I have recently experienced a kind of healing through the personal expression of wearable art.
I am an older woman now. As fluidity would have it, my sense of self has been changing. I am once again rebuilding my identity with the circumstances of my life. I have moved to an area of the country that is breathtakingly gorgeous but rather remote. Over the past several years, I noticed that I had lost some of my dash. I had begun wearing more utilitarian clothing….pants, tops, skirts, more tops. What I’d been wearing has affected how I have been feeling and how I have been feeling has affected what I have been wearing. Follow that circle long enough, and sense of self—identity—becomes affected.
I’ve tried to find the right words for how I have felt….and I can’t quite find them, but I’ll try. It’s not bad….but as I can see now, I have just been limited…not my full or best self. I have felt strong, healthy, sometimes invisible, functional, bland, solid, competent, “sporty.”
Again, not bad, but not complete.
Then, I started wearing Ivey Abitz designs last summer. Since wearing them, I have reclaimed parts of me that had been fading away. When I slip into a piece of unique, comfortable, sophisticated wearable art, my experience of myself changes. I feel interesting again (and I am!), vital (I am), attractive (I can be), with a bit of penache (and I love that!). Something else happens as well. I feel better about presenting myself. Wearing clothing that is art itself tends to open me rather than the feeling that I often have of hiding or shutting down. I simply feel more self assured because I know it brings out the best elements in me. Maybe a little psychological osmosis occurs. Or, in a word, healing. Maybe a little healing occurs.