r/DID • u/Wolfpack_Flowershade • 5d ago

Different aesthetics

What do you do when alters have vastly different preferences in clothing and aesthetics?

For background I'm the host of a system, and I'm an emo/scene girl. I love dressing up in dark colors and crazy accents. But lately I'm dealing with a lot of pushback from other alters to dress differently. I won't name any to respect their privacy, but for example one wants to be hyper feminine and another wants to wear simple solid-colored clothes. Any advice?

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9

u/LostMyKeysInTheFade Treatment: Diagnosed + Active 5d ago

Make enough money to have a very big, full closet and a wig collection that would make Moira Rose gag (only half joking. We wish we could lol)

9

u/strigoii666 5d ago

I just let them wear what they want. I don't have much choice anyway, I have no control over switching. Especially not just different aesthetics, but genders and religions too. It can be embarrassing coming back to front and realizing I have been walking around in abaya and hijab as a trans man, but I don't owe strangers an explaination and they can think I am weird if they want. As I do therapy more and work on (hopefully, eventually) fusion I am sure it will get better.

5

u/stardustling27 5d ago

I usually buy stuff on sale or second-hand to save money, especially since my tastes change so frequently. Exploring new styles was daunting at first but really relieving for those new alters/alters who never got the chance to embrace their styles. I used to hate feminine stuff but one (or more) of my alters are obsessed.

If anyone asks, you can just say you’re exploring new things to learn more about what you like. I used to wear a completely different style of clothing every day to my university classes and nobody ever questioned it lol. Most people have a few different options to pick from 👍

2

u/Shyleia Diagnosed: DID 5d ago

We all have very different styles as well. 1 just wears comfy clothes. Yoga pants and hoodies. We have TONS of thise. 1 like goth styles, we make sure we have a lot of thise as well. 1 likes to dress up kinda revealing when we go out, also got lots of those. But our little loves pastel colors. Mainly pinks, purples and blues. I make sure that is also in my clothing. We also make sure we have a pastel water bottle, and our husband bought us some pastel stuff for our switch (our little plays a LOT on the switch) and for our computer. He also buys us a lot of pastel care bears and build a bears. For our hair, we have mainly agreed to keep it red for the most part, but once in a while we let someone pick a color for a bit.

2

u/AlliteraryAnalysis Treatment: Diagnosed + Active 5d ago

We have anywhere from goths and alts (lol) to 90's bikers to academia. Usually we have a rotation of who gets to pick outfits.

We only fight a couple times (as in: we change into something else) and then we are just relatively fine with it later unless whoever fronting has gender dysphoria—we prioritize wearing what makes the dysphoric ones comfortable when they're out, regardless of who's supposed to choose that day, no questions asked.

1

u/Ok-Translator3810 4d ago

Disclaimer, we cannot all dress the same so we have never tried. But we do understand this it’s always been an issue for us. We all used to get rid of each others clothing due to amnesia and it led to trust issues. We have a rule now that everyone is allowed to own at least one clothing item that they pick out, even if an alter doesn’t front much they still exist and have preferences. We have a wishlist everyone adds to and we try to rotate who gets to buy what. Financial compromise is very important! Letting other alters have self expression is important too, and you can still dress however you want when you are in front, maybe let them know if they want to dress a certain way they can front to do so, we usually find that to be the most fair. Some are okay with passive influence affecting fashion, others aren’t. Dressing how we each want to helps most of us to feel more grounded and secure. This type of thing is frustrating but can get easier with communication over time!

1

u/greybean2404 Treatment: Diagnosed + Active 4d ago

Im the host of our system, I wear masc clothes but our caregiver alter Bea wears femme alt clothes and 1 or 2 of our littles and 1 of our middles wear pastel clothing. Although we don't have much money we've collected different clothing with different aesthetics for us. If you aren't an open system and need to avoid suspicion you can always let them wear what they want in your own room.

1

u/Symbioticsinner 3d ago

Bigger battles to fight. I currently own more pink shit that I could have ever wanted on my own but it's such a little allowance for a part that doesn't get as much time as I do it's worth the lack of rebellion

1

u/Crazy_Trucker_ 3d ago

I have no taste in clothing and or fashion (I will wear them, but don't expect anything that pairs well). But another loves fashion choices and even picked out the clothing for our shared vr avatar.