Fashioning Healing: How Style Became My Mental Health Language

written by: Kela Stubbs

Myself being stylish as ever

Hey y'all. As July comes to a close, it's worth reflecting on National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, a commemoration founded by the late author Bebe Moore Campbell to spotlight mental health needs in communities of color. Throughout this month and beyond, I've been thinking about how Black communities have found some incredibly creative ways to deal with mental health that go way beyond typical awareness campaigns. Fashion has become this unexpectedly powerful way to express our struggles and resilience, and honestly, it's something I live every single day.

Let me be real with you, dressing nice has always been my automatic default. Growing up, it was just how we moved in my family. My mother was that way, my sister, my brother - we all have our own personal sense of style, and we've just been ones to put that shit on. But as I've gotten older, I've realized how much deeper this goes than just looking fly.

When I get dressed, I create looks that really bring out my creative, quirky personality the one I've been told was "too much." And honestly? If I'm too much, go find less. My clothing helps express that, especially on days when I'm too overwhelmed to really showcase my personality any other way. My clothes do the talking for me.

Some days, getting dressed is the only thing that reminds me I'm still here. Still in my body. Still holding onto myself when everything else feels like it's slipping. My mental health doesn't always look like tears or silence. Sometimes it looks like a red lip on an exhausted face. A leather trench thrown over a swollen heart. I've learned how to style my anxiety. How to wrap grief in vintage denim. How to show up in color when the world feels gray.

People see the photos and assume I'm confident. They don't realize that some of my best looks came from me needing to feel something, anything other than overwhelmed. I use clothes the way some people use affirmations or playlists. What I wear is a mood stabilizer, an energy shift, a silent prayer. When I feel chaotic inside, I anchor myself with structure: a tailored blazer, a clean silhouette, gold hoops that remind me I'm still a woman worth adorning. Style helps me return to myself without having to explain anything.

I've never had the luxury of falling apart in public. So I dress like I belong everywhere, even on the days I feel like I don't belong to myself. My closet is my language for feelings I can't speak out loud. I know exactly what version of me each outfit brings forward. Soft. Sharp. Playful. Protected. There's power in that kind of self-awareness. Especially when you're used to being misunderstood.

My mental health lives quietly under the surface of every look. I don't always talk about it, but you can see it in how thoughtfully I pull things together, in the small touches that matter, in my refusal to disappear even when my spirit feels heavy. Fashion gives me language when I don't have the words—and that's saved me more times than I can count.

This whole thing runs deep in our culture. We've always used our creativity through clothes, art, music, and dance to say what we couldn't say with words. Especially when times got hard. Today, we're still doing the same thing, just using style to show our mental health journeys and how we're healing.

I see it everywhere in my community. People showing up as their best selves because for so long, we've been told to dim our light. So we rebel by showcasing ourselves through our creativity, our style. We're proving we're worthy of taking up space just by existing. We don't need to make ourselves smaller because other people don't see our worth. Our style shines a light on that truth.

Fashion conversations around mental health have shifted to this place where we finally feel valid. Your clothes are your second skin, and how you dress reflects how you feel. Those days of putting on something fly genuinely boost your mood - that dopamine dressing is real. It helps mask how you're feeling sometimes, but it also lifts you up because once you leave the house, even if you don't feel your best, somebody's going to compliment you. That boosts everything - dopamine levels, confidence levels.

Fashion is self-care, period. When you take the time to get dressed and look fly, do your hair, do your makeup, take that extra step to showcase your expression - it matters. It feels good. It really makes you feel like everything is worth that moment. When I step out, I'm like a mini celebrity. People are in awe of how I look because I take the time to express myself.

And here's the thing, it's for me not for other people's gaze. When I was younger, I used to dress for the male gaze because I was told you gotta look good for guys. But since I've freed myself from that mindset, I dress even better than I used to. I'm always fly because it's about me. It's about what makes me feel good. That's one thing I'll never compromise - my style for the sake of somebody else's comfort.

I've been told, "You're doing too much. It's not that serious. You don't gotta be extra." Extra? Extra for who? This is who I am. This is part of my personality. It's effortless for me to get dressed, to turn around and put something together that comes out fly. I don't overthink my style.

Once I really started loving myself and understanding that my self-love includes taking care of me from head to toe, it changed how I approached everything. I stepped up my style game, my fashion, my closet. I became intentional about my wardrobe because I realized this was part of proving to myself that I'm worthy, that I'm enough exactly as I am.

