Fashion as a drug: Consuming identity in the age of capitalism

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak 

“Why do you not dress like a teacher, lecturer, or professor?” a well-meaning colleague once asked me. She was someone who believed in dressing appropriately for different occasions. She pressed her point further: “Dressing well does not diminish your communist praxis. Stop dressing like a drug addict.”

My reply was simple. A teacher should dress like their students and fellow staff members. Any form of dressing beyond the basic need to cover the body and signify a professional role can become a marker of identity, signalling power and privilege in a space where many students struggle to pay their fees and staff members struggle to pay their mortgages.

Yet this is not merely a question about clothes. It is about an obsession cultivated by the gig economy of glamour, where desire overrides necessity and dressing becomes a ritual through which individuals are domesticated in the name of being “presentable” or possessing an “acceptable sense of style.” Today, people own more clothes than they can ever wear. Many garments remain untouched, with price tags still attached, filling wardrobes, storage boxes, and garages. Clothing has become a means of constructing identity, a form of material self-expression built upon the outer layers of the body.

What should one wear? When should one wear it? How should it be worn? What is considered presentable and what is not? What is professional and unprofessional? What counts as smart dressing or attractive dressing? What is beauty? These are not trivial questions. They shape everyday behaviour and influence how individuals present themselves to others. They determine how people are perceived across different spaces, times, and social situations.

From school uniforms to wedding attire, from funeral dress to corporate boardroom clothing, from graduation gowns to party wear, from black-tie dinners to casual dates, from clubbing outfits to holiday wardrobes, from sportswear to nightwear, and even clothing for the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, dress codes govern almost every sphere of life. Any departure from these norms often invites judgement and can result in individuals being labelled unconventional, inappropriate, or even deviant.

The idea of dress, fashion, and personal style appears entirely normal in everyday life, regardless of gender, sexuality, class, caste, race, nationality, ethnicity, or region. Clothing is routinely associated with religion, culture, social class, gender identity, sexuality, and countless other forms of representation. Professional dress codes exist for doctors, nurses, lawyers, judges, priests, managers, and workers alike.

Yet the normalisation of fashion as an essential part of life is a relatively recent phenomenon. People have been socialised into modern fashion culture largely within the last three centuries. With the rise of the fashion industry, clothing was transformed from a necessity into a desire. Fashion evolved from serving comfort to promoting luxury, from accommodating diverse body types to driving fast-fashion consumption, from celebrating individuality to imposing ever-changing standards of appearance. In this sense, fashion functions like a drug. It creates a culture in which people search for their identity in shopping bags and measure their self-worth through corporate price tags.

This construction of self-worth through material possessions echoes the concept of the “material self” developed by psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology. He argued that a person's self consists not only of their body and mental capacities but also of what they can call their own, including their clothes and their house. Such a conception has played a significant role in shaping modern understandings of identity through consumption. The fashion industry thrives on this notion, encouraging individuals to express themselves through commodities and equating personal value with material ownership.

Much as tobacco consumption was once normalised in the name of sophistication, freedom, or empowerment, fashion has been naturalised under the banners of self-expression and individuality. Tobacco and fashion are different products, yet both stimulate desires that transform necessities into commodities. Both encourage people to seek fulfilment through consumption. The result is often a cycle of dependency in which individuals search for meaning and recognition in the marketplace of commodities. Instead of people defining the value of things, things begin to define the value of people.

The commodification of life lies at the heart of capitalism as a social, cultural, political, and economic system. Commodities promise self-expression, fulfilment, and identity, yet often deliver alienation. Whether expressed through luxury brands, religious fashion, or lifestyle trends, consumption alone cannot provide genuine freedom or self-realisation. Human fulfilment emerges from meaningful social relationships, solidarity, creativity, and collective well-being rather than from competitive displays of consumption.

The fashion industry's promise of self-expression is therefore deeply contradictory. What appears to be individuality is often conformity to market-driven standards. Fashion does not simply reflect identity; it actively shapes and disciplines it according to commercial interests. Through advertising, branding, and social pressure, individuals are encouraged to present themselves in ways that serve the needs of the market rather than their own authentic aspirations.

People should wear what they like and what makes them comfortable, taking into account climate, culture, tradition, and personal preference. But they should do so without falling into the trap of equating identity with consumption. Covering the body should not require hiding one's natural individuality beneath layers of manufactured desires. The challenge is to resist a culture in which people search for themselves in shopping bags and allow their worth to be measured by price tags. Genuine self-expression lies not in submission to fashion's dictates but in the freedom to define oneself beyond the marketplace.