What to Where?
Our daily wardrobe dilemmas often spring from the question: what to wear? Or, perhaps, they are merely the result of a simple statement: I have nothing to wear. But suppose we conduct a little thought experiment. Imagine, for instance, that instead of straining at the endless and indeterminate ‘what’ we shift our perspective towards the more flexible and much more contextually rich ‘where’.
It takes more than one morning, and certainly more than a quarter of an hour to puzzle over ‘who’ and ‘what’ we are. Similarly, it can take a long while to decide ‘what’ to wear. Somehow, ‘who’ and ‘what’ may seem less turbid once we place them some-‘where’. Photograph available via Heuritech. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
‘What’ is a very big thing to contemplate, even if it might seem the opposite. ‘What’ is the stuff of ontology, definition, and what we vaguely (but with a great air of sagacity) call the ‘nature of things’. Even when it is chiselled into something as manageable as a single item of clothing, this ‘what’ doesn’t offer much clarity. ‘What to wear?’ is an inquiry that confronts us every time we open the blinds, check our calendar, inspect the weather forecast, and walk up to the looking glass. And personally, I often feel that the question is much less helpful than one designs it to be. It has the potential to become darkly existential, especially if it makes one brood over the insufficiency of one’s fashion repertoire and the scantiness of one’s income to make any atonement for it.
Saint Laurent, Winter 2022 Campaign. Photographed by Juergen Teller, the image frames Kristen McMenamy in a sheer, second-skin column knit, her stance rigid against a backdrop of wrought greenery and wire fencing — a confrontation between elegance and enclosure, visibility and restraint. The garment’s translucence, paired with the weight of stacked sculptural bangles, evokes a tension between vulnerability and command. Rooted in Teller’s signature anti-glamour realism, the composition challenges conventional narratives of luxury, positioning the body not as passive muse but as an active, site-specific form of presence. Image via The Impression. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
The open-endedness and indecisiveness of ‘what’ only gives rise to more shapeless and colourless notions – the sickeningly finite and nauseatingly perpetual sequences of ‘this’ and ‘that’. Maybe I can wear this? Or that? Or what about this? And what about that? Until at last, one arrives at the very first ‘this’, only to regret not having worn ‘that’, going out of the house in embarrassing irritation. What on earth compelled me to put on tight jeggings when straight-leg trousers would have been more flattering and appropriate? You see, we’ve come back to the never ending ‘what’.
Something we’ve learnt in the past few decades, particularly with the upwelling of environmental awareness, is that the word ‘where’ is just as – if not more – critical than ‘what’. Bruno Latour’s book After Lockdown (Où suis-je?) is an inviting example of re-orientation in space and time of that kind. Latour’s very first chapter opens with something like a novelty: “There are many ways to begin. For instance, like a hero in a novel who wakes up after fainting and, rubbing his eyes, looking haggard, murmurs, ‘Where am I?’”. I think we can carry this mode of re-orientation into our quotidian fashion choices, too, by beginning with ‘where’.
Where do I live? The knowledge of our geographic, cultural, social, and political surroundings exerts immense influence over the hue, sheerness, and loudness of our apparel. The very meaning – the ‘what’-ness – of our fashion statements will inevitably refer to our milieu. Deciding ‘what’ to wear, then, is inextricably tied to ‘where’ we find ourselves. Not to mention, meteorological factors like wind, rain, snow, and air temperature are not the least significant in complementing aesthetics with functionality.
Where am I going? The selection of ensemble pieces, suits, cuts, and necklines will become more feasible once the destination and the character of one’s activity is clear. In this respect, consulting on certain points of etiquette may be very productive. Beyond any doubt, modern dress codes allow an agreeable fusion of formal attire with less conservative contemporary trends (ShoutOut). However, it’s advantageous to remain conscious of the distinction between morning dress, evening dress, smart-casual, and business casual (FashionJournal).
Where are my clothes from, and where will they go after I dispose of them? The convenience of foregrounding the ‘where’ rather than the ‘what’ is that one can be mindful of production processes, their ethical arrangements, and their impact on the environment. It can also ease one’s conscience to have a sense of the fate which awaits one’s tattered coat or jeans. Recycling facilities, hand-me-down networks, and reuse for domestic purposes are all included in the determiner ‘where’.
Although it may not fully appease our incertitude, and although it may not contribute to a more varied closet, the move from ‘what’ to ‘where’ is a wearable one. To ask oneself ‘where am I?’ and to usher this question into the most mundane fashion experiences is to extend the visibility of the ties between the individual and their embeddedness in the world.