Turns out, I'm not the only one figuring this out. There are other people in our community who've been on similar journeys, using fashion to work through their mental health stuff too.

Tamika Watson-Her Love Clothing.

Like Tamika Watson who started Her Love Clothing. She went through depression and PTSD, and she talks about how dressing up became her way of holding onto herself. "I may be fat and ugly, but I can dress," she would tell herself. That really hits home for me because I get using clothes as support when everything else feels shaky. Her whole brand came out of that experience, and now she's promoting self-love for other women with the motto "Loving the HER that is You."

Then there's this young designer Abiola Agoro who found sewing during college when she was dealing with anxiety. She said, "Sewing came to me at a time when I was in transition with my mental health," and it helped her understand herself better. I feel that because creating looks and putting outfits together has that same therapeutic energy for me.

A lot of people are wearing clothes with messages now - shirts that say "Black Mental Health Matters" or "Black Men Need Hugs." It's like we're finally saying out loud what we've been feeling. Choosing what to wear becomes this daily way of expressing ourselves and regulating our emotions.

Some designers are getting really bold with it. Kerby Jean-Raymond from Pyer Moss did this runway show in 2016 called "Double Bind" that was all about Black depression. He had models wearing tees that said "Why so blue" and outfits with pill bottle designs. The finale had a model carrying a sign that said "My Demons Won Today, I'm Sorry" - which was referencing a suicide note from a Black activist. That was heavy, but it showed how fashion can put our struggles on display and start conversations about healing.

Carry A Mood-Tahlayah Morrow

There's also this brand called Carry A Mood that Tahlayah Morrow started in Cleveland. She's a young Black woman studying psychology, and she literally built her whole brand around mental wellness. The name says it all - we carry our mood with us every day, just like our clothes. She makes streetwear with designs inspired by emotions and even has a hoodie called "The Serotonin Effect." Plus she does workshops about self-confidence and mental health. She's making it cool for young Black people to talk about this stuff.

Even big retailers are getting involved. Saks Fifth Avenue partnered with BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective) for Black History Month, focusing on mental wellness in our communities. Brands like Naked Cashmere have done collections where the proceeds go to Silence the Shame, which is a nonprofit working to end mental health stigma in communities of color.

The community events are where this really comes alive though. In Atlanta last July, there was this "My Mental Health Fashion Show" during Minority Mental Health Month. It was glamorous but also educational - they had Black designers and performers, with proceeds going to BEAM. The organizers said, "Fashion is our creative outlet to express support for this cause," and I felt that.

South Fulton, Georgia did something similar in May 2024 with their "Couture and Compassion" fashion showcase. They had local designers sending mental health-inspired pieces down the runway - clothes that represented hope, struggle, healing. But they also had counseling services and wellness resources right there at the event. They turned a fashion show into a mental health resource fair, which is genius.

Social media is doing its thing too. People post pictures wearing green for mental health awareness or rocking t-shirts with affirming quotes, using hashtags like #BlackMentalHealthMatters. It's creating these conversations where a fly outfit becomes the starting point for talking about mental wellness.

What I love about all this is how it challenges the old idea that seeking help for your mental health makes you weak. We're using style - something we've always been good at - to show that vulnerability is normal and healing is possible. Every outfit, every event, every post is basically saying: you matter, your mental health matters, and you don't have to suffer alone.

For too long, Black folks have had to "muscle through" depression and anxiety by ourselves. Our pain gets overlooked or misunderstood. But when we put mental health themes into fashion - something highly visible that influences culture - we're making it normal to talk about therapy, self-care, and emotional resilience. When people see models wearing mental health slogans or designers sharing their healing stories through collections, it breaks down shame and creates empathy.

The timing with Minority Mental Health Month makes it even more powerful. Fashion becomes this celebratory form of activism that connects to the month's themes of culture, community, and connection. We're using our creativity to strengthen bonds and connect people to conversations and resources they might avoid otherwise.

For me, getting fly is literally in my DNA at this point. It's always been that way. Even on my bad days, I look fly because one thing I'm gonna do is step out. I've always been that girl when it came to style. Even running errands or going to the store, I have a specific type of swag that caters to my authenticity and self-expression. It's just part of me.

What's beautiful about this whole movement is how it builds on something we already do naturally. We're not trying to be something we're not. We're using our creative expression - something that's woven into who we are as Black people - to navigate our mental health with intention and style. We're showing up authentically, taking up space, and healing in ways that feel good to us. And honestly, that's revolutionary.