personal

Psychogeographies of 

FASHION

Garment Relationships?

this study examines how our environments - and our emotional 

responses to those environments - shape the relationships we have 

with our clothing.

So, what do most of us do every day?

we get up

we brush our teeth

we get dressed

we go to work

This frame represents the

sensations you experience 

while 

wearing your clothes

And how these feelings may 

inform the actions you take.

Overlayed shapes represent decisions we make about our clothing,​

(e.g. storage, care and repair) which are influenced by the intersection 

of embodied experiences, emotional climate and shifting spatial 

contexts.

 

to give you a rough idea:

The dashed cube represents 

your world

- the broader 

environmental contexts you move through every day

The second frame's textures illustrate 

emotional climate 

(like feeling 

anxious during your commute), 

capturing fluctuating affective states 

shaped by place.

Context

Embodied 

Experience

Emotional 

Climate

Garment Practices 

Within this frame, varied textures indicate 

shifts in spatial contexts. For example: your 

home, your commute, your workplace. 

there is no right answer to this 

question. In fact, this study aims 

to frame precise data gathering 

within personal reflection... a 

difficult balance to strike.

Here is an example:

Affective states coded through embodied experience

dense traffic

usually in this order.

perceived elevation

Departure

And what about the cyclist's clothes?

Our cyclist experiences their clothing through 

the prism of their interactions with the 

world around them

. What happens to our 

cyclist, in other words, also happens to 

whatever they're wearing. Experience and 

memory are woven into the fabric of our 

clothes, in much the same way that our brains 

process and store information.

This idea - that

clothes are receptacles of 

experience

- is at the core of this project. Why do we 

form stronger relationships with some garments than 

others? Is it simply preference between styles? Is it 

comfort or fit? Or are there everyday factors - social, 

spatial, and emotional - that reinforce or inhibit 

strong relationships with certain garments - and 

inform how we care for them?

Not every item of clothing we own will have intrinsic 

sentimental value, like your great-​grandmother's 

wedding dress, say. Not every relationship-​reinforcing 

event can be seismic. Take those ratty old shorts our 

cyclist wears every day. 

Can small actions, repeated 

often, build a durable relationship between wearer 

and garment?

the graphic below displays an emotional interpretation 

of a cycling journey, where a cyclist's emotions are 

mapped from the point of their departure to the point 

they arrive at their destination. 

Does wearing an itchy woolen sweater at the bus 

stop make you feel...

annoyed?

What impact do our 

everyday interactions

with the 

world around us have on our garment relationships? Do 

these interactions vary based on the clothes we decided 

to wear that day? What effect does that have?

are you 

AGGRAVATED

when your highly aerodynamic , albeit dorky, cycling shorts are officially too 

dirty to wear?

Do you feel 

alive

knowing your trusty trench-​coat has traversed all nine transit 

zones of the London Underground Tube network?

What can these experiences teach us about ourselves and our 

clothes?

That's what this study aims to find out.