expression
As well as protecting us and helping regulate temperature clothes manipulate the way others see us and how they treat us.
Their design, build, materials, patterns and colours sculpt how we feel, the way we see ourselves, and even how we behave.
Different fibres and weaves wear and feel differently. Synthetic fabrics feel different to ones made from natural fibres.
Clothes can liberate or they can be shrouds.
colours
Fabric designers used to design their own palette. Now they choose from colour palettes created by big chemical companies seasons beforehand. And generally they are industrial colours – designed to go together – but not usually in harmony with the colours of nature. They match the colours of the buildings, furnishings and cars that come from the same palettes.
Natural colours can be inspiring and invigorating. They echo and play tag with with other colours in the natural world.
Hundreds of colours used to be in our language along with where they could be worn, who could wear them, what other colours they could go with and what they meant. They were closer to the colours found in nature. This knowledge has been pretty much lost to industrialised societies.
restriction
Clothes can be light, heavy, flexible or restricting. They can limit our range of movement.
Shoes are the most obvious example of the dangers of restrictive clothing. Most foot problems arise from restrictive shoes. These feet prisons can immobilise and deform feet and unbalance or restrict movement in the rest of the body leading to global changes including spinal deformation.
Feet exist in the brain as well as at the end of the legs. A large proportion of the motor and sensory cortex is devoted to them.
Hundreds of components in the feet are capable of intricate articulation and are limited by shoes. If the feet are restricted the corresponding parts of the brain are silent. Stimulation and feedback between parts of the mind and body are shut down. Our connection with ourselves and the world is limited. A type of partial lobotomy.
The best shoes are no shoes where possible. There is evidence of less damage to knees and other joints. Barefoot, all of the feet and ankles can move as they are designed to and the rest of the body can fully integrate into balance and movement.