Introduction: Fashion & Mental Health
Illustration by Mike Thompson
When I first tried to write this introduction, I had a nervous breakdown. Or, at least, that’s what I’m choosing to call it. [1] Lately it’s become hard to tell the difference between experiencing a breakdown, burnout, languishing, reopening anxiety, and post-pandemic stress disorder as the world rushes to get back to the norms of capitalism faster than our brains can process what happened over the past year. But, like millions of other people, I’m no stranger to mental illness, having been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) at age twenty and depression at age twenty-two. [2]
In addition to a desire to better understand how my own mind works (more on that later), I proposed the idea for a mental health issue to my fellow FSJ editors because mental health had become a buzzword in the fashion world, and yet it seemed like the scope of these conversations was limited. Sure, there seems to be no shortage of models, pop stars, athletes, and even members of the royal family speaking about their own mental health issues, but are most people really willing and able to talk about it so openly? Do we even understand why it’s so important to talk about it? Who was really profiting from this discourse? Where do we draw the line between mental health issues and mental illness? Were we just pathologizing normal parts of the human experience? Has the topic become click bait, a form of publicity stunt, or simply a way to sell more products? Is having “good” mental health like being “in shape,” constituting another societal standard that many people have to struggle to live up to? Based on the plethora of ads I see daily for CBD oils, adaptogens, teletherapy, and other ways to indulge in “self-care,” I started to think that having poor mental health was my own fault for not trying hard enough—or maybe not buying the right things.
In many ways, this topic seems more relevant now than when I first pitched the issue to the FSJ team in early 2020. It’s almost hard to imagine why someone wouldn’t feel existentially exhausted when our news feeds are constantly filled with stories about mass shootings, police brutality, devastating wildfires, and a deadly pandemic, among other things. Many doctors and researchers have warned that such a public-health crisis is likely to be followed by a widespread mental-health crisis, but while it’s easy to attribute so much of our mental health issues to the impact of COVID-19, it’s not as if many of these underlying issues weren’t there long before.
“Is having “good” mental health like being “in shape,” constituting another societal standard that many people have to struggle to live up to?”
The relentless cycle of the fashion industry has always made it difficult to prioritize one’s mental health. I wouldn’t be able to count how many times I’ve heard friends (and myself) say that they were going to take some time to focus on their mental health “after fashion week is over,” “after the book is done,” “after the article is written,” “after the exhibition opens,” “after the semester is finished,” and a number of other hopeful scenarios that seem to never come to fruition. Perhaps one can enjoy a little relaxation here and there, but the incessant pace of the fashion world doesn’t allow for much downtime, thus leading to perpetual burnout and the “things-will-be-better-when” cycle that many of us can’t seem to break. As a result, we push ourselves to the limits, which can feel like trying to get juice from a grapefruit that’s been scooped out to the rind.
This is not a personal problem—it’s a systemic one. You will find problems related to mental health in every part of the fashion industry, although the pressures experienced by designers are typically what gets the most attention, contributing to a rather hegemonic view of how fashion impacts mental health. However, these issues are far more pervasive and multifaceted. In fashion media, you will find anxious interns and models with eating disorders. On the production side, you will find garment workers suffering from PTSD caused by unsafe working conditions. In many fashion schools, you will find students experiencing depression and exhaustion, as well as instructors who are stretched thin and in constant states of panic due the precarity of their jobs. [3] These are just a few examples of the workers who are exploited by the fashion world—a system that thrives upon telling people that they’re never going to be good enough, while social media helps to intensify consumer insecurities and encourage more consumerism. On top of all of these things, BIPOC and differently abled people are faced with additional challenges just to have their voices heard and be included in the industry, leading to mental burdens that warrant far more attention.
And yet, fashion is supposed to make us happy. This idea is perpetuated by media and marketing messages that promise us a better life if we buy the right dress/bag/lipstick/etc. In November 2020, while much of the world was in the midst of an unprecedented state of lockdown, an article from the BBC suggested that dressing-up at home could make us happy, echoing a popular belief that our clothing choices can bring us joy. But what if clothing doesn’t bring us happiness? And why do we really want to be happy in the first place?
