The decision of what to wear every day is unavoidable and could be influenced by anything — what you see on social media, what your friends wear, or your own aesthetic taste, but why do we care about what we wear in the first place? The UCSD Guardian spoke to people with different expertise on campus about how they view fashion.
Shefali Gupta is president of Poseidon’s Closet, UC San Diego’s thrift club. Established in 2023, Poseidon’s Closet’s goal is to make secondhand fashion more accessible and promote sustainable fashion practices like upcycling.
Gupta was first inspired to play with fashion by her grandmother and her Indian heritage, and her style has only evolved from there. Her ideal style is inspired by the anime “Nana” and the Regency and Victorian-era books she reads.
Gender socialization has also impacted specific eras of Gupta’s wardrobe. “I had a big phase in middle school where I was like, ‘I’m not wearing pink. I don’t like pink. I will only wear grey and black’ because I very much did not want to be not taken seriously because I was dressed up super feminine,” she recalled.
For Gupta, fashion, makeup, and nail art go hand in hand with her other creative hobbies like drawing and painting; it is a way to express herself without words.
“It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, like let’s see how we can piece this outfit together,’” Gupta explained. “What’s your color palette like? What’s the composition, and what are the shapes we’re going for?”
Gupta sees fashion as a form of creative expression, and choosing an outfit is her art form of choice. Clinton Tolley, professor of philosophy, takes on a “choose-your-own-adventure” perspective on art and fashion. He emphasizes that the question of “What is art?” has no correct or singular answer, and so, all conceptualizations of art are valid.
“There’s a kind of very minimal conception of [art] and then a more kind of maximal conception,” he says. The former is very broad; if the piece comes into existence through the free activity of a conscious being, it can be art. In a more maximal definition, the standards for a piece to be considered art are much higher. The art piece must realize higher concepts like beauty, sublimity, or infinity. In the most stringent definitions of art, the artist must have an experience with the divine during the process, like communing with the Greek Muses.
In a minimal conception of fashion, any outfit is art because there is a purpose behind putting clothes on, and the wearer makes the outfit “come into being.” However, only a person wholly devoted to fashion design might commune with the Greek Muses when making an outfit. To understand what the average student might consider fashionable, The Guardian spoke to Jenny Yoo, a Ph.D. student in UCSD’s psychology department who studies aesthetic judgement and decision-making.
Yoo describes her field of study as “how people make decisions on what is beautiful, how the mind determines what is beautiful or not. So, that could be anything from attractiveness to faces all the way to … brand logos” — or fashion.
There are many factors at play when people decide to like something, such as other people’s opinions. “For example, if I gave you a face and I told you that other UCSD students really liked the face in terms of attractiveness … then, I ask you, ‘How attractive is this face?’ You tend to conform to your peers and say, ‘Oh, that’s super attractive,’” Yoo explained.
Yoo cited the controversial Golden Goose “dirty shoes” as an example of this phenomenon. These viral white sneakers come scuffed up and dirty — and they cost $600. Products like these are promoted by influencers and gain popularity because of the social conformity effect: we care what people who we see as part of our “in-group” are saying. People use fashion to signal what community they are in or want to be a part of.
Seeing these shoes over and over again on your social media can also trigger the “mere exposure effect.” The more familiar one is with something, the more one will tend toward liking it, whether it be music, a face, or a fashion product. All of this impacts what you wear, what you don’t, when you conform, and when you wear something that makes you stick out.
As social media and daily life have become so inundated with clothing advertisements, it can feel like fashion has become nothing more than an industry and style is a myth sold to consumers so they buy into the latest trends. However, personal style existed long before the Industrial Revolution.
One example can be found in the practices of Native American tribes in the Great Lakes, who traded beaver pelts for cloth, needles, ribbon, and thread with the colonial French. Mary Klann, who holds a Ph.D. in U.S. history and is a lecturer in UCSD’s ethnic studies department specializing in Native American history, describes how Native women made coats, dresses, and blankets from this trade as a way to demonstrate their position in the community.
This is true for many Native communities, not just those in the Great Lakes. “[The Lakota and Dakota tribe women] were responsible for creating articles that would be used for everyday use … but then they would also paint these really intricate designs on them,” Klann explained. This decoration did not improve the utility of the pouches or envelopes. Instead, these additions of trademark beadings acted as the artist’s signature and added aesthetic value. Decoration and styling was a much-desired skill and enriched those who were talented, just as it does the independent designers on Instagram who sell items through their Shopify stores.
“There’s something to be said for dressing in a way where your community can recognize you, and that could mean all sorts of things in 2024,” Klann said. This could mean anything from wearing the T-shirt of a band you like or wearing the beaded pouch associated with your family’s tribe. “Maybe [it] is a way to form community. At the same time, I do feel like we dress to stand out sometimes, too, so I guess it depends on the person. So, it’s like individual identity but also community identity.”
In Klann’s opinion, every culture has fashion trends because it’s part of human nature to try new things and then eventually get bored of them.
“I don’t like thinking about people as being purely utilitarian in their life, and … I don’t think anybody really is like … ‘Oh, I just wear this.’ I mean, … [except] Steve Jobs,” Klann noted. “People are always innovating and trying new things. And so you never know what catches on.”
Maybe you see yourself as a Steve Jobs-type who doesn’t care about fashion or consider it worth spending money on. When you go shopping for dishware, however, you might feel called to buy a cat mug instead of a plain white one. Perhaps you’ll choose to purchase a colorful lamp for a room that already has an overhead light. This is your personal way of expressing yourself.
We choose to adorn our life with beautiful things because it makes life more enjoyable and shows the world who we are. Fashion exists for many different reasons, but at the end of the day, it just feels good to wear something you like. In Gupta’s words: “[My outfit] almost feels like a tiny, thin layer of armor. [I] feel a lot more confident in the way I’m just going about my day.”
