How unhappy women behave when shopping

I came to psychology from stylistics. At one time, I was very interested in what prevents women from changing their appearance, even if they really want it in words. And they even come for paid consultations or training groups to learn how to create their own style, understand their inner world, aspirations at a certain stage of life, goals.

I wanted as many of my clients and students as possible to not only receive knowledge, but to be able to transfer it into their lives. So I started studying psychology. The hobby grew into a profession. But, already being a psychologist, I do not abandon stylistics, I continue to practice. And these are the observations I want to share with you.

Over the course of 3–5 years, I began to notice that many of the clients who, during the course of cooperation, resisted changes, sabotaged proposals, set themselves prohibitions from wearing something, and after some time found themselves divorced or with a similar personal drama. I began to wonder if there was a connection here. And I want to share one of the hypotheses.

Having accumulated the practice of individual shopping with clients, I can, with a high probability, predict the favorable or unfavorable background of her current personal relationships by the way a person chooses clothes, how she reacts to offers to try something new, how she feels about price, quality and other characteristics. . Even if a person doesn’t say anything about himself, he keeps his face. And if he talks about himself and his family, then not all clients share their problems; they came to change clothes = “for a new life,” and not to cry about what they have.

As a stylist, I work mainly with middle-aged women, approximately in the range of 35–50 years. This generation of women is strongly oriented in assessing their own attractiveness to the opinion of men, and especially the main man in life. Often, as a request, I receive parting words from men. Of course, there are a few women who rely on themselves and have stable self-esteem, regardless of the presence, absence, or quality of personal relationships, but they come to the stylist much less often (I can write about this separately).

Women with a successful personal background when shopping are usually balanced, friendly, and calmly say “yes” or “no” to offers to buy this or that item. The psychologist always pays attention to his feelings around the client — next to such women you think only about work, construct an image, are in the act of creation and do not catch yourself feeling that the client is dissatisfied, upset, nervous, doubtful.

I believe the reasons for this are as follows.

1. Feeling loved and accepted by her partner, a woman is not afraid of experiments and is potentially ready for both a successful contact with a stylist and the fact that the specialist may not approach her, may not feel her, or may not create the desired image. The client understands this and takes part of the responsibility upon herself, so she contacts the stylist calmly, without unnecessary expectations, and therefore, as a rule, the result is good or excellent.
2. Being happy in a relationship, a woman does not perceive working with a stylist as “hit or miss”; she does not rely on it as the last chance to change her life by changing her appearance. Hence, an adequate attitude towards external changes — only as part of one’s identity, without dramatic exaggeration of the significance of the fact of good appearance.
3. A woman who feels confident is ready for the fact that she may not look perfect, and therefore does not express neurotic reactions to the quality of clothing, for example, or other parameters. She will calmly say that she wants to buy higher quality clothing in stores and we will move there. A wounded woman perceives the mass market as an insult to herself, regardless of her own purchasing power.

On the contrary, a woman who does not feel supported in a relationship, who is in anxiety and doubt about her value for her beloved man, behaves differently when shopping:

1. A woman transfers her doubts about herself to specific samples of clothing, to her assessment of stores, brands, features of cut, color, to the personalities of sellers and the stylist himself. It is obvious that doubts about one’s attractiveness and desirability for a partner seem to infect all areas around a woman.
2. In such difficult periods of life, it is difficult to dress a woman. Because due to her inner anxiety, she cannot be satisfied with almost anything. Even perfectly fitting, fashionable, best-priced clothes don’t seem like that to her. There is no trust in yourself, or in life, or in the stylist, or in the clothes. I want to say right away that this characteristic is quite flexible. With the restoration of a woman’s emotional background and her self-esteem (for example, a new partner has appeared or relationships with the previous one have improved), the same woman often becomes responsive to suggestions and easily trusts the stylist’s gaze, buying successful things quickly, confidently and with gratitude.
3. An emotionally dependent woman in a relationship often relies not on her taste and the taste of the stylist, but on the expectations of her partner. Hence the desire to wear something that is overly sexy and classically understandable. Or, conversely, modestly hidden, not attracting male attention. Moreover, the more intense the relationship in a couple at the time of shopping, the more pickily the woman tests the proposed samples for compliance with these qualities. There is an attempt by all means to meet the expectations of the elusive man, to preserve him. Such a woman dresses primarily for a man, and not for herself.

In the course of the work, I came to the conclusion that such women need to be provided with comprehensive assistance. Before shopping, test for readiness for change, diagnose the emotional background, collect anamnesis, including family life, and carefully understand the client’s motivations for changing clothes. If problems are identified, it is proposed to carry out work to correct these problems before creating a new wardrobe, and only after that begin to correct the external image.