Fashion as a Language of Identity and Myth-making

Identity is not something we simply have.

It is something we construct, piece by piece, day by day, through choices so small we rarely notice them.

A jacket we reach for.

A watch we wear without thinking.

The familiar rhythm of a morning routine.

The objects we carry become part of our personal mythology.

Psychologists have long observed that clothing shapes not only how the world sees us, but how we see ourselves.

Psychologists Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky called it enclothed cognition: the idea that a garment can shift our posture, our confidence, even our cognition.

A suit, a pair of boots, a uniform...they don’t just sit on the body.

They reshape the mind.

In this sense, fashion is not trivial.

It is a language.

One we speak before we ever open our mouths.

Philosopher Roland Barthes called fashion a system of signs and symbols.

Yet clothing isn't the only way we communicate non-verbally.

Objects carry stories, too.

Russell Belk famously described possessions as part of our extended self.

A camera, a ring, a vintage jacket, a battered notebook.

These aren't just decorations; they're anchors.

They tether us to who we were, who we are, and who we imagine ourselves becoming.

When life is stable, we move through our routines without thinking.

But when the pattern breaks- when we lose a job, move cities, end a relationship, or wake up to a life that no longer resembles the one we planned- identity begins to wobble.

Sociologist Anthony Giddens wrote that identity in the modern world behaves like a “reflexive project.”

It must be continually maintained and updated, or it dissolves.

In these moments of disruption, we reach for symbols.

Not out of vanity, but out of survival.

A new jacket? A boundary.

Your favorite pair of sunglasses? A shield.

That watch? A talisman of control in a moment where control feels scarce.

These choices are not shallow; they are stabilizing.

Behavioral researchers have found that when identity feels threatened, people cling more tightly to meaningful objects, especially those that signal continuity or aspiration.

Claude M. Steele’s work on self-affirmation, for example, shows that even small symbolic acts help restore psychological integrity when the self feels fractured.

And this instinct is not a flaw in human nature- it is human nature.

Anthropologists like Mary Douglas argued that objects are part of the social order; they give life shape, rhythm, meaning.

When our internal world becomes uncertain, symbolic stability becomes essential.

Objects become narrative tools, allowing us to write the next chapter before we fully understand what that chapter will be.

You see, identity is not just internal.

It is relational, cultural, embodied, and extended.

We construct ourselves through rituals, aesthetics, personal mythmaking.

The ordinary artifacts we adorn ourselves with or choose to keep can carry extraordinary emotional weight when understood this way.

And when life changes, as it inevitably does, especially against our will?

We rebuild ourselves through those same materials.

Fashion becomes architecture of the self.

Objects become continuity of identity.

Lifestyle choices become the scaffolding on which a new identity can stand.

What some might criticize as compensation is actually survival; some may even call it evolution of the self.

Adapt, reorganize, survive.

Sometimes, the first sign of that survival is deceptively simple: the object we reach for when we don’t quite feel like ourselves...yet.

In moments of transition, when identity feels uncertain, our fashion choices and personal objects do more than decorate the self.

They help us locate it.

Heidegger described human existence as being always already “thrown” into the world, navigating a reality we didn’t choose but must continuously interpret.

The things we wear and carry become reference points in that interpretation.

They help us orient ourselves when the familiar patterns fall away.

In this sense, turning to symbolic objects isn’t avoidance; it is a way of re-establishing presence.

Through them, the self regains direction and the world becomes navigable again.