Getting Dressed Is an Emotional Sport

Some people wake up and get dressed for the weather. I get dressed for the internal climate.

I’ve never believed in neutral dressing. There’s always something loaded in it—something you’re saying, even when you don’t mean to. Getting dressed is emotional. Sometimes therapeutic. Sometimes delusional. Always strategic.

There are days I put on a blazer just to trick my brain into being functional. Other days, I’ll wear a floor-length black dress to the grocery store because I want to feel slightly untouchable. And when I’m unraveling? I reach for something dramatic. Or absurd. Or both.

Sometimes, it’s about tension. Clean lines when everything feels chaotic. Slouchy trousers on days when I need to feel like I’m slipping away undetected. I dress to negotiate my mood. To control it. Or to at least contain it in something with good seams.

I’m not interested in effortless. I’m interested in intentional. I like knowing the exact reason a skirt sits low, or why the sleeve is shaped like that. I like when people dress like they’re trying to get away with something.

Clothing is its own language, and everyone’s fluent in their own dialect. Mine is a mix of control, exaggeration, and emotional recall. I’ve worn Tabis to almost every major shift in my life—not because they’re the most comfortable, but because they remind me I’m allowed to be both strange and composed at the same time.

I don’t dress for the day. I dress for the version of me that needs to show up.