Something shifts in us just before we move somewhere new. It could be a new university, a new job, or even a new city, and suddenly the haircut we’ve had for years stops feeling right. The clothes we’ve been wearing forever start to feel like they belong to a different version of us. We start wondering how we want to be perceived, and whether that aligns with the version of us that would make it to the next stage of our life.
Eventually, it’s not really about the clothes or the hairstyle. It’s about our identity, and that’s what makes the idea of changing your style before moving somewhere so interesting.
OUR APPEARANCE HOLDS OUR HISTORY
What we wear connects us to our personal history. Our clothes can remind us of places or people. A favourite sweater from a best friend who’s no longer part of our lives might not feel like a memory we want to take forward, because the attachment faded. The way we present ourselves can show a version of us that no longer feels like someone we want to be.
So when we leave, changing our style can feel like leaving an entire life behind. There’s something particularly freeing about entering a place where no one knows our history, what we wear, or the person we were two years ago, and where we get to introduce ourselves again.
Before moving to Glasgow, I cut my hair significantly shorter than I ever have. It was just a haircut but it made me feel like a completely different person. The longer hair was connected to a part of my life I was desperate to leave behind and even though I hadn’t yet left India, the new look gave me a glimpse of the person I wanted to and could be.
THE LINK BETWEEN HOW WE LOOK AND HOW WE FEEL
There’s a peculiar psychological relationship between how we look and how we feel about ourselves. It can be as simple as wearing a new pair of earrings we absolutely adore, and something within us shifts. Wearing something we’ve never had before can make us move with a confidence we didn’t know we had, and all it needed was something visible to come out.
It creates a bridge between the person we were and the person we’re going to be. As Maddy Perez says in Euphoria, “90% of life is confidence,” and the thing about confidence is that no one can tell whether yours is real.
BEING SEEN
But it’s not always so simple. While we’re perceiving ourselves, we’re also being perceived by others, and that can be nerve-racking. We move to a new city and find the place has its own visual language. Everyone has an existing idea of what’s normal, fashionable, chic or out of place. Then we inevitably start noticing what everyone else is wearing, and consciously or subconsciously, we adapt.
Moving to Glasgow meant entering a new environment where I was surrounded by people with their own styles, routines and ways of expressing themselves. I expected everyone to be in winter clothes, but I was surprised to see people wearing shorts and tank tops even in weather that, back in India, would have had me reaching for a jacket before stepping outside. Eventually, I began experimenting with my own idea of what I could wear in the cold. I found myself prioritising how an outfit looked over its immediate functionality and comfort, something I might not have considered as readily before. These small observations can influence us more than we realise.
We start buying things we normally wouldn’t, and wearing clothes we would have sworn weren’t our style, until it all becomes part of our normal. Eventually, a lot of this comes down to wanting to belong.
But how much of this new version is actually us? If our style changes because of outside influence, does that make it less authentic?
there is no one “real version”
I don’t think authenticity means having one permanent aesthetic and refusing to change it. In fact, the idea that there is one “real” version of ourselves might be the less authentic way of looking at it. Our style changes because we change.
The person we were at home is not necessarily the same person who arrives at university. The person who arrives at university isn’t necessarily the person we become after three months of living there. We meet new people, discover new places, gain new confidence and lose old insecurities. Our wardrobes change alongside us. We might look so different that we barely recognize who we were but she was still us and so is the person we are now.
Perhaps that is why moving somewhere new can feel like a rebirth. For once we are given permission to explore parts of ourselves that didn’t have room to exist before. That’s the beauty of change. We don’t have to decide which version is the real one.
They all are.