The continuously changing world around us affects our well-being in all aspects, including our fashion. After observation of the industry, I reflected that fashion plays a major role in our health and wellness. Products and fast fashion apply to boosting self-esteem over a short period; however, the aim of wellness is to create mental equanimity.

I have found that the fashion industry needs a change in its process and focus on the wearer’s eudaimonia. For sustainability, it is decisive to focus on the customer’s serene happiness by producing long-lasting expressive pieces. The consumer must explore fashion without only achieving ‘momentary exaltation of the senses’ (Felgueroso, n.d.). More slow fashion is necessary for a balanced life.

How can our fashion determine our happiness?

As our style and perspective on fashion are developing into an ever-growing web, it is noticeable that our emotions and our actions can help us express these changes.

Not only has each unique human experienced various societies, moments, and feelings, but also how one takes in this information or perceives it is unparallel to one another.

We bounce off of each other and reflect on each other’s emotions and actions in negative or positive ways.

The continuous desire for new items to fulfil our short-term happiness and the few heads that profit from this damaging causal nexus is causing a rethink in the fashion industry, for instance the slow growth of reusable fashion.

Isn’t it stressful to concentrate and find your well-being among the floods of information and recommendations indirectly forced upon us?

Such as the constant bombardment of fashion influences across media.

The hedonic treadmill theory in fashion expands to a tiresome and harmful form of happiness, due to the need to keep consuming to maintain it. The cycle of consuming fashion can spin into ‘unrealistic expectations’. The illusion of needing clothing that one cannot attain.

The choice is yours’s to decipher what will bring wellness. Choices can bring both positive and negative effects.

To live creatively and knowing one’s potential will bring eudaimonic well-being. In fashion the world needs to strive for self-expression with the purpose to improve the world around you. Each unique way of dressing is a visual form of showing our feelings and thoughts. Or one can use clothing to control the mind to bring happiness within oneself, for example wearing sweats for comfort and relaxation. It is a form of coping mechanism to reduce or accentuate a mood.

Reflecting on the matter has made me realize the importance of balancing feelings with a serene mentality through self-expression and sustainably sourced garments to achieve consistent well-being. Fashion can be a functional tool to reflect our identity and be a statement of our emotions. With that in mind, the industry should cater to these needs to benefit both human and worldly health.

REFERENCE: Rogaten, J. and Khadaroo, A., 2021. Fashion and well-being.

‘Dance to the beat of your own drum.’

– Matshona Dhliwayo