The Unspoken Language of Authenticity

To choose clothes, either in a store or at home, is to define and describe ourselves.

-Alison Lurie


Most of us do not think we're carrying on a conversation with our psy­ches, our families, and the outside world when we get dressed in the morn­ing, but we are. Alison Lurie tells us in her fascinating book ‘The Language of Clothes’ that the vocabulary of our wardrobe conveys much more than we ever dreamed possible. "Long before I am near enough to talk to you on the street, in a meeting, or at a party, you announce your sex, age and class to me through what you are wearing-and very possibly give me important information (or misinformation) as to your occupation, origin, personali­ty, opinions, tastes, sexual desires and current mood. I may not be able to put what I observe into words, but I register the information unconscious­ly; and you simultaneously do the same for me. By the time we meet and converse we have already spoken to each other in an older and more uni­versal tongue."

After you begin searching for your authentic self, one of your more star­tling insights will occur when you discover that for years another woman has been carrying on conversations for you-at home, at work, in social sit­uations, even on errands. At first this revelation can be disconcerting, even discouraging. But on reflection, it can be an exciting discovery because now that you're beginning to cherish and channel your authenticity through cre­ative choices, you can learn how to become not only bilingual but fluent in expressing yourself. As the famous French fashion designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel confessed, "How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone."