I hate wearing jeans. At least 95% of the jeans at the store. They never seem to fit right, the waist is too big, the hips are too small. High-rise never hits at the right spot, and I swear you need special underwear (and a special kind of confidence) to wear low-rise jeans. When I think about the clothing I wear most of the time it’s based on feel. How it feels physically on my body. I hate too tight jeans, too tight turtlenecks, and too tight shirts. I hate when the neckline hits in the wrong spot, when I can feel the button of my pants when I sit down, and when my skirt is too flowy. There’s something called too much of a breeze you know? And not to forget the feeling of peeling your thighs apart after sitting down for too long. But most of the time the feeling of uncomfortable clothing cannot be put in words. Some times the clothes I like one day feel completely different on another day. I feel like I either end up in something resembling pajamas, or dressing up so much it feels like a costume.

While texture and fit are a huge part of choosing what I wear every day, there is also an urge to look a certain way. Hopefully, “the way” is looking like myself. But this “self” can be hard to find when you consider the subtle, and not so subtle, social norms we experience every day. I think Goffman describes this as “impression management.” An example of this would be choosing an outfit as a way to comment on social norms. When I think about what I am wearing, I have to wonder if it is possible to pick out an outfit without considering norms or trends. In class when we discussed phenomenology, we talked about how everything we perceive has meaning and that it is almost impossible to get away from being visual and materialistic. Our inherent ability to experience is not something we can just turn off. So there must be no way that I could pick out an outfit without considering what other people around me are wearing and how they may perceive me. This can be a struggle for someone like me who enjoys expressing themselves through clothing. I would like to think I have a unique style, but I am not sure if that is entirely possible. This goes along with the question, “Can we create something we have never seen before?” Are we all just taking different style components from each other and mixing and matching them? These are all things I don’t think I know the answer to. I am also not fully confident in the idea that we can’t choose an outfit without thinking of other people. It just seems like we should be able to. But I do know that I can’t turn off others’ perceptions of me, or the voice in my head that takes all of this into account for some reason. I can decide to wear clothes that are comfortable and that I like. Maybe wearing a costume, as long as it is comfortable, is not so bad?