#8: My Favourite Jumper

Put on your favourite item of clothing and I will tell you about mine.

We all have that one favourite thing to wear. Mine is this jumper. Even though I mended it with completely the wrong blue thread. Even if it is more than a bit misshapen.

From cinema to literature, art to theatre, and even our everyday lives, clothing is one of the most obvious and overused symbolic objects. Be it class, personality, age, or a favourite band, our clothing never fails to say something about us.

What specifically, then, does this jumper say about me?

First: I am usually cold. If I laid side by side with an icicle you would not be able to tell the difference. Last winter I wore a woolly hat to bed.

Secondly: I like baggy clothes. Perhaps I am self-conscious about my body, perhaps I just like to be comfortable, but my wardrobe is definitely 0% body-con dresses and 90% big jumpers.

Thirdly: Navy is my spirit colour. It is versatile and non-descript. In navy, I get to hide among all my fellow shy navy-wearers.

Becoming attached to an item of clothing is natural. Clothing is our second skin. It absorbs our memories and it protects us from the world. It both reveals who we are and hides who we are. It is the first aspect of ourselves we present for judgment. It can make us feel vulnerable and it can make us feel strong.

And in the case of our favourite clothes, it can make us feel ourselves.

It is perhaps no surprise, then, the pressure I felt this summer to ‘make an effort’ just to study in the university library.

It was exam time: you might expect messy buns desperately dragging hair away from studies and tracksuit pants to curl up and cry about revision in. But that wasn’t the case at all.

Dressing felt almost competitive, a shield telling everyone (and ourselves) how ‘on it’ we were. A random collection of strangers in the same building, revising in silence, all we could do was look at each other. The only way we could learn about each other was from what we wore.

What happens, then, when we remove this safety net?

StyleLikeU is possibly my favourite YouTube channel. It is a mother and daughter duo who interview people, normal and wonderful people. But there is a difference: the interviewee gradually removes one item of clothing at a time.

It may all sound like some strange striptease, but I promise you, it creates the most intimate and revealing interviews I have ever seen.

As clothes are removed and more and more of the body is revealed, so are the stories behind it. There is no longer any basis for judgment, only empathy.

Frequently, interviewees admit they are suddenly saying things on camera they thought they would never even say aloud. Something about the experience creates trust, an ability to open up.

Perhaps removing clothes to become more naked and vulnerable permits one to be naked and vulnerable.

There is no longer an attempt to hide and therefore no need to hide.

I will, however, not be taking my clothes off on camera any time soon. And as winter starts stretching its grey hand across the blue skies, I will be reaching for my usual jumpers. Except I now own a nude pink one.

Goodbye navy, I will be visible for once.

In my own way, I will be naked and vulnerable.