The concept of vacation clothes has become unavoidable in my life as of late. In April this year, I uprooted my entire life and moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, to New Zealand. I found a job working at a luxury clothing store in Queenstown, the most touristy city in the entire country. Because of the high volume of visitors, both in my job and in this town, I’ve reflected on past vacations (or holidays, as they’re called here) and how I’ve dressed.
I see people every day who are willing to spend a lot of money on extravagant clothes. At first, I thought these people were just rich, so spending a few hundred (or thousand) NZD might not feel like a big deal. After talking to my coworkers, however, I realized that while yes, these people are likely wealthy, they’re also willing to spend a bit more because they’re on vacation.
This led me to reflect on how I act and dress when I’m traveling versus when I’m at home. I specifically pondered this in the context of my last international vacation to Turkey, which I wrote about briefly in this article about international shopping habits (spoiler alert: I loved it).
There is something unique about being on vacation that grants us a social permission slip. Vacation clothes, I noticed, are like a socially approved costume: one that you can wear any time of year, not just on Halloween. There is a chasm between who we dress as on vacation and who we are at home. From a psychological perspective, it provides an interesting reflection on our everyday self-expression and the gulf between who we are and who we want to be.
On Vacation, We Dress Like Someone Else
Think about the last time you packed clothes for a trip. Perhaps you looked at your closet and decided you needed to buy something new, or possibly you left behind things you wear all the time at home in favor of things you rarely wear.
My question is, why do we do this? In theory, shouldn’t we bring what we normally wear? Yes, you probably researched the weather and what you’ll need for the activities you want to do, and bought some new things accordingly. But that doesn’t explain why most people, when packing for a vacation, bring at least one thing they wouldn’t ordinarily wear. That might be something bolder, looser, tighter, more expensive, or something unexpected.
For example, before I left for Turkey, I bought some colorful new tops – one strapless, which I never opt for normally, and others were more vibrant than my typically neutral color palette. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it besides how fun it would be to wear them while walking around Istanbul in the warm sun or the Turkish Riviera after a drink.
The gap between what we wear during our typical lives at home and what we bring on vacation is where things get psychologically interesting, though.
Why Vacation Clothes Work: Enclothed Cognition
What is it about clothes that influences behavior? Is it the act of wearing the clothes, the feel of the fabrics on your skin, the excitement of purchasing something new, or something else altogether? In 2012, a research duo from Northwestern University and Columbia University pursued that very question and ended up introducing a brand-new term in the process.
In the paper, they argued that clothes influence the wearer’s psychological processes through “the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them.” They dubbed this new theory enclothed cognition, and it can help us understand the unique nature of vacation clothes.
With this in mind, we can see that your vacation outfit isn’t just comfortable or trendy – it also has a symbolic meaning. This could be relaxation, vacation, freedom, adventure, or simply a version of yourself that isn’t a slave to Microsoft Teams (been there). When you put on your colorful strapless top, you’re changing your appearance, yes, but you’re also changing a part of yourself.
A key part of the 2012 study was that simply seeing clothes isn’t enough for enclothed cognition to occur. In Experiments 2 and 3 of the study, they had some people wear a lab coat, and some see it, and the only significant behavioral change occurred in the condition when people got to wear the coat. Thus, buying vacation clothes and then wearing them does something that planning what to wear doesn’t.
Enclothed cognition explains the internal, psychological shift, but vacation clothes do something external, too. They are distinct from other clothes we wear (say, a work uniform or exercise clothes), and this is what creates the social permission slip dynamic I proposed at the start.
The Permission Slip Dynamic of Vacation Clothes
Have you ever read the book “People We Meet on Vacation”? (It’s now a movie, too.) It does a beautiful job of explaining what is so unique about vacation clothes: on vacation, nobody knows you. They don’t know whether you’re being true to who you are, if you’re pretending to be a couple (which, spoiler, they do at least once in the book), or if you’re wearing clothes that you wouldn’t be caught dead in during your normal life.
Traveling gives you the chance to be anybody. Do you want to try out a new aesthetic? Go for it! Everyone you meet while on vacation is a blank slate, giving you the social permission slip you need to become a new person (at least while you’re away).
What can help us understand this “permission slip” dynamic of vacation clothes is to look backwards: how do we act and dress at home? What social limitations do we experience there?
Vacation Is Freedom From Impression Management
One reason we feel so free to express ourselves when we’re on vacation is because of the absence of expectations from our friends, family, and community. The people around us have expectations about who we are, and expect us to be consistent with the impression they’ve formed of us. In 1956, sociologist Erving Goffman wrote about this concept in his book, “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.”
He described how much of socializing is about facilitating positive interactions that align with expectations. Impression management, he argues, is rooted in communication – but not just verbal communication. It’s also how you act and dress; he even refers to clothes as props. Therefore, clothes can be used to help you convey a certain impression to the people you talk to.
Impression management explains why people might raise eyebrows if we start dressing outside of the expectations others have for us. When we’re traveling, there’s nobody to give us a scrutinizing eye or say, “You don’t normally dress like that!” The anonymity we experience on vacation frees us from judgment and our own dressing routine.
The Theory of Possible Selves… While Wearing Vacation Clothes
On vacation, where those expectations disappear, we start dressing for who we want to become, not who we’ve already been. Psychologists Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius, in their 1986 paper, called these aspirational versions of ourselves “possible selves.”
These possible selves are future-oriented identities that function as incentives for behavior. Stemming from self-knowledge, these selves are usually based on past experiences (what we’ve done, where we come from, etc). They are cognitive representations of fantasies, worries, or aspirations about ourselves.
The theory of possible selves has its most practical applications in therapy, which this research article explores; however, it is not limited to that domain. In the context of vacation clothes, the theory can help explain the aspirational nature of the bold prints or the bright colors that you would wear while traveling, but not necessarily at home. Thus, your holiday wardrobe might be the closest thing to a possible self that you could wear.
What Happens To Your Vacation Clothes When You Get Home
When I was in Turkey, I wore my most flowery and vibrant clothes while at the Turkish Riviera. They were perfect for our sunset cruise along the Aegean Sea and getting a nice dinner. They matched the fun, sunny aesthetic of the region and the spirit of adventure I had along the way. Once I got home, though, I found myself wearing those clothes less and less. I was able to wear one top during a tropical-themed party (it was perfect), but other than that, they didn’t really match the vibe for Charlotte, North Carolina.
This happens often: once we get home, there often isn’t a major place in our lives for the vacation clothes we wore. We may even end up selling them on a secondhand market (which I wrote about recently!). The vacation clothes themselves didn’t change: it was the context in which we wore them. As we learned, enclothed cognition works because of the symbolic meaning of these clothes, and also because the symbol only works when the surrounding environment supports it. At home, the clothes may end up feeling costumey – case in point is wearing my floral top for a tropical party back home, whereas I wore it during a nice night out in Turkey.
If your vacation self feels freer, more expressive, and more confident, what does it say that you can only access that part of yourself when you’re anonymous in a new place? The gap between your vacation clothes and your home wardrobe isn’t simply a result of packing habits or varying activities, though that’s part of it.
Instead, this gap is a data point about our everyday self-expression, and the extent to which it’s shaped by other people’s – and our own – expectations.
As we part, I leave you with this question: what would it feel like to dress at home the way you dress on vacation?
You can see more about what I’m up to on my travel Instagram page, if you’re interested. I also write about it on my travel Substack, but I don’t update that very often.
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