We are what we wear

Clothing not only covers and protects our bodies; as a merging between our internal and external worlds it also communicates our identities and the rich, continuing stories that form them.

Writing in Forbes, Joan Mitchelson quotes Delia Ephron, “If you ask women about their clothes, they tell you about their lives.”

Clothing isn’t only an artifact of “how” we have come to be; it is the continuing, externalising performance of who we are … a performance that is always under revision in our changing contexts. This is captured by stylist and publisher Rachel Zoe Rosenzweig’s famous quotation, “Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak”.

While I lack any credible fashion sense, my parents did all that they could to ensure that I and my siblings dressed well. We had “good or special clothes,” which my mum often sewed for my sisters to make sure they had something “new”. Sewing for a boy was a little more difficult, so my good clothes were purchased with a significant impact on our meagre family income.

My parents showed us that it was not only a matter of dressing respectably to fit in at social and cultural occasions, but that dressing well was also a matter of self-respect and personal pride. It was important. To feel good in our clothes was to also feel good in our skin, and in our own company and in the company of others.

This connection between identity and clothing is expressed in the Christian scriptures when St Paul writes, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:23). When it comes to God we don’t virtuously dress to impress. God loves us already. We clothe ourselves with, and practice the virtues that St Paul describes because we are externally loved. That love from outside is our identity, expressed by us in the care of others in grounded performances that, like all fashion, are always under dynamic revision and renewal. God dresses us with love to live.

Textiles and fashion also make a major contribution to Australia’s economy. It is reported that they add in excess of $27 billion to Australia’s economy with more than $7 billion of that amount coming from exports. These industries provide employment to almost a half a million people in Australia (Australian Fashion Council, 2021, From high fashion to high vis: The economic contribution of Australia’s fashion and textile industry), thereby supporting many people and families to meet their daily needs. Textile and fashion industries impact and benefit all of us.

At St Johns, Southgate we are celebrating a thanksgiving service that focuses on fashion, clothing and national costume. With a sense of fun, we are calling it, “St Johns International Fashion Festival.”

The service will be held from 9am on June 15 and we’d love to include you. Come along, wear your cultural dress or something fabulous and join our celebration as we thank God for the gifts of garments, those who provide them and the deep individual and cultural stories and identities that emerge as we wear them. •