Creating a More Ideal Self Through the Use of Clothing

Abstract

Using an exploratory approach, the current study, theoretically grounded in the self-discrepancy theory, investigated a woman’s perceptions of her body shape. The purpose was to understand how garments created with optical illusion prints or patterns affect women’s perceptions of body shape. Fifteen women were body scanned to determine their body shape and participated in an in-depth semistructured interview while viewing a personalized avatar (created from their body scan) depicted in the seven different optical illusion garments created by the researcher. Data analysis revealed six themes: (1) perception of self, (2) clothing and the body, (3) defining ideals, (4) preferences by body shape category, (5) effects of wearing optical illusions, and (6) a more ideal self. The results from this study indicated that optical illusion garments do effect the visual perception of body shape and can result in the perception of a more ideal body shape.