Case Study: Decoding the Uniform of Steve Jobs — The Psychology of Fashion

When fashion psychology is discussed, the assumption is that the framework only applies to followers of fashion. The go-to counter-argument is, “but what about Steve Jobs?” Famously acknowledging that it’s ‘“one less decision he has to make every day”, the late industrial designer and Apple executive was known for wearing the same thing all the time, for decades. He was faithful to black turtlenecks, Levi’s 501®s classic fit jeans, and sneakers, usually New Balance.

While some might think his sartorial consistency flies in the face of fashion psychology theory (that there are deeper reasons as to why what we wear), he is in fact the perfect ambassador for it. Jobs’s choices weren’t purely functional. The fact that he chose this particular uniform to wear every day meant that there was something in such strong alignment between it and his personality, that he needn’t ever experiment.

Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower, data revolutionary, and author of Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America, has echoed our sentiments: “Even though people might want to wear something different, or look different, or have…