on LinkedIn, Professor Carolyn Mayer, PhD. They can find me on LinkedIn or on Instagram, where I am psychology for fashion, psychology F-O-R fashion. yeah, ⁓ anybody can send me a message. ⁓ I would love that. Or follow me. ⁓ also buy my book. It should be available at all good booksellers. It's certainly available online from the publishers, which is Routledge, and also from other big companies online such as Amazon. Yeah, you can buy it online. Yeah, if the book com a bookshop doesn't have it, you can certainly order it. It's out in six languages at the moment. Seem to be seven. Cool. So not yet in Dutch. Well maybe ⁓ maybe we can ⁓ get a Dutch ⁓ few version ⁓ going ⁓ going forward will be ⁓ will be cool to have it. But that's awesome, ⁓ Carolyn. I'll make sure to put everything ⁓ in the show notes. And ⁓ yeah, thank you so much. ⁓ let's ⁓ let's do it again sometime. Yeah, absolutely, Julius. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. Me too. Thank you.