Sara Ahmed, author of The Promise of Happiness (2010), has interrogated the meaning of happiness through the lenses of feminist, queer, and race studies. Her work questions if the popular conception of happiness is actually worth the sacrifices that we make, exploring how the ideal of the happy housewife has been used to justify forms of gendered labor. “How better to justify an unequal distribution of labour, than to say that such labour makes people happy?,” Ahmed asks. “How better to secure consent to unpaid or poorly paid labour than to describe such consent as the origin of good feeling?” [4] While Ahmed doesn’t mention fashion specifically, any person who has endured high levels of stress for an unpaid internship in the fashion industry—or even spent too many hours modifying their appearances to fit fashionable ideals—would probably agree that fashion uses false promises of “happiness” as a way to justify these sacrifices. Ahmed’s quote seems more chilling when one considers the cost of human labor that’s needed to produce fast fashion, which is then marketed to people under the guise that more consumption will lead to greater happiness. Even if we do question these sacrifices and work towards a system that is more fair and inclusive, it doesn’t mean that consumer behavior will change that much. According to Ahmed, the “crisis of happiness” is not explained as the failure of traditional social ideals, but as our failure to follow them. [5]
“Recent studies have shown that the stigma around mental health still has a negative impact in the labor market, which is even more terrifying when one considers how competitive jobs in the fashion industry and academia are to begin with. ”
Long before the tabloid media deemed Britney Spears “insane,” people who have not fit into traditional social ideals greatly suffered from being associated with signs of mental illness. Psychiatric problems or “deviant behaviors'' have been attributed to biological, psychological, and supernatural powers leading to drastically different forms of care, depending on the time and place. In the nineteenth century, insane asylums in the Western world were packed with thousands of people struggling with true mental illnesses as well as other people who were just wrapped up in social and economic problems that led them to being alienated from society (hence why early psychiatrists were known as alienists). Many of these patients were subject to truly horrifying levels of abuse and human rights violations, and those who were later given more “progressive” treatment were still subjected to lobotomies, electroconvulsive therapy, and a slew of addiction-prone “happy pills,” leading to their own types of issues. Considering this, it’s no surprise that many of today’s visible mental health advocates are too young to remember when these types of treatments were the norm, and thus have less fear of talking about these issues.
Unsurprisingly, the topic of mental health was rarely covered by the fashion media in the first half of the twentieth century, and when anything related to the mind was mentioned, it was usually medical news or articles linking appearance to health. One Vogue article in 1958, for example, encouraged women to better their appearance as fixing one’s flaws is a sign of “normal mental health,” a notion that today’s beauty industry would certainly be happy to hear for the sake of their profits. [6]
By the 1970s, the fashion media reported on mental health and therapy more frequently and with more critical insight, although the cost of proper medical treatment made it almost as aspirational as the clothes they featured. I recently looked back at a Vogue article from 1979 titled “Who needs therapy?,” which inquired whether psychiatry did, in fact, work, and how “troubled” someone had to be to need medical attention. The article describes how a thirty-two-year-old film editor was considering therapy after struggling to keep up with three young children and the pressure of a big promotion. Then, a “somewhat older, more experienced, successful TV executive” told her that she didn’t need to see a therapist, adding “what you are feeling looks completely normal to me.” The Vogue writer agreed, adding that “What she needed was not a therapist, but a good new tax lawyer.” [7] A lot has changed since then, but despite Vogue’s recent attempts to destigmatize mental health, the “your mental health issues are just a normal part of the job so stop whining” response is still all too common in today’s fashion industry, contributing to a society that turns a blind eye to all types of labor abuse for the benefit of economic growth and neoliberalist ideals.
Recent studies have shown that the stigma around mental health still has a negative impact in the labor market, which is even more terrifying when one considers how competitive jobs in the fashion industry and academia are to begin with. This is partially why, until now, I’ve only told a few handfuls of people about my struggles with mental illness. In the interest of starting more conversations around mental health and showing how mental illness can be linked to our dress practices, I’ve decided to open up about this now.
“Without medication, my OCD is like a blinding light that keeps me from seeing anything. With medication, OCD is more like a nightlight — it’s still there impacting my life in some small way, but it’s been dimmed to the point where I don’t really notice or mind it. ”
OCD has become part of a cultural script, used colloquially as a description for people with a particularly strong penchant for cleanliness and organization. In reality, OCD is a malfunction of neurotransmitters that is much more serious and complex, resulting in a variety of symptoms that extend far beyond a preoccupation with tidiness. The way that I experience OCD is rather unusual, partly in that it’s based solely on obsessions, otherwise known as being “Pure O.” In other words, I suffer from unwanted thoughts and impulses, which are not alleviated through any form of compulsion (counting, hand washing, checking appliances, etc.). My obsessions mainly revolve around textures, patterns, and colors—a rather big problem for anyone with a fondness for fashion. Everything has to feel “just right” in order for me to be able to function. That doesn’t mean that my clothes have to look good or be comfortable—they just have to feel right, which is something that is extremely hard to put into words.
Here’s an example: I put on a pair of socks. Then, my mind will decide that one sock is not exactly the same as the other. It’s because the thickness feels slightly different, it’s a millimeter shorter than the other, or some other reason that is absolutely unimportant (and probably not even real). I’ll change into another pair of socks. They don’t feel right either, so I find another pair of socks that do feel right, but then my brain decides the color is off. I change socks a few more times, realize that I’m running late, and rush out the door. On my walk, I remember that I’m going somewhere in a few days and will probably want to wear a certain pair of shoes for the occasion, and the particular pair of socks that I have on are actually the right ones for that outfit. I begin to imagine what a disaster my life will be in a few days as a result of the decision to wear these socks today. I become increasingly mad at myself for not thinking ahead, and simultaneously frustrated at myself for being mad because I know that none of these things actually matter and that it’s just the result of a malfunction in my brain.
