We find our clothes, our clothes find us: they save us from being lost. At home in dress, we enjoy its touch, its crispness, smoothness, softness, texture, its feel on the skin it fits: these pleasures serving the larger pleasure of being at last, or hoping we are, our more glamorous and more potent self. In dressing we enter an inheritance, which may include a new self, which we feel to be a ‘true’ self, revealed or rather realized by the donning of these good clothes.
From Men in Black by John Harvey (U of Chicago Press, 1996)
I found this on the trusty Dress a Day blog and was struck by the first line. My hobby doesn’t just keep me from talking to the houseplants and serve as a substitute for a social life; it’s profound, too.