To me, we dress for the lives we want to live. Which can mean that when you put on the clothes of a person you want to become, you start embodying them. As the air cools and the leaves begin to change, autumn can begin to distill into a choreography. The season becomes made up of movements: the sudden urge to browse independent bookstore aisles, pick apples and pumpkins, feel the weight of books carried across a quad, watching the rain streak along a café window pane. We buy tortoiseshell frames and heavy wool sweaters to not simply stay warm, but to assemble an identity within this time of year. To fulfill the need to live out our autumnal fantasies, and our first instincts might be to wear them.
We become engrossed in the idea of broadcasting an image. For a while, my enjoyment of this season was cemented by a piece of media that became the way I perceived this time of year. Suddenly, unconfined excitement for the beginning of September arrived, contingent on an illusion: Alexis Bledel swaddled in a cream-coloured cable-knit sweater, anchored by dark denim and black boots. Specific, but packed with nostalgia for an autumn town life and a seemingly perfect autumn scene that does not exist, yet left me with a script to play out for the season.
The Autumn We Dress For
Both characters, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore had a defined fashion sense, wardrobes meticulously coded, projecting the illusion of the warm town of Stars Hallow, cozy perpetual Connecticut. I distinctly remember choosing a sweater, exactly like Rory Gilmore’s, an attempt to step behind the screen. The show leaves you yearning for that slow, perfect, and lifestyle, one that mimics her love of studying, the ceaseless consumption of caffeine, all to inhabit life in a town seemingly cemented in the month of October.
We crave that change in lifestyle when the temperatures begin to drop, perhaps something to distract us as summer comes to an end. We succumb to yearning for a life commercialized, one that feels orderly and curated. We don’t want to just exist in the season of autumn; we want to inhabit a world where we spend our mornings in cafes reading or studying, holding a steaming cup of warmth, navigating aisles of a library or bookstore with focus. This craving plays perfectly into the way we dress, we begin with what we wear and purchase. Purchasing cashmere and pleated trousers, with the hope that it becomes the start of the person we want to become.
For a season manufactured by routine, heavy knitwear, and the desire to narrate our lives, dressing up is an act of guiding us through the transition between summer and fall. Against the reestablishment of routine, the heavy weight of assigned work, and the shorter days. We dress against an autumn of damp commutes and exhaustion workloads, we dress for the autumn we want to inhabit and enjoy.
dressing for a fresh start in fall
What if you didn’t care about a show? About Gilmore Girls? Despite the fact that September is a sign of the final months of the year, this season allows us to envision a new one. January offers us resolutions and goals, but the season of autumn delivers the opportunity to reinvent. Unopened notebooks, new schedules, and inevitably, introducing a new autumn wardrobe. Convincing ourselves of the necessity for a new coat, a sturdier pair of boots, or a fresh new bag.
However, what we are really shopping for is a new version of ourselves. It’s interesting how the change in seasons and dropping temperatures spark the desire to rewrite our identities. Stepping into a new pair of loafers and a new stage of life, because the seasons align with the urge to begin again. We traverse out online shopping carts and create a space to manufacture a character we want to play for the next few months. We don’t simply buy new pieces of wool and leather; we buy who we might be when wearing them. It’s a deception to pursue the cold, despite it not being enough to believe that a new jacket is all that is needed to create a new version of ourselves.
the ritual of getting dressed
When we pull on our coats, wrap ourselves with scarves, and layer out clothing, we lean into the aesthetic of the season. Turning our morning commutes into a montage—stepping onto the subway, grabbing coffee before class, and camping out in the library for lengthy study sessions. Our clothing perfectly aligns with the sensory rituals that turn us into our very own protagonists, allowing us to feel multi-faceted. A single summer t-shirt in July anchors you to one mood, autumn layering however, lets us build texture. Its need to layer allows us endless revisions, adapting our look, peeling back or piling on depending on the character we want to play next. Flexibility that simple, static layers of summer clothing could never convey.
The world outside becomes a setting for our own stage, our own backdrop. To feel the sudden cold on our faces, to wrap our hands around the warmth of a paper cup. We walk a little slower to savour the trees on campus, to hear the weight of heavier boots strike the pavement, or the crunch of a dry leaf beneath our heel. Tiny observances that offer a pause on our real life, allowing us to believe that between our commute and lecture hall, that we are not just rushing to meet the many deadlines and assignments, but entering our own plot in our lives.
ROMANTICIZING the ordinary
A cable-knit sweater cannot stop the arrival of shorter days, nor can a new pair of leather loafers lessen the incoming pile of assignments. Perhaps it is a curated deception, purchase the cashmere and pretend the campus quad is our very own movie set. We may push aside or laugh at our desire to live within the fictional Connecticut town, but the urge to reinvent ourselves is real. As the real world asks of deadlines, routines, and exhaustion, our clothes allow us to push back, offering us revisions of who we can be. We are not simply sheltering ourselves from the change and dropping temperatures; we are providing ourselves a sanctuary. So we pull on the scarf, lace up our shoes, and step onto the pavement. Dressing for the day, and for the autumn we actually have, turning the cold into a autumn scene worth playing out, through one layer at a time.