Yes, you’ve worked hard on your professional look – from your power suits to your formal dresses. But did you know you can take your image to the next level with the concept of Yin & Yang when it comes to dressing?
Your clothes convey a lot more than what you think. And while it is commonsensical to dress appropriately in different situations, it is extremely empowering to tweak one’s style by applying Yin & Yang concepts to one’s sartorial range.
Yin & Yang may sound like some exotic oriental concept far removed from our lives, but it is a concept of duality derived from Taoism, a branch of Chinese philosophy that states that (almost) everything exists in two opposing but complementary characteristics called Yin & Yang – which together form a whole. Neither Yin nor Yang are absolute, rather they function together to create balance.
The symbol of Yin & Yang is called ‘Taijitu’ which means ‘diagram of the supreme ultimate’. Basically, the Yin & Yang symbol is divided into two halves, each of which contains some elements of both Yin & Yang. For example, the website Personal Tao elaborates this further by stating: “We encounter examples of Yin & Yang every day. As examples: Night (Yin) and day (Yang), female (Yin) and male (Yang). Over thousands of years quite a bit has been sorted and grouped under various Yin & Yang classification systems.” So how does this concept fit your wardrobe? Read on below!
Bell Northrup of Columbia Teacher’s College first introduced the concept of Yin and Yang as applied to personal style in the 1930s. She classified, described and compared a person’s physical, psychological and personality traits as well as design choices and clothing traits.
Here’s a cheat sheet from Imogen Lamport’s ‘Inside Out Style – Easy Style Solutions for Every Woman’ blog that will help you identify which category your clothes fall into:
Yin (Receding) Elements of Outfits: Curved silhouettes, slim lines, horizontal lines, small shapes, low contrast colour combinations, muted colours (think pretty pastels), soft fabrics, lightweight feel, sheer cloth, natural flowing patterns and dense patterns.
Now, if we explore this deeper, we see that Yin elements convey a specific set of messages and impressions. Yin is associated with qualities such as being warm, nurturing, gentle, flexible, subtle, informal and open. So if you want to soften your professional image (let’s say, you are the head of a travel start-up for fun family holidays, and want to endear yourself to your target audience during a TV interview) , you may want to include some Yin elements to your corporate suit (think a soft scarf or a pastel tie).
Yang (Advancing) Elements of Outfits: Straight silhouettes, solid lines, vertical lines, angled shapes, large shapes, bright colours, high contrast colour combinations, crisp, heavyweight fabrics, geometric prints, abstract and large scale prints, thick, shiny, opaque fabrics, repeating patterns. Yang elements are associated with qualities such as being intense, bold, deliberate, decisive, direct, business-like and closed. If your career requires you to be a tough, no-nonsense negotiator, Yang is your vibe.
Personality types that are more Yang are Classic, Dramatic and Rebellious (Think Adele, Oprah, Kajol, Kareena Kapoor, Sushmita Sen, Margaret Thatcher among the women, and Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, George Clooney and PM Narendra Modi among men); while Yin are more Relaxed/Natural, Creative and Feminine (think Lady Diana, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Sonam Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai, Audrey Hepburn in women; and Justin Bieber, Prince William, Rahul Gandhi and Michael Jackson in men). You can read more at style blogger Imogen Lamport’s blog here.
So, how does all this relate to powering up your personal look? Our personalities and clothing styles should and could be either the ‘Yin type’ or the ‘Yang type’ – or more commonly, a harmonious blend of both elements, with one element sometimes dominating the other, depending on what you hope to convey at different situations.
Now, armed with this new information about this interesting concept, take a fresh look at your wardrobe and figure out if you are more Yin or Yang. This new awareness can help you play around with the impressions you want to convey, create a harmonious look and balance out your personality.
