Monkey see, Monkey do, Monkey dress
Dopamine dressing this, expressive dressing that — but what happens when somebody doesn’t actually know how they’re feeling? (And no, “busy” is not an emotion.)
In an era of perpetual social content and ideological pacification, the desire to articulate one’s inner life through clothes gets lost in translation. Dressing stops being a language and starts becoming an echo. Everyone looks how everyone else feels—or at least how they think they’re supposed to feel. In regions plagued by homogenous dressing, where standing out feels less like self-expression and more like social sabotage, individuality becomes a liability. Non-constructive scrutiny is the dress code.
Which brings me to the new year, where I found myself deeply fatigued by the vanilla insistence of “dopamine dressing” while living in a lavishly monotonous ecosystem. Here, the dopamine in question is suspiciously (yet unsurprisingly) uniform: high gloss, logo-forward, and often lacking the kind of visual depth that only comes from having taken the scenic route in life; the long, messy way around that leaves a true mark.
I had to ask myself: does the apparent lack of individual dopamine drivers make these claims less valid? Or — worse — am I just being an overly critical prick? Is it unfair to cringe (to the second knuckle, no less) at such confident proclamations? And yet, how is it that so many people supposedly tapping into their “joy” all arrive in the exact same outfit?
How does everyone insist they’re leading an imaginary pack while marching in perfect formation, clutching a fabricated sense of individualism like a Birkin?
Maybe it’s because all we really know is work, 45-minute traffic jams, and Instagram posts. In a city defined by Labubus on Birkins, dinners at Cipriani, and over-shot branded “experiences,” is it no surprise that thinking outside the box feels exhausting, and feeling against the current feels downright irresponsible.
So, we sink. Quietly. Into a pit of aesthetic complacency and a replicable visual identity.
Nobody seems convinced by what they’re wearing. There’s no conviction, no standing ten-toes-down on the experience curated onto one’s body — just prestigious logos standing in for personality. It’s monkey see, monkey do.
But does monkey feel? Does monkey know? Does monkey understand?
What lingers beneath it all is the fear of experiencing shame through not satisfying the entire room with a look you love; the prevailing emotion of modern dressing. You cannot do too little, but you definitely cannot do too much, especially if it provokes anything other than high-fashion drool from spectators. The dominance in those who get to define the trends has let us forget that style and fashion are not one and the same. One is bought; the other is built.
Style is developed through a life well-lived; awkward phases, poor decisions, cultural detours, and personal nuance. Fashion, on the other hand, can be acquired through sanitized perspectives that gain credibility by parading department stores with a limit less credit card and refusing to take public transport.
Once upon a time, dopamine dressing was not a slogan — it was an unspoken language shared among those with an organic affinity for contrast, texture, and movement. It came naturally.
Unexplained. Unfiltered. Unabashed. (Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s desperate assimilation.)
But in an age where simply being feels insufficient, every stylistic instinct must now be compartmentalized into a “core.” Suddenly, everyone wants a slice of the cake, even if they don’t know how to whisk, preheat the oven, or bake. Words blur, terminology collapses, and once something enters the public domain and communal zeitgeist, it loses meaning, sanctity, and edge.
Which is how we find ourselves fully absorbed into the machine.
Not even a cog, but more so an obsolete understudy or appendix. Life experiences, pain, subcultures, and friction — the things that once shaped robust identities — are swapped out for fleeting trends that can be picked up, worn, and discarded with minimal emotional investment.
The result? Stale references. Rock-bottom fashion literacy. And an all-time high desire to stand out — while still dressing for approval and acceptance from those who could not keep up in conversation with you.
My answer? Stop thinking. Start feeling. Many have begun to equate branded pieces with unwavering style. And while the two can coexist with nuance, they are increasingly (and falsely) treated as interchangeable, especially in hyper-visible metropolitan circles like Dubai. Go against the curve. Swim uphill. After all, that’s how the adaptable of fish migrate to better places, and better phases.
Maybe the real dopamine isn’t in the dress at all, but in having something —anything — to say. But for some, maybe the dopamine is the friends we made along the way.
Words by Karam Arar.
