Clothes on the bed, nothing feels right: the psychology behind your seasonal wardrobe meltdown

The clocks have gone back, and suddenly getting dressed feels more difficult. The coat you wore constantly last winter is still hanging in the wardrobe, but it no longer looks quite how you remember. The boots you loved in February don’t seem to go with anything, while a jumper that once felt like you somehow doesn’t anymore. Perhaps we’ve all simply forgotten how to dress for the cold. But there is something peculiar about returning to clothes we know so well and finding them unexpectedly unfamiliar. As seasons change, we go back to garments we have worn before, but we don’t return to the same routines, experiences or even ways of feeling in our bodies. The seasons repeat, but our lives don’t. In her 2007 book Why Women Wear What They Wear, anthropologist Sophie Woodward observed women choosing their clothes in the privacy of their bedrooms. She found that getting dressed was not simply about selecting an outfit. It involved negotiating how they wanted to look, what felt comfortable and how others might see them. Woodward identified the importance of habitual clothing: garments we reach for regularly because we’ve learned how to wear them. By the end of summer, we know which trousers work with which shoes, how a dress moves and which combinations make us feel like ourselves. Those choices have become familiar through repetition. Colder weather interrupts that familiarity. We bring back coats, tights, boots and layers, but they belong to combinations we haven’t practised for months. We may remember liking an outfit without immediately remembering how to inhabit it. Clothes that felt like ‘you’ last autumn may suddenly not suit your vibe. Andrii Iemelianenko/Shutterstock Our wardrobes hold more than clothes Woodward’s research also helps us think about the different kinds of time contained within a wardrobe. Fashion operates through seasons, but our clothes accumulate across years, jobs, relationships and changing circumstances. A wardrobe can hold several periods of a life at once. Clothing and textile expert Carole Hunt has researched the relationship between clothing and the past. She argues that textiles can act as carriers of knowledge and prompt recollection, sometimes through unexpected encounters. Think of pulling on a winter coat and finding an old train ticket in the pocket, or recognising the weight of a scarf you wore every day during a particular winter. The garment does not have to be special to recall a time or place. Sometimes it is precisely the ordinary things we wore without thinking that become attached to our memories. This can make getting dressed feel unexpectedly difficult, particularly when clothes remind us of a time in our lives that feels different from the one we are living now. But the transition to colder weather wardrobes is physical as well as emotional. Fashion sociologist Joanne Entwistle describes getting dressed as a “situated bodily practice”: this means clothing is experienced through both the body and the social circumstances in which we wear it. The transition to colder weather wardrobes can be unexpectedly emotional. Krakenimages/Shutterstock Summer dressing can involve familiar sensations of bare ankles, lightweight fabric and uncovered arms. Winter asks us to adjust to the weight of coats, the restriction of layers, the feel of tights or the unfamiliar shape of boots. Even when an outfit looks right, it might not yet feel right. The light has changed too. The clocks going back shift daylight within our daily routines, while the shortening days and lower winter sun change the settings in which we see ourselves. A familiar colour can appear different under a bedroom bulb from how it looks in the pale afternoon light. We are adjusting not only to wearing different clothes, but to seeing ourselves differently in them. This need not amount to an identity crisis. It suggests something subtler: the confidence we associate with personal style may depend partly on repeated, ordinary encounters with our clothes. When those encounters change, familiarity has to be rebuilt. Buying something new isn’t the answer There is an irony in the fashion industry’s response to autumn. Each year, the season is presented as an invitation to start again, with new colours, silhouettes and supposedly essential purchases. Yet feeling uncertain about what to wear does not necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the clothes we already own. Before deciding that last winter’s coat or favourite jumper no longer feels right, try it with something you regularly wear now, rather than attempting to recreate an outfit from the previous year. Taking photographs of different combinations can help you see possibilities you might otherwise overlook, although the real test is often wearing those clothes again. Something that feels unfamiliar in front of the mirror may feel quite different after an ordinary day spent wearing it. This does not mean you should hold on to everything. Our tastes, circumstances and practical needs change, and some clothes may genuinely no longer have a place in your wardrobe. But there is a difference between a garment no longer being right and simply having forgotten what it feels like to wear it. Perhaps that’s why the first cold weeks of autumn can feel so unsettling. We return to familiar clothes expecting to feel familiar ourselves, but personal style isn’t something we establish once and keep unchanged. It’s a relationship we continually remake with the things we wear.