These irrational thoughts continue to spread like wildfire until I literally can’t think of anything else. The tension and discomfort that I’m feeling eventually become unbearable, as if my whole body is a pot of water that’s about to boil over. To make matters worse, my spiraling thoughts probably made me late for whatever I was trying to do. I also can’t tell anyone why I’m actually late in fear that they will label me as “weird” or “high-maintenance,” and never look at me the same again. Fortunately, episodes like that don’t happen to me very often these days thanks to the help of medication. Without medication, my OCD is like a blinding light that keeps me from seeing anything. With medication, OCD is more like a nightlight—it’s still there impacting my life in some small way, but it’s been dimmed to the point where I don’t really notice or mind it.
While OCD usually makes me more miserable than anything else, I do think that it’s given me a few advantages in life. From a professional standpoint, my obsessions with organization and cleanliness have made me particularly well suited for working in museums and archives. (Seriously… could there be a more perfect job for someone like me?!) My OCD also manifests itself in the ways that I put together my outfits, which always have to match. To the outside world, it may seem like I just put things together in ways that are aesthetically pleasing. However, the motivation to match every aspect of my outfit is more about avoiding intrusive thoughts than just caring about how I look to others. To me, getting dressed is like solving a complex math formula, and when the formula is successful (meaning that I managed to wear the outfit without experiencing mental distress as a result of it), I’m able to focus on other things. All of this probably sounds silly, but if I can find reasons to appreciate my mental illness and how it makes me unique, it can make all of the other stuff seem a bit more bearable.
“Considering everything that’s happened since 2020, this seems like a good time for reflection: Has fashion been a helpful or harmful presence in our lives? What needs to change about the industry moving forward? Should we switch careers and become professional sourdough chefs?”
That being said, it’s important to remember that it’s still a privilege to be able to talk openly about mental health. I’m also extremely privileged to have access to great doctors, be able to afford daily medications, and to even have the time to write this introduction. Everyone’s struggles with mental health are different, and as FSJ’s mission statement says, it would be impossible to address every issue that we all face. However, in everything that we do, we want to support one another as a community through the shared connection of dress. Starting with this issue, we hope to engender more nuanced conversations about the connections between fashion and mental health in the content that we publish. We believe that it’s important to include clothing and dress practices in the discourse around mental health, as clothes can trigger so many different types of emotions and the act of wearing clothes is (mostly) inescapable. However, while we do believe that this discussion can help to normalize mental health issues, we also realize that real progress can’t happen without systemic change.
In many ways, the process of creating this issue is a testament of how prevalent mental health issues are in everyone’s lives. Even with pushing back the launch date multiple times, a few of our fantastic contributors were unable to finish their pieces and be included in the issue, some citing mental health issues caused by a pandemic that continues to devastate many parts of the globe. It also took me weeks (and many glasses of wine) to get the courage to write this introduction after feeling like I wasn’t “good enough” to write anything. As for the rest of the FSJ editorial team, there have been grueling job interviews, the daily trials of motherhood, and the relentless pressures of academia, all of which made our editorial work a challenge to do. Then, just a few weeks ago, our Associate Editor Anthony Palliparambil, Jr. lost his father unexpectedly. He decided to channel his grief into writing a beautiful and powerful story for this issue, which we are proud and grateful to share with you here.
Considering everything that’s happened since 2020, this seems like a good time for reflection: Has fashion been a helpful or harmful presence in our lives? What needs to change about the industry moving forward? Should we switch careers and become professional sourdough chefs? Even before the pandemic, FSJ’s weekly editorial meetings served as ad hoc group therapy sessions. If working on our Fashion + Mental Health issue has taught us anything, it’s that all of our mental health is being pushed to the limit in one way or another, and talking about it more openly would probably do us a lot of good.
Notes
[1] A recent article in the Atlantic titled “Bring Back the Nervous Breakdown” really resonated with me. In summary, the author discusses how nervous breakdowns were once seen as a culturally acceptable excuse for taking a temporary break from the stresses of life. I believe the author makes a very strong case for why we would benefit from having a similar concept today, and would recommend this article to anyone interested in the sociocultural history of mental health.
[2] Issues with mental health can take many different forms, and not all of them constitute an illness that requires medical treatment. Ones that typically require diagnosis and medical treatment include anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and a variety of developmental disorders including autism. However, mental health is unique to each individual, and this list of medical conditions doesn’t fully illustrate the myriad ways that fluctuations in mental health can impact our daily lives. We hope that this issue will help to shine a light on how mental health can impact us all in very different ways.
[3] In this issue, FSJ contributor Sarah Byrd does an excellent job at breaking down the mental toll of teaching fashion studies in “The Case Against Making It Work.”
[4] Sara Ahmed, “Multiculturalism and the Promise of Happiness,” New Formations 11 (Winter 2007/2008): 121. https://www.mcgill.ca/igsf/files/igsf/Ahmed1_multiculturalism.pdf
[5] Ibid., 122.
[6] “Beauty: What Your Looks Reveal About You,” Vogue, April 15, 1958, 90.
[7] Ellen Switzer, “Who Needs Therapy?,” Vogue, December 1, 1979, 283.
