Tailored to professionalism

When lockdown was announced, one of the things that kept me going was dressing up every day and sitting down to work, be it attending meetings online or sending emails or talking to my team. Dressing up and being prepared has helped me achieve my goals and have a structure in place even while working from home. It kept me going and feeling better mentally,” shares Mahika.

The right clothes help ease anxiety, lift depression, improve focus, foster ambition, slow anger and achieve calm, feels Deeptha Raghunath, Founder, Aiykya, clothing brand. “We as designers hope to use this framework when designing and putting

together collections, and knowing the psychological

Before the pandemic outbreak, workplace attire underwent a change. Semi-formals and even casual business wear were being adopted. During the pandemic a new ‘partly formal’ trend has become popular, with people opting to pair a part of formal wear with pyjamas.

— Ruchi and Reena Kakralia, Founder and Designer, Baise Gaba

profile of our clients will help them and us too,” she notes. According to psychologist Anuja Kapur, enclothed cognition impacts how we reason. The theory supports the idea that the clothes we wear (or that others are wearing) changes our thought patterns. “Society takes only a split second to judge you based on your attire. On the basis of the uniform worn, you can decide where a person stands in society, what

the individual can afford and what profession he/she belongs to,” she says. Clothing also affects the wearers’ actions, she notes. “Wearing formals gives the businessman a psychological boost. In the same way, the colours of our clothes affect cognition, as different colours send out different messages — yellow flashes happiness and optimism whereas green signals healing and hope,” Anuja explains.

Ruchi and Reena Kakralia, Founder and Designer, Baise Gaba, clothing brand, say, “Before the pandemic outbreak, workplace attire underwent a change. Semi-formals and even casual business wear were being adopted. During the pandemic a new ‘partly formal’ trend has become popular, with people opting to pair a part of formal wear with pyjamas. And during festivals, people went the whole way, complete with hair-dos and accessories. At Baise Gaba, we saw an increase in the demand for comfortable yet stylish ethnic wear for different occasions in 2020,” they say, adding that this trend is reflected in upcoming collections.