About four element fashion
In this post, I talk about wearing the four elements in your wardrobe. I call it four element fashion. It is essential for us to perceive clothes as a part of nature. Where and how you perceive your fashion is associated with the Earth's elements. It's a matter of understanding and perceiving your garment’s fabric, design, and silhouettes expressed as the four elements. When we take inspiration from the earth's elements and use it within our wardrobe, we begin to have a four element wardrobe that we love more and more.
Four element fashion is fashion for the mind, body, and spirit. It is a spiritual perspective on fashion and a type of fashion ritual that will awaken your soul. It is a part of living a healthy lifestyle, and it relates to consciousness and enlightenment.
Four element fashion is a part of our lives. When we dress wearing four element fashion, we support the earth by wearing the earth’s elements too through our apparel. When we wear four element fashion we activate the multidimensional human body.
We can dress entirely in one element. We can dress in an element that we are particularly connected to more strongly than others, or we can bring all of the elements together and dress in an outfit that expresses all of the elements of water, fire, air, and earth.
In my book, Healthy Fashion, I talk about the earth's elements: air, fire, water, and earth and how they are connected with our fashion. I talk about how we can dress in the elements for health and healing. A large part of the future of fashion is four element fashion: air, fire, water, and earth in relation to fashion.
Like a part of our wardrobe collections, we should always include fashions that express the Earth's elements. Alchemy occurs when we wear four-element fashion.
Four element fashion and the environment
We have environmental poisons in the earth and universe. When we wear four element fashion, we help support the earth because it is a nature-based solution, and because we have a stronger connection with the earth's elements when we wear four element fashion. Dressing in four element fashion protects the environment and the body too. It is a form of spiritual protection.
If we know that we are wearing the air, fire, water, earth, or one element predominantly, and we think about it while we wear it, this activates four element fashion. For example, it is like a prayer; sometimes we are praying, and we don’t know we are praying, and other times if we pray and we consciously know we are praying, this is going to make prayers stronger because we are conscious of our praying. We already wear four element fashion, and we subconsciously know this, but the four element fashion becomes stronger when we consciously know we are wearing it.
The human body is a mini ecosystem. We are mini-earths or planets. So, we need to mimic the earth and the earth's elements with our own human body's elements and the types of fashion that we wear.
Photo credit: Kei Scampa
Here are a few examples of go-to fashions that represent the four elements:
Water element + jersey fabric
Jersey fabric is stretchy like water and moves like water.
Earth element + structured blazers
Structured blazers are structured in a way that mimics the rocks and the angles of the rocks, which is the earth's element.
Air element + mesh fabrics
Mesh fabrics with all the holes within the weave make the fabric airy, which is associated with the air element.
Fire element + cotton flannel
The cotton thermal fabric is associated with the fire element because of the heat it produces and the body it warms. The body always needs to be slightly warm. This warmth is not just felt—it is the energy of the body that is connected with the ‘violet fire energy.’
Wearing crystals
Another example is crystals. In the concept of feng shui, they are connected with the earth element. They are found underground in the earth's crust. Wearing crystals, jewelry, crushed crystal powder textile pigments, and crystal accessories will connect us with the earth element.
The Zodiac
We can also look to our zodiac sign to see what element we are connected to in regards to space and the cosmos. I am a Scorpio, and Scorpio is a water sign, and I tend to wear stretchy jersey knit fabric, which is associated with the water element because it stretches and moves with the body, similar to the way water stretches when it moves. Jersey knit stretch fabrics can also be associated with the air element as well, because of the way air moves.
Example of wearing both air + water element
Water and air elements have properties that are "wet" and "cold." Fabrics like Tencel Lyocell have a moisturizing feel, and cooling feel to them. So when we wear Tencel, we are wearing air and water elements. We can wear specific fabrics that connect with specific elements. Fabric is just one part of fashion we can use to express and activate the earth's elements. We can also use the seams, silhouette, shape, texture, color, etc.
Symbols can also connect us with the four elements. When we wear these symbols, whether they are printed on a shirt, worn as jewelry, as an accessory, or embroidered on fabric, they are holy, spiritual, and healing, and connect us with the earth’s elements.
Shapes that symbolize the specific element:
Air: ellipse
Fire: triangle, pyramid
Water: circle sphere
Earth: cube, square
Photo Credit: Cotton Bro
In my book, Healthy Fashion, I talk about fashion and the four elements. I have named it "four element fashion". There are different ways that we can analyze our clothes in order to find out what elements we are wearing and which elements we would like to wear in the future based on the design, silhouette, color, shape, texture, and other design details.
Four element fashion is a subject that can be studied and discussed in so many ways. I think it will become a popular future field of study within the fashion industry and fashion education.
Others in the design industry and I will eventually create an analysis to be used in textile and design products so that they can help the industry produce clothing that supports our mind, body, and spirit with four element of fashion. In the fashion design field, we will be using the analysis to find out whether or not they are making elemental fashion that supports our mind, body, and spirit more. There will also be an four element analysis for fashion consumers, and for people’s wardrobes.
Using the four elements, we can connect with our fashion in a variety of ways:
Wear plant-based fibers.
Wear specific colors associated with the four elements or one of the four elements.
Wear specific fabrics that mimic the elements of the earth that you like to connect with or wear all four elements.
Create four element fashion rituals that support your spiritual life.
Connected with the elements of the earth, we practice fashion as a fashion ritual that creates this earth element/human connection.
The human body —the mental, physical, spiritual, energetic, and emotional body— is made up of the four elements. We are already made up of the four elements, and when we wear four element fashion, we are creating a stronger connection with our clothes and creating a second skin that mimics the earth and universe.
When we care for the earth and we perceive our fashion is connected with the earth more and more, we will then care more about our clothing and more about ourselves.
For example, four element fashion feels like you are being in nature. I feel so good when I go to the ocean, desert, or forest. When I visit the energy vortexes and sacred sites around California and states in the Midwest–the places are so beautiful and the energy is so high that I really feel the earth's elements more than usual. What is important is that we choose to use the elements of nature as a form of inspiration for our clothing.
I'm going to be talking about this more in an upcoming post because there is so much to talk about in regard to four-element fashion.
Ultimately, nature is so beautiful, so wear the four elements, or a few of them or one of the elements predominantly, and you will be activating four element fashion in your wardrobe. Continue to add new wardrobe pieces that give you a connection with the earth's elements that is personal to you.
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