THE DRESS CODE
By a rough count, we are living in tracksuit pants’ third age. Lower-body athletic apparel has metamorphosised from highly functional, to strictly casual, to casually functional. Its latest incarnation is courtesy of the pandemic-driven Zoom boom of the past year. For me as a journalist they have been an essential component of the uniform I wear to conduct interviews, my interlocutors unaware that while I may be presenting in a neatly-ironed shirt, below the waist, it’s party time.
At least it was until today, when I find myself talking to Anabel Maldonado, a brown-jumper wearing, refreshingly forthright fashion psychologist in London. Maldonado, who has a background in clinical psychology and fashion journalism, is in the process of casting her critical eye over my outfit – red, white and grey check shirt over a white Michael Jordan T-shirt – to give me an ad-hoc assessment of what my outfit says about my personality. It’s like being sartorially x-rayed.
“Stand up,” she instructs me. I try not to hesitate, feeling self-conscious about my well-worn khaki track pants lurking down below. I look at Maldonado’s face for signs of judgment but detect nothing. “Okay, sit down,” she says, before beginning to break down my outfit in relation to the big five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and extroversion.
“I would say that you’re moderately high on openness in the sense that you’ve put something together that the average person might not necessarily pair together, but it’s also not so crazy,” she says, as I nod approvingly. “It just falls in that nice creative space. I’d say you’re moderately conscientious. You have a laid back, fun side, but you can get things done.”
So far, so f*cking great, from my perspective. “Agreeableness, moderate to high,” Maldonado adds. “You’re a nice guy. If someone’s debating at dinner over something controversial, you’re not going to get involved. And then neuroticism, I’d say moderate. Again, with the colour and the print, you seem to be a happy person.”
