What Does Your Style Say About Your Personality?
How you express yourself.
You have heard the phrase “you are what you eat”, which means that your food choices help determine your look and your mood. What you may not realize though is that you also “are what you wear.”
The clothes you put on each day say something about your personality: how you see yourself and want others to see you. Beyond that though, they also influence how you feel. That means there are ideal ways to dress to help you ace everything from a first date to an important work meeting.
Here we will look at what various styles say about you and how you express yourself.
Formal Style
People who favor formal styles – classic suits for men or pant suits for women – are indicating that being taken seriously is the most important thing for them. Take the iconic pant suits that Hillary Clinton wore during the 2016 election campaign, which were designed to signal soberness and authority.
The science of ‘enclothed cognition’ that looks at the link between psychology and clothing choice says that formal clothes do help to make us feel more dominant and in control of situations. However, they also help with abstract thought processes, so formal style suggests the wearer has a position of responsibility that requires creative thinking.
Sports Style
There is a popular clothing trend at the moment known as ‘athleisure’ that means wearing sports or athletic clothes like Lycra or track sets in everyday life. The bright colors and sporty associations of these outfits indicate that they would be the choice of someone who has an energetic, outgoing, and fun personality.
According to enclothed cognition, choosing this sort of outfit also makes the wearer more likely to exercise. This is down to our minds subconsciously making the link and pulling us in that direction – as well as the fact that Lycra looks a lot better if you are in shape!
Casual Style
Dressing in a casual style says that you are a person who favors comfort and feeling relaxed. As long as you ensure it is smart casual rather than sloppy, this style is ideal for dating and leisure activities, when feeling happy and relaxed is the most important thing.
People who wear casual clothes most of the time are also likely to be inclined towards communication and co-operation rather than leadership. The research looking at how clothes influence psychology would indicate that this makes smart casual dress better for work situations where you need to be able to bond well with other people.
How We Use Clothes to Express Ourselves
In a way, people intuitively understand that their clothing style is connected to their personalities. That is why an item of clothing that one person is comfortable wearing will leave someone with a different personality type feeling ill at ease.
A big part of using clothes to help you navigate different life situations successfully is to always feel comfortable in what you are wearing. That means building a personal style that can be adapted to different parts of your life.
People who have very extrovert personalities tend to use clothes that have bold colors as an expression of that and they will feel at home in these outfits for that reason. Someone with a quieter personality will feel more comfortable in muted colors but can wear something with sparing use of bright colors to shake that up and push themselves a little out of their comfort zone.
Creating your own style that expresses your personality is about finding the balance between feeling comfortable and challenging yourself a bit to achieve what you want from life. Inspiration for building it can be taken from both the real world and social media sites like Pinterest.
Our clothes say a lot about us to ourselves and to others, which is something to bear in mind when shopping.
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