It was at three in the afternoon on the fourth week of self-isolating when I finally had it. My hair was a mess, I hadn’t changed out of my pajamas and I was staring at a blank computer screen feeling a lot like Zendaya when she said “my mind is like an internet browser. Seventeen tabs are open, four of them are frozen and I don’t know where the music is coming from.” Basically, I malfunctioned and have had to do a sweep for repairs in my life. After some self-reflection, I found that confinement required more of a proactive schedule than I was used to. Normally, pre-quarantine, I had to leave the house by 9:15, get on the Northern line to get to my first class at Condé Nast College in London’s Soho, where I’m doing an MA in fashion journalism. During lockdown, I can spend hours in one spot, normally on the floor amid piles of papers, or at the kitchen table staring at a bowl of fruit, thinking about what actually I need to do versus what I want to do when this was over. The result? Getting around to nothing.
I know I’m probably not the only one whose found themselves in a psychological jam while trying to work from home at this time. Lockdown has tested us in many ways, as the lines between our work-life balance have become unclear and own individual emotional wherewithal grow thinner. We’re juggling new identities in our homes, for our purpose, which was once so clearly divided by physical space, has become an amalgamation of all of our different roles taken on at once and, more importantly, in one space. That’s why I’ve decided to share my own account of learning how to balance different roles and responsibilities under one roof, using the transformative power of clothing, so that you can hopefully take something away from it too.
Above the keyboard work-life.
It started with me having to developing a routine for myself, which forms an idea of where “at-home” life ends and where work life begins. It draws a line in the sand, a boundary, between public and private life, despite being confined to the private life’s sphere. Changing into a different outfit during these role transitions helps to differentiate between which part of life I’m stepping into. It may seem obvious, but we rarely actually do it. Say it’s time to wind down in the evening, which means stepping out of work mode to have a tofu veggie scramble and loose leaf mint tea with my partner. At this point, changing from workwear – Agnès B. button -down with tailored ankle trousers and a belt - into something more leisurely – a satin maxi dress and an oversized cable-knit cardigan - works to relax, both physically and mentally, and separate these two periods in the day. It signals to the brain: work is done, you’re having a date night now. I stop thinking about how much traffic the keyword in my last header might get and start listening.
This strategy, using clothes to alter one’s mindset, is explained by a psychological effect called enclothed cognition. The term, coined by Northwestern psychologists, Hajo Adam and Adam Galinksy, explains how what we wear influences the state of our minds and mental performance. Enclothed cognition has since been used by the fashion psychology community to explain the meaning we ascribe to clothing and why it makes us feel different. In their study, Adam and Galinsky gathered two groups of participants, made them wear white coats, and tested their ability to pay attention on a number of tasks. One group, which was told that their coat belonged to a doctor, demonstrated a sharp increase in their ability to pay attention during a series of tasks. The other group believed their white coats belonged to a painter and did not show the same increased ability to focus.
Instead of wearing pajamas or athleisure all day every day for everything, you can use the principles of enclothed cognition to achieve better alignment between the different selves the day in lockdown calls for, with what you wear. Ultimately, it’s the perfect method of experiencing change and separation in your day when your actual physical surroundings are so stagnant.
Practicing getting in alignment now at home, can be transferable to all your life’s roles and can be useful to assess if there’s potential to be better at them moving forward when the Coronavirus mess is over. For me, having to finish this semester of school from home has increased my desire to be a more sociable student when the lockdown drops. Why did I ever rush through the night crowd in Soho on a Friday night to get home after studying, when I could have easily met up friends at Café Boheme for live music and a spritz? Getting work-to-evening outfits ready for when I come back (something more energetic and extroverted than my usual straight-leg leather pants and a baggy tee) is the kind of preparation for then, that I can start with now.
So, go forth, change, and experiment. Maybe you’ll find that slipping into a floral maxidress for a backyard picnic or throwing on a velvet jumpsuit to listen to an oldies album in your living room is just what you needed to shake off the isolation humdrums and get back to feeling like you. (I sure did.)
For more tips on working from here, read here.
Photos by Sonni Rossi.
In the world of post-pandemic dressing, one word has taken social media by storm: cheugy (pronounced: chew-gee). In the worlds of fashion and lifestyle, cheugy describes a look, a thing or a person that’s considered out of date.