There’s nothing like being nose-deep in bae’s hoodie. Sip...sip...sip... You hungrily fill your lungs with the remnants of their scent, a lust-inducing cocktail of fragrance, pheromones, and a touch of BO (but you love it because it’s their BO). You wear it out like a secret prize, an artifact of your lover’s that you’re entrusted with. They’re attached to your person all day, as an alternative for when they can’t hold your hand. Threads play a special but quiet role in relationships and connect two people in visceral ways. 

“It feels like you're hugging your partner when you’re wearing something of theirs,” says Your Mag’s Eloisa de Farias ‘21 of her relationship with Julia Smith ‘22. “I always ask for a sweater if we aren’t going to see each other for a while so that I can hold onto it at night when I miss them.”

Especially in circumstances of distance, Faith Bugenhagen ‘22 agrees that clothing can draw you closer to your person. “He spent this past summer in Houston, and every time it got a little hard, I would throw on this sweatshirt,” she says. “I’m the same way with articles of clothing from my parent’s youth. It’s so comforting to feel like I’m carrying aspects of the people I love with me throughout the day.” 

Sharing tokens keep lovers at the forefront of each other’s minds, and closet-stealing becomes a practice that reflects a level of comfortability within the relationship, but also a desire to inhabit an energy or style that you associate your affection with. 

De Farias and Smith, both inherent lovers of fashion as a connection point in their relationship, dip into each other’s wardrobe all the time, where they’re so mixed in that they forget which items need to be returned. Refusing to return an ex’s item is another method of holding on to someone, à la Taylor Swift’s infamous scarf swiped by Jake Gyllenhaal. She writes in “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version):” “You keep my old scarf from that very first week, ‘cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me. You can't get rid of it, ‘cause you remember it all too well.” Some of us will store those hoodies—or even stray socks—safely and secretly in the back of our closets because getting rid of them means discarding the person as well.

Others are eager to rid their closet of a broken connection, like Bugenhagen. “I threw his sweatshirt away,” Bugenhagen says of her ex. “To put it lightly, I would feel like I was outside of my own skin if I ever wore something he gave me or I adopted from him. He is not someone I want to carry with me.”

Wearing something that belongs to someone else’s person and presentation is an intimate exchange. It can reflect not only each partner’s identity, but also their bond and trust. “He borrowed my dad’s jean jacket from the ‘80s, my prized possession,” Bugenhagen says of her current boyfriend. “I became obsessed with how he looked in it, so I had to let him have it—for now.” 

She says “couple style” should be less of a collective identity, and more of an individual complement to each other, even if they’re matching or sharing. “It’s more us picking out parts of each other’s style we love and less so becoming each other’s aesthetics,” Bugenhagen says.

De Farias and Smith style the same pieces differently or different pieces similarly. “If we want to, for example, go for an all-white outfit, I’ll do it my way, and she’ll do it in hers. We have a couple matching accessories that we wear together sometimes, like our Saint Laurent locks we bought in Paris,” de Farias says.

It’s true that some couples unintentionally start to look alike after enough time. “He may kill me for this,” Bugenhagen laughs, “He often dresses to match my color palette. He is very into his style and dresses like himself, like me, so I think he figured color is where we could connect.” Occasionally, their innate telepathy causes unplanned identical outfits. 

“Since Julia and I started dating, we’ve definitely helped each other find ourselves clothing-wise and became more confident with our style,” de Farias says. “We like to feel confident together, so that’s always something we try to achieve with what we wear.”

Similarly, Bugenhagen reflects, “Our personal tastes are so different, but at the same time, they are not. He has taught me that it’s okay to expand my style, and to be comfortable in my own skin and self-expression.”