It’s a common sentiment that a good outfit can lead to a good day. Appearances aren’t everything, sure, but for those who prioritize fashion, feeling comfortable in our clothes usually leads to us feeling comfortable in our skin. You’ve seen those montages in old teen movies where the nerdy and supposedly “ugly duckling” main character is suddenly transformed into the beautiful swan they were all along. Although they lost the plot with the imagery, the sentiment is there: clothes can often dictate how we feel and how others ultimately view us.

Feeling good about our outer appearance can be a source of confidence, but–as usually portrayed in the finale of those teen movies–when we place too much pressure on this, we can fall victim to a toxic cycle. 

You scroll through TikTok and stumble on a new thing that’s all the rage. Now, to be trendy, in, and current, you need the “clean girl” wardrobe. You need the “mob wife” coat. The “eclectic grandpa” cardigan, the “coastal cowgirl” boots, the list goes on. With the endless microtrends that bombard our feeds and dictate the outfits we see online, how do we pull ourselves away from the chaos and figure out what we actually enjoy?

At some point, the pressure to perform can suck the joy out of personal fashion and run us into the ground when we try to keep up. If we rely on trends to tell us who we are and how to dress, it’ll lead to feelings of insecurity and comparison, impacting our self-esteem. This brings us right back to the beauty standards upheld in the early 2000s, where pretty and skinny were synonymous, encouraging young women to put aside their mental health in fashion’s name. 

Fast fashion trends rely on conformity, prioritizing impossible standards and cookie-cutter attraction over individuality and self-expression. There’s been a recent shift in this mentality, but fashion in our current age still largely depends on a capitalist and consumerist mindset. It’s important to acknowledge the immense progress made in representation and sustainability efforts in the industry, but how can fashion improve in the mental health sphere?

The answer lies in slow fashion. 

For decades, the fashion industry has relied on the idea of more. A hastened pace, a quick turnaround, an ever-changing closet, no matter how detrimental the costs may be. This has birthed a movement that reeks of anxiety, quantity over quality, and a lack of regard for human life, let alone mental and emotional health.

Too many people are willing to sacrifice their values for the sake of a good outfit. Sure, it’s trendy, but is your overflowing closet worth the cost? It’s almost too easy to find yourself crossing the line from self-expression into vanity, driven by ego instead of identity. 

Slow fashion encourages us to step back from the mirror, challenging us to look at what we already have instead of demanding beyond our means. It makes us examine the clothes we’ve already bought, ask what drew us to this piece in the first place, and revisit this question when we decide to expand our wardrobe.

By changing our perspective, we can find that we feel more like ourselves than restricting microtrends could ever allow us to. The pressure to perform falls away, and suddenly, picking an outfit doesn’t feel so daunting. When we dress for ourselves, as slow fashion encourages and fast fashion prohibits, the weight of beauty standards falls away.

In order to break the cycle of fast fashion and its hold over the industry, we need to get to know ourselves away from the watchful eye of microtrends and prioritize what makes us feel good.

This way, mental health has a place to thrive, hand-in-hand with fashion.