The way you dress does change your personality long term

So im here for the past four years was trying to understand if the way you dress does change your personality long term. It does. Back in 2019 I went to a party where one of my friend said to me that I look like a grand dad. And I was feeling like the one. I was really conservative by how I was spending my evenings, I felt bleak, rusty and rigid, and I didn’t felt like myself at all. I was an avatar of my own creation that was created for the different character. And I was like okay, what if I will change my personality by changing the way I dress, the way I present myself. But not in confident way, It was more about felling more free, more expressive, I wanted to be more foolish, relaxed, easy.

So, being a branding specialist with sociologist background I looked for studies that would show the correlation between how we feel ourselves and the way we dress. And the only one that we conducted was short-term differences. Artist showed more structured thinking when dressed in a suit. A lawyer showed more creativity in paint-splattered lab coat. But they showed short-term changes, I was interested in long-terms.

I decided to go by semiotic approach and made a little list of characteristics and the cultural keys that expressed them:

Relaxed — free, wide clothes

Expressive — bright clothes

Foolish and easy — peculiar combinations 

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Can the way you dress change your personality in the long term? As someone who has been exploring this question for the past four years, I can confidently say that it does. In fact, a comment from a friend at a party back in 2019 was the catalyst that made me realize this.

At the party, my friend told me that I looked like a granddad. This made me feel conservative and out of touch. I was spending my evenings in a bleak, rusty, and rigid way, and I didn't feel like myself at all. I had become an avatar of my own creation that was designed for a different character. I then had an idea: what if I could change my personality by changing the way I dress and present myself? However, it wasn't about being confident; it was about feeling more free, expressive, foolish, and relaxed.

As a branding specialist with a background in sociology, I searched for studies that showed a correlation between our attire and how we feel about ourselves. One study I found was conducted by Northwestern University and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The study found that what we wear can affect how we feel and think, even when the clothing is not visible. For instance, participants who wore a lab coat that they believed belonged to a doctor performed better on a test of attention than participants who wore the same coat but believed it was a painter's coat.

I was interested in long-term changes, however, so I decided to take a semiotic approach and made a list of characteristics and cultural keys that expressed them. For instance, I found that wearing wide and free clothing made me feel relaxed, bright clothing made me feel expressive, and peculiar combinations made me feel foolish and easy-going. By incorporating these elements into my wardrobe, I found that my personality slowly started to shift towards these characteristics.

In conclusion, I can say that the way you dress can indeed change your personality in the long term. By paying attention to the semiotics of clothing, you can express the characteristics you want to embody and slowly shift your personality towards them. So, next time you're getting dressed, consider what you want to express about yourself and dress accordingly.