Clothes Conscious: Two new books take a peek beneath the fluff of fashion

Like a candy bowl for the coffee table, "fashion book" usually implies "picture book," featuring models as glossy and dazzling as a Butterscotch Disk.Two new fashion books enhance flavor with nourishment. In "You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You," clinical psychologist Jennifer Baumgartner gets past empty calories to explore how outer appearance can betray inner conflict. And "Women From the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us" unlaces the history of some women's obsession with shoes.
"When you look at a wardrobe, instead of fabrics and buttons, you can look at all these as components of self," said Baumgartner, who also runs a wardrobe consulting business, InsideOut, separate from her psychology practice in theWashington, D.C., area. "When you ask a client why she dresses how she does, it's more than whether she likes it. It's what does your family believe about stuff and spending? What do you believe about what the right body looks like? ... I don't engage in therapy with wardrobe consulting clients. But when I'm acting as a psychologist, we do look at dress."It's common knowledge that observers make snap judgments, within three seconds, based on someone's appearance. But Baumgartner's work isn't just about dressing to impress.
There's increasing evidence that how a person dresses can influence - not just reflect - the wearer's own psychological processes.One recent study on "enclothed cognition" - the effects of clothing on cognition - looked at the effect of wearing a lab coat on cognitive performance. In the study, conducted at Northwestern University and published on the website of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, wearing a lab coat improved study participants' performance on an attention task. In a second part, performance improved if participants were told the lab coat they were wearing was a doctor's coat. If they were told it was a painter's coat, their performance did not improve.
"Part of our initial discussion is to note clients' physical appearance when they first come in. ... If their dress has changed or they're failing to take care of their hygiene, it's a clinical indicator that something might be going on."Baumgartner pursued her doctoral degree in clinical psychology while working on the sales floor at Ralph Lauren to pay the bills."The two kind of came together. Women had meltdowns in the dressing room, but it had nothing to do with clothing. What else was it? Obviously there was a lot more there than the clothes."