Identity Analysis

Our identities are created for us from birth, we are born and immediately wrapped in gender specific clothing and right up until we can dress ourselves, our clothing is chosen for us. Parents decide whether their little girl is going to be in dresses and pink, or a tom boy in trousers and no pink in sight. Even when we can choose, we may choose to rebel against what our parents want, the little girl forced into dresses now refuses to wear one. Even though we feel as though we are ‘being ourselves’ we have, consciously or subconsciously, chosen what we’re wearing for a reason. Jennifer Craik expresses that ‘…identity has been and is composed by family membership, regional belonging class position or gendered performances…we struggle to project a unique sense of self’ (2009:138). Seeing as our identity so far has always been controlled and created by someone else, growing up many find it difficult to decide who they really are.

Luckily in today’s day and age, as stated by Hugh Aldersey-Williams in Who Now, Selfhood and Society, ‘we are more free to explore additional and alternative identities than ever before… we have more clothes, and so more options for dressing up.’ (2009:10-19). Today’s society is also much more accepting of alternative styles of dressing. Furthermore, these days it is the norm for a teenager to go through an experimental phase, changing and altering their identity, claiming each one to be the ‘real them’ each time, through their clothes as well as cosmetics and their mannerisms. Many teens go through a Goth phase, dying their hair and wearing gothic clothing, they may come out of it slightly into an indie phase, less dramatic fashions and make up, but keeping their music and mannerisms the same.

Aldersey-Wil...

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...osen identity.’ (Craik, 2009:147). The key word here is ‘chosen’. Part of becoming an adult is gaining the right to choose who we want to be. Buying the clothes, adopting the mannerisms, these are just ways to create our chosen identity. ‘… in the 1990’s, there is no single fashion standard; the consumer chooses from different interpretations of fashion depending on her social affiliations and ethnic background’ (Crane, 2000:207). We have such a wide choice of stores, and in those stores infinite amounts of goods to choose from. Choosing what to buy simply comes down to who you are, or want to be, and how you want to express that.

As well as constructing an identity for the long term, we have the means to change on short notice in order to fit into a particular environment. For example, we adopt the acceptable attire when entering a church in a country like Greece,