Why do we stop being ourselves in September?

Returning from vacation does not just mean resuming schedules, routines, or obligations, but also recovering a much more serious, prudent, and restrained way of dressing. During the holidays we allowed ourselves to wear bright Hawaiian shirts, show off loose hippie dresses, wear shorts all day long, or go in a bikini and sarong to buy an ice cream at the beach bar. Through clothing, we experience a pleasant sense of freedom and comfort that we rarely enjoy during the rest of the year. But why does all of this end in September?Now it is time to make an appointment at the hair salon urgently. If until now we haven't worried that the hair dye color was a total mess, upon setting foot on solid ground it becomes an unavoidable priority to recover the brown shade of number 4.0 before our colleagues see us. Also, the thin-strap tank tops or minishorts are over: the body becomes more gaunt and now it is time to cover it with fabric again. And if our feet have enjoyed almost absolute freedom thanks to flip-flops, now they must be covered and put back in order. Even Crocs have allowed us to enjoy the comfort of putting on and taking off our shoes without even bending over. But now the laces return to contain our feet and, with them, a small example of the bodily discipline that runs through us during the year.

Open shirts that reveal chest hair and faded t-shirts from some promotional gift give way to the formality that working life demands. During the holidays, we can tolerate wrinkled clothes. A rumpled linen shirt is almost the very image of summer. But September arrives and the iron returns: we must smooth out our clothes to get back in order. The office worker returns to the tailored suit and the supermarket worker to the corporate uniform. Two sides of the same sartorial coin, since these are garments destined to enhance the productivity and discipline of our bodies. Clothes that do not equalize in a democratic sense, but rather fuse us with the job and turn us into one more piece of the labor machinery. Wearing a floral shirt now would give the feeling that we are not focused, that we have not yet accepted what is now expected: to work. But, really, were we so free during the holidays?In relation to others

We can live with the false illusion that, while during the year we dress thinking about others and subjected to more solid protocol requirements and more marked norms, during the summer we find an oasis in which we can be ourselves. But the truth is that we always dress in relation to others. And this fact does not change during the holidays. The only things that change are the people in front of whom we dress and the social spaces in which we must represent ourselves. We always dress thinking about receivers who, in holiday times, also demand a certain image from us: that of hedonistic enjoyment. What is required is to be free, to relax, and to have a good time. And this is also what we must transmit through our clothes. Vacations have their own dress codes, as demanding as any other context, even if they lean towards being more comfortable or pleasant for us. Furthermore, let us not forget that it is during the summer when exposed bodies are subjected to some of the highest demands of the year: hair removal, tanning, slimness, toning... Or would anyone dare to categorize as a space of freedom the bikini operation, during which we prepare our bodies with strict diets and gym work just so that, in swimwear, they obtain the approval of others? In any case, welcome back to the routine and the discipline of the bodies, from which, all things considered, we have not rested even during vacation.