CREDIT: FSU PUBLICATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT

Dopamine dressing seems to be the next big trending in fashion for 2023. Dopamine plays a vital role in the body; as a neurotransmitter your body makes to send messages throughout your nervous system. It plays a role in how we feel, it helps us strive, focus, and find things interesting, like shoes!

Fashion is the new neurotransmitter emitting feel good chemicals throughout the body.

Lauren Bailey, a Fanshawe fashion student said it’s all about feeling good.


“We used to have multiple big trends but now there’s almost like little pockets of trends amongst people,” Bailey said. “Re-purposing things that you may have thought were garbage or lost. It’s all about ‘dopamine dressing,’ things that make you feel good.”

Dressing to please yourself sounds empowering, inspiring individual creativity. According to verywellmind.com, breaking free from your style comfort zone (bye, bye crop top and joggers), can actually trigger a dopamine release. In their article Dopamine Dressing: How to Dress For Your Happiness in 2022, author Lo Styx talks of how the pandemic left us all with a loss of control and how a lot of things that brought us joy were no longer available to us. But we did have our creativity, and we used that on our homes, our hair, and our clothing.

Biz Clarkson, another of Fanshawe’s fashion students, said she’s excited to see how people will bring this home comfort to the real world.

“I’m excited to see elements of home coming into the world,” Clarkson said. “After being in lockdown, the emphasis on home comfort has definitely been pushed forward. We’ve been looking in our closets, digging through them, fixing things. D.I.Y. alterations, dressing for fun. I also know there’s trends coming back from early 2000’s; basically, it’s the 80s coming back, like low rise jeans.”

Another way to infuse good feelings into your fashion is colour. It’s not news that colour enhances mood. Colour therapy or chromotherapy is an actual therapy where colour is used to control ailments, reduce stress and increase confidence. Colours evoke many moods they can invigorate you, calm or even focus your mind. Here are some tips for using colour:

Green: Green is all about healing. It can be used as a monochromatic theme or concentrated in one area. Green is a great colour for balance and connection to the planet itself.

Yellow: This colour signifies wisdom, strength, and confidence.

Red: Red represents fertility/creative prosperity. Red is also great for the circulation. If you’re an anxious person, this not the colour for you.

Blue: Blue is a calming and soothing colour and is great for anyone who has anxiety or a mood disorder.

Dopamine dressing will have the fashion scene seeming somewhat erratic because it is so inherently personal; the looks will be different for everybody. Wearing clothes that make you feel good sounds basic, but is in its own way, pioneering. The goal of 2023 is to not only feel comfortable but to feel electrified, empowered, and energised. There is a saying, “Dress for the job you want.” Perhaps society is starting to dress for the lives they want, the feeling they want and the creativity they want.

As Bailey mentioned previously it’s all about the D.I.Y. Dopamine dressing does not require a whole new wardrobe, and actually discourages “fast fashion” trends of the past.

So for 2023, wear what you like. Your dad’s old suit jacket, your mom’s old prom dress, the sweater that your high school boyfriend gave you and you forgot to return. Wear clothes of cultural significance, like a head scarf, a material with a certain pattern, or wooden shoes. Repeat outfits, change only the shoes, wear the same plaid shirt a couple of times a week. Style a pair of sweats with a cute heel and jean shirt tied around your waist. Whatever works for you — do it.