I sometimes lay my clothes out the night before, but there is a flaw in this system. How can I possibly know who I will be the next morning? Last night, for example, I placed a grey sweater on the chair. Grey seemed appropriate: calm and neutral. But in the morning the sky was already grey, the buildings were grey, and even the river looked grey. So, instead I reached for the sky-blue sweater. Immediately, the day felt different. Not brighter exactly, but different. Just before stepping out of the apartment, I hesitated again and added a camel scarf. Grey. Blue. Camel. Three small decisions. We often think of clothing as something we choose for practical reasons. What we are doing. Where we are going. Who we might meet. But it does something more subtle. Blue slows the breath. Yellow improves the mood. Green suggests rest and balance. Red energizes. Even people who primarily wear only neutrals are still choosing a tone or texture. A charcoal black feels different from a soft beige. A crisp white shirt feels different than a pale grey t-shirt. Some people call this “dopamine dressing” – the idea that certain colours or textures lift our mood. This makes the ritual of laying out clothes the night before slightly mysterious. We are trying to predict a mood that does not yet exist. We may believe we are dressing for the world, but often we are dressing for our inner weather. We have a form of conversation with ourselves, or between the weather outside and the weather within. As Cyndi Lauper sang in 1986: “I see your true colours Perhaps the trick is not for me to lay out my clothes too strictly. Leave a little room for improvisation. After all, moods change. Sometimes, the day only needs one small adjustment to show my true colours. True colours are beautiful, like a rainbow. Additional reading: Making my peace … with choosing what colour to wear
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