“Do you have a shirt that you really love? One that you feel so groovy in. You don’t even mind if it starts to fade. That only makes it nicer still.” (From “I Love My Shirt,” a song by Donovan.)
Clothes may not make the man or woman, but they can influence how he or she feels. Funeral attire is typically black, and when a family member dies, according to the Jewish faith, we rend our garments and don’t change our clothes. The COVID pandemic inspired years of comfort clothes. Dressing up has other residual effects on our psyche.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief are a classic way to define traumatic reactions to bereavement. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and may not necessarily occur in that order. Each stage isn’t always experienced. Frequently, they come in waves, and some stages can be experienced more than once. Whether or not they were directly involved on Oct. 7, these are stages that the Jewish public has been wrestling with, but each with their own individual way of processing.
According to Jerusalem social worker and therapist Hadassah Fidler, the effect of clothes on the psyche has been studied at length. In fact, according to a National Institutes of Health study, football teams that wear white have a higher chance of winning than teams that wear green. Another study showed that the color of a football outfit affects visibility and team success. Fidler says that all uniforms affect the wearer, while simultaneously influencing how others perceive the wearer.
“What you wear can reflect how you feel, and in some cases can help to bring you to a different feeling,” she explains. “Retail therapy really does give people an adrenaline boost. When someone puts on new clothes, there is a feeling of renewal.
“Our clothing can be our bridge to connect our emotions to the physical and to let others know what is going on inside,” she continues. “We do this consciously or, more often, unconsciously. We can simultaneously reveal and conceal information about ourselves through the clothes we wear. Clothes can paradoxically be our armor and our invitation to engage.”
She points out that even among haredim, the tilt of a man’s hat can make a statement about who he is. Our clothing expresses both individuality and solidarity.
United in Grief
SINCE OCT. 7, she says, Israelis have been experiencing both collective and individual trauma and grief. “While many cultures have a code of dress for grief and mourning to signal to others to be careful with their emotions, in Israel post-Oct. 7 there is no such universal code of dress that tells people we are grieving,” she explains.
“Each person expresses what they are feeling depending on individual timelines of grief and trauma and familial and cultural backgrounds. Wearables, such as hostage necklaces or yellow ribbons, are identifiable as solidarity with others. Clothing, such as slogan T-shirts, are easy to decipher.
“But one size does not fit all. It can be dangerous to assume that we can read from a person’s clothes what he or she is feeling. For one person, wearing dark colors could express despair; for others, it may be a sign of strength in the face of adversity.
“For some people, wearing high fashion and colorful clothes may feel antithetical to their mood, while for many it is an act of defiance against grief or a commitment to live each moment fully because of the uncertainty of the future.”
According to Fidler, we are all on a different timeline regarding where we are in our grief post-Oct. 7. She says that many soldiers who came out of Gaza after three months of service were so busy fighting, that they never had a chance to grieve. The lag put them in a different grief stage than the general public, who had a few months to process the pain of Oct. 7.
Likewise, experiences of the former hostages and survivors of the Supernova music festival are completely different from the general population’s, no matter how sympathetic we may be. “They came out in a different space and, understandably, they can’t all connect the same way others do,” she says.
“There is an individual grief and a communal grief, and it is a spectrum. When a hostage is captured, the captor has complete control of every aspect of his or her life. When he is freed, he may not want to do (or wear) anything just because someone suggests it.” Choosing clothing, she says, becomes his or her way of regaining control of life.
WHILE WRITING and producing this special edition and photo shoot, we at The Jerusalem Post were careful not to trivialize anyone’s experience, collectively and individually, since Oct. 7.
The ramifications of our war have been widespread. People are affected directly, as is the fashion industry, shunned academic institutions, struggling designers, retailers, and everyone working to reclaim themselves in the face of Israel’s current war. We have all been fighting our own battles.
May each of us find strength and resilience and continue to be proud Israelis, however we express it and in whatever we choose to wear.