Is Your Outfit Saying More than You Are?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK. Manhattan. The Fashion District. Wednesday, February 15, 2023. Breaths hang heavy in the winter evening air as the final day of New York Fashion Week draws to a close. The streets buzz with the residual energy of runway shows and after-parties. The sheer amount of talent condensed into one place feels almost combustible. Babak Rachpoot, celebrity photographer, positions himself strategically along the sidewalk, waiting with his camera, hoping to capture a moment that lasts beyond the now.

Julia Fox, artist and provocateur, emerges onto the cold winter street. Styled by Briana Andalore, Fox carries what appears to be a lifeless human body. On closer inspection, it becomes clear. It is a six-foot-tall, three-and-a-half-pound soft, vinyl sculpture—a surreal “body bag” created by Toronto-based designer Mikhael Kale. Fox wrestles with her unruly accessory, posing for Rachpoot, as passersby freeze, stare, and snap photos. This is a performance as much as a fashion statement, a moment designed to linger in the city’s memory.

Shock gives way to curiosity.

Fashion becomes a bridge between the inner world and the outside one. Fashion gives form to that which has no body of its own: the shadow self.

The photographs, captioned “BODIED” by Fox in an Instagram post, show her embodying something deeper than shock value. Through design and fashion, she reveals parts of the self that usually stay buried. She shifts identity through costumes, using style as a tool to conjure different versions of herself. Fashion becomes a bridge between the inner world and the outside one. Fashion gives form to that which has no body of its own: the shadow self.

The “shadow self” is what Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung called the hidden side of our personality—the parts we would rather not admit to but that shape us all the same. Jung introduced this idea in 1917, building on psychologist Sigmund Freud’s notion that much of who we are lives beneath the surface, hidden. For Jung, the shadow represents the parts of ourselves we repress and refuse to face. Traits that live in the dark corners of the unconscious mind.

Anger. Envy. Selfishness. Jealousy.

These aspects seem incompatible with our everyday identity, almost taboo. We tend to push these parts of ourselves out of sight, burying them deep within, where they continue to shape our thoughts and behavior. Jung believed that to achieve psychological wholeness, we need to confront these repressed parts of ourselves that we struggle to accept.

When we integrate the shadow self, we gain access to what Jung described as “dark springs of instinct and intuition” and “all those creative forces which lead man onwards to new developments, new forms, and new goals.” These are “potentialities of the greatest dynamism”—a rich reserve of creative energy, unlived potential, and aspects of ourselves—that, once acknowledged, will bring us deeper growth and self-understanding.

The hidden mind does not just generate impulses; it produces symbols that help us make sense of what we cannot fully grasp. These buried emotions do not stay dormant. They seek expression. One of the most immediate areas in our lives in which this plays out is what we wear.

Symbols are everyday objects or images that carry deeper, hidden meanings beyond their surface. They can be entry points into our emotional layers, revealing feelings and preferences we might not even realize we have. Subconsciously, we are constantly decoding these symbols, using fashion to make sense of people without ever speaking to them.

Teenagers cycle through phases of dress—preppy, goth, skater, and back to preppy again—not just to make a statement but also to express something deeper that they are still trying to figure out. These are experiments in identity, attempts to access unspoken parts of the self. The looks may be outgrown, but they reveal aspects of teenagers’ shadow selves trying to surface. As a high school student, I was absolutely convinced that if I wore nothing but Abercrombie & Fitch, I would slowly morph into one of their shirtless catalog models by sheer osmosis.

These are just projections, symbols of a deeper, more complex self. Fashion, like symbols, is woven into our daily lives. Whether we choose our outfits with intention or not, what we wear shapes how others perceive us. Our clothes send subtle signals that reflect aspects of ourselves we keep beneath the surface. Clues that no adjectives can adequately describe.

There are limits to language. Some inner states just cannot be neatly expressed in words.

The dramatic, often bizarre fashion moments Fox is known for might not always make immediate sense. That’s the point. Without explanation, these moments speak to the parts of ourselves that we do not always understand. These moments turn the unnameable into something tangible.

Halloween offers a clear example of fashion as a vehicle for expressing the shadow self. Once a year, when everyone is in on it, costumes become a way to externalize hidden desires and inner truths. We typically choose figures or personas that fascinate us but dare not be in our daily lives. We dress up and step into alternate identities, using costumes to communicate the internal world to the external. Fox channels this idea year-round. She treats fashion like costuming—tapping into the same impulse we see on Halloween—using style to make the unconscious visible.

We all drag around parts of ourselves that feel too messy and uncomfortable to face. 

In one of the “BODIED” photographs, Fox speaks without words. The photograph’s crisp focus and bright lighting highlight every detail of what she wants to express. Both her inner and outer selves are fully visible. Fox meets the viewer’s gaze directly, projecting strength and fearlessness. She appears fully in tune with every part of herself. Especially her shadow.

She stands perfectly still in black opera gloves that match her jacket. The gloves conceal her physical identity, her unique fingerprints. Fox is hiding literal markers of her identity, giving space for the shadow to emerge. She stands vertically, while her accessory extends horizontally. Together, they form a cross, a structure that hints at a symbolic meeting point. A crossroad between the everyday self and the shadow within.

Kale, the designer, did not just pick materials at random: every patent shine and slick fold in this look feels intentional, like he is using fabric to hold up a mirror to the psyche itself. The outfit and bag are made from patent leather. Like a mirror, the shiny material catches and distorts what it reflects. The mirror always shows a reversed image. The shadow self, too, is a kind of mirror.

Distorted. Hidden. Undeniably present. The shadow wants to be seen.

The bag is identical in size to Fox and styled to resemble her. It becomes the photograph’s most striking detail. It hangs limp with long, straight, blonde hair and is dressed head to toe in black patent leather. It even wears similar boots as Fox, but the figure has no visible skin.

It looks like a double. A doll. A vacant body.

Although lifeless, the bag pulses with meaning. It transcends its literal function, becoming a visual metaphor for the shadow self—a powerful communicative object that makes the abstract visible. Like the gloves that hide Fox’s fingerprint, the bag’s face and skin are completely covered, concealing any trace of identity. Similar to an actual body bag, it hides the figure within, erasing human features and turning the object into pure symbol. Through this soft sculpture, Kale gives form to the unconscious, creating a visual language for what usually remains unseen.

A vessel for everything hidden.

Wearing this look and carrying such an impractical object becomes a performance. Through it, Fox physically enacts the way we all carry emotional baggage. Her bag, like our shadow, is heavy, awkward, and at times difficult to manage. We all drag around parts of ourselves that feel too messy and uncomfortable to face. Fox doesn’t just wear this burden; she makes it visible. In doing so, she reminds us not to disassociate from the parts of ourselves that may be uncomfortable to tote.

The presence of the shadow self continues in the photograph through the dominant use of black. It’s more than just a color choice. It’s a mood. A signal. A symbol of everything that resists explanation.

Black is the absence of color. A void. A shadow.

The version of ourselves we hide from others doesn’t just disappear; it gets pushed down. Over time, this repression can start to influence our waking, conscious mind in subtle, sometimes disruptive ways. Thoughts, emotions, or behaviors that seem out of character may actually stem from a neglected shadow self. We often pack away painful or traumatic memories as experiences labeled too difficult for the conscious mind to handle. This well of suppression can be a source of both creative energy and inner conflict.

Wholeness is not just about what we want the world to see—it is about the faces we wear and the shadows we carry.

Standing proud, Fox signals to the viewer that she is unafraid of what lives beneath the surface. We should not fear knowing those parts of ourselves. They are an integral part of who we are. The shadow does not just hold pain. It holds power. It holds creative possibilities.

Fox’s looks may be impractical for everyday life, but they serve a deeper purpose. Through these outer transformations, she gives form to her shadow self. In doing so, she seems to move through the world with more confidence, clarity, and self-awareness. In a culture where identity is curated for public consumption, fashion becomes more than self-expression. It becomes a way to perform, distort, or reveal the self.

Wholeness is not just about what we want the world to see—it is about the faces we wear and the shadows we carry. The way we dress can become a kind of therapy and an emotional release, an invitation to meet our shadows and embrace them. Fashion holds the power to reflect the complexity of what we keep buried. Some parts of who we are may be too layered or contradictory to put into words. The shadow self is the same: it doesn’t fit neatly into language, either.

Language is an imperfect medium for expressing the shadow, but fashion makes space for what resists articulation. It offers a way to communicate the shadow, maybe even a way to begin to understand it.

The evening deepens on that New York night in February 2023. The cold settles. In this brief moment, staged but no less true, the hidden self steps into view—wrapped in black vinyl, speaking only through symbols. It’s no longer clear who carries whom. The bag becomes her double. A mirror. An echo. Julia Fox is the bag. The bag is Julia Fox. The body bag dangles like a second self—silent, unsettling, and undeniably present.

What parts of yourself do your clothes quietly reveal?