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This practice-based paper introduces “Resilience Wardrobe”, a narrative therapy exercise that uses wardrobe and outfit metaphors to support externalising conversations, concretise emotions through sensory detail, and invite the thickening of preferred identity stories. The practice was developed collaboratively by the authors and implemented across five individual and three group sessions (N=33; ages 18 to 45) conducted online and in person. The practice unfolds in three movements: (1) a brief “real wardrobe” warm-up; (2) an “imagined wardrobe” to scaffold values, hopes, relationships and cultural meanings through colour, texture, scent and sound; and (3) an “imagined coping outfit”, which may be animated to speak from a preferred position. An optional final step invites drawing/naming and selecting a low-cost “trace” (e.g., colour token, scent, song, small object) to keep the preferred meanings close in daily life. The paper describes two individual sessions and one group session. Across sessions, participants took up the metaphor in varied ways: through garments, environments, rest, ritual, modesty, spirituality and migration histories. Implementation notes emphasise keeping the warm-up brief, spending time in sensory scaffolding and garment “voice” when useful, and pivoting to environment/ritual when clothing metaphors feel distant. The practice is offered as a low-resource narrative scaffold that can be adapted to participants’ own meanings rather than applied towards predetermined outcomes.

Key words: metaphor; externalising; young women; collective narrative practice; narrative therapy

Tezcan Özer, Ş., & Dinç, M. (2026). Resilience Wardrobe: An outfit for coping with challenges. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1), 97–111. https://doi.org/10.4320/CBUF4720