How Dressing Like My Future Self Helped Me Start Writing Again

I was writing In Plain Sight, a book about finding yourself after losing everything, especially the parts you did not know were missing. Then I got stuck.

For weeks, I stood in front of my wardrobe every morning, frozen. Nothing felt right. The words would not come. Neither would the image of the person I thought I was supposed to be. The only clothes I did not have to think about were the green sweatshirt with a worn religious school print and the blue plaid button-up worn open. Pajamas. Soft. Familiar. Unimpressive.

Not the clothes. Not the words. Certainly, not the person wearing them.

I kept reaching for myself and finding nothing but static. So I tried something different. I began to dress as if I already were the version of me I was afraid to become.

Each layer became a small declaration. Each piece shifted my mood, my posture, my belief in what I could make. When I wore my Aztec-pattern button-down, I started without thinking. You can call it crafting a persona, but to me, dressing this way felt more like opening a doorway.

What you wear changes the way you stand, breathe, and carry your story. 

Bruce Springsteen understood that. His clothes were simple: worn denim, plain shirts, boots he could stand in all night. They said, “I am here to work.” That idea opened something in me.

When I dressed in rock and roll pieces, I felt unapologetic again. Live music meant not pulling out my phone. No distractions.

Those styles never demanded perfection. They did not wait for permission. The embroidered earth-tone bands on my denim jacket made it feel earned, and wearing it meant I did not have to prove anything. When I wore it, my chest felt lighter. That’s the feeling I need before I can write. So I stop performing and let the sentence stay rough.

Style is about remembering who you are. When I wore items with symbols or patches, the kind you don’t need to explain, I did not need to justify them. They already felt like mine.

That was when I realized something important. Many artists need a persona before they can trust their own voice. Call it a ritual, a costume, a version of the self you step into. Writers have always done this, not to hide, but to give themselves permission to be unconventional.

Yet most of us have stopped dressing to express ourselves, even though clothing remains one of the last arenas where we can still choose who we want to be. So I started experimenting.

It was late summer. While I was healing my gut, I dressed like a monk: loose linen shirts, muted earth tones, nothing loud or tight against my skin. I ate slowly, in silence, taking a breath before every bite. No phone. No music. Just the plate, the chair, the body. It rewired me. The monk’s wardrobe taught me attention.

When I was sourcing vintage or selling online, I became a dealer. Part outlaw. Part curator. I trusted instinct over algorithms. I could feel when an object was calling out to someone else. My father was an antiquarian. He treated objects like they held memories. Stepping into that role made me feel close to him again.

To break my writer’s block, I dressed like the poet sage. Soft, lived in clothes. A loose linen button-down that did not press against my chest. Fabrics that moved when I breathed.. That version of me noticed everything: cracks in the pavement, the way people speak when they believe no one is listening, the late afternoon light across kitchen tiles. The poet did not try to be clever with words. He tried to be honest. He wrote so someone else would not feel alone.

I did not design these personas. They appeared on their own, a part of my intuition. The outfits became a kind of soft armor.

The monk’s linen shirt made me eat and write with attention. Vintage Red Wings jerseys or worn polos helped me sell with confidence. Dressing like the future self I imagined dark trousers, a structured jacket, clothes that felt intentional but unforced I carried myself with a strange clarity. The more I allowed myself to step into these versions of me, the more I remembered to trust the original.

At first, I thought this was just a shortcut. But over time, it became clear that fashion was teaching me something language could not. The body leads. The mind follows. Nothing here was random. Each persona, each outfit was a doorway back to a piece of myself I had forgotten.

Eventually, I did not need the full costume anymore. Sometimes one familiar layer was enough. Sometimes I wore nothing unconventional at all. One piece was enough to remember what it felt like to inhabit that energy.

Writing is not only about words. It is about self-worth. Once I stepped into a self that felt capable, the words began to return. Not quickly or easily. But each word rang more true.

Some people light candles before they write. I button shirts. The fabric reminds me that self-expression begins with embodiment. Every stitch is a sentence my body already knows how to finish. I could not write, so I started dressing like the man who could. And somewhere along the way, I became him.

Gautam Narang is a writer, curator, and vintage dealer based in Porto, Portugal. His work explores identity, memory, embodiment, and the quiet rituals that shape creative life. He is the founder of Flipeye, a culture-driven vintage project that treats objects as carriers of story rather than commodities. He is currently writing In Plain Sight, a book about returning to self through attention, craft, and lived experience.