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This study was aimed at investing the mechanism and relationship between identity formation and environment by looking at the changes in one’s clothes. The subject of the research is the author itself, and in order to pursue the analysis, I used about 870 pictures taken during my stay in Canada, from August in 2007 to next April. I paid attention to the information about clothes, especially about the colors, the level of revealing clothes and the patterns contained in the clothes. Then I made some figures to observe the changes objectively. For making the figures, I arranged photos in the time sequence, and divided them into three situations: in everyday life, in party scenes and in travelling. In each informational section, I found some turning points that caused changes in the clothes. The results showed some facts, for example, I started to new type of clothes that I had never had before from the middle of the October.
Based on the facts, I analyzed the mechanism of identity formation applying the theories from Frame Analysis, which was suggested by Erving Goffman. Frame Analysis is the method to understand how people should act referring to the idea of framework that rules people’s act. In his theory, Goffman insisted that people behave in accordance with the situations which people are placed at, and the pile of behavior creates one’s identity. The advantage of consulting the theories from Frame Analysis is that I could regard the situations as the environment or atmosphere, and therefore, it would be a great help to discover the relation between the environment and my behavior to chose and to wear clothes.
Some people might have question why I focused on the data of the clothes to estimate the identity formation. That’s because clothes bring us very visible data. In everyday life, it is necessary for us to socialize with many people. We meet them, talk to them, and work with them, and sometimes we just look at them randomly. We are living in the world which is full of interactions with many people. In this world, what is the important point to make the first impression? Human beings process all information mostly by getting the visible information, so that we often recognize or judge people by observing what they wear. In other words, clothes can decide the owner’s image for others. Clothes are the one of the simplest ways to show people’s identity and also the ways to understand what kind of people they are. |