At the back of my mother's closet there is a blue coat that nobody wears. It is two sizes too small for her and far too old for me. (11) She bought it with her first month of pay, when she was nineteen and new in the city. For a year she ate the same cheap food every day to keep it. I once said she should give it away, (12) she only smiled and closed the door. (13) I understand that the coat is not clothes at all. It shows that a frightened girl in a strange town kept a promise to herself, (14) nothing in a shop can take its place.
Ask anyone why they chose today's clothes and most will say they wanted to feel easy. (15) In one study, people were asked to put on a white coat. Those who were told it belonged to a doctor made fewer mistakes in a careful task than those who were told the same coat belonged to an artist. Nothing about the coat had changed, (16) the story around it had. Clothes also tell other people how to treat us, and we learn this young. A child in a new shirt walks differently for about an hour. (17), fashion is not really about what we wear. It is a way of saying something about ourselves before we open our mouths, (18) most of us never notice we are doing it.