Bedroom Mirrors, Forming the Ego and Why We Are Obsessed with Our Own Reflections

Make it stand out

In the 1970s essay Girls and Subcultures, Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber highlighted the bedroom as a domestic site of cultural engagement for young people. ‘Bedroom Culture’ was a concept developed in reaction to the predominant absence of teenage girls from the analysis of subcultures at the time. The essay proposed that young girls were indeed participating in subcultural lives but in different domains to that of their male peers - their own bedrooms. 

The bedroom has frequently been explored as a site of significance within the wider context of youth culture, with Siân Lincoln having noted that bedrooms are “often regarded by young people as one of the first spaces over which they are able to exert a level of control, ownership and regulation.” For teenage girls in particular, bedrooms have been identified as an intrinsic site for identity construction, providing a space for privacy, intimacy, and experimentation. Today, as the prospect of homeownership decreases in likelihood, and the commonality of house sharing increases, bedrooms offer a significant space beyond that of teenage experimentation. These days, bedrooms are offices, living rooms, and dining rooms. In turn, they span private, public, personal, and professional domains.

During my teenage years, the majority of surfaces in my bedroom were treated as mood boards, with pieces of furniture collaged and customised in order to reflect my evolving tastes. While the walls were tacked with pop stars, film posters, and Post-it notes scribbled with inspirational quotes, my mirror was plastered with editorial spreads torn from the pages of magazines, acting as aspirational blueprints for the woman I hoped to be. By age 13, I had listed the Seven Deadly Sins in permanent marker on my bedroom mirror, and in the years that were to follow, those handwritten words became entangled in the complexities of my evolving reflection. 

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

“Through the act of regarding myself in my bedroom mirror, I have had many formative coming-of-age moments; from eagerly monitoring changes in my growing body to catching the first glimpse of my reflection as I engaged in sexual acts.”

With the ability to reflect the world back on itself, the mirror has been analysed in a range of cultural contexts. From a philosophical perspective, the mirror serves as a tool for self-reflection and self-awareness, allowing us to see ourselves as others do and to evaluate our appearance in relation to social norms. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan coined the term ‘Mirror Stage’ to describe the phase in development when infants are first able to recognise their own reflection. This, Lacan asserts, is when the formation of the ego begins. The trope of the mirror has long been viewed as a metaphor for vanity, and historical associations between femininity and conceitedness are prevalent throughout a variety of analyses of the looking glass. Sabine Melchior-Bonnet observed that in artistic representations of the creation myth, the first woman Eve is depicted brandishing a mirror from the thirteenth century onward. Here, the author asserts that “femininity is a creation of the mirror”, spotlighting the ways in which a misogynist culture identifies the evils of womankind with the evils of the looking glass.

It now seems serendipitous when I recall the cardinal sins of Christian teachings inked on my mirror, as if I pre-empted its significance. According to the standard list, the Seven Deadly Sins are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. My bedroom has served as a site for indulgence in all of them, while the mirror inside it has allowed me to witness my body engaged in these behaviours. Certainly, through the act of regarding myself in my bedroom mirror, I have had many formative coming-of-age moments; from eagerly monitoring changes in my growing body to catching the first glimpse of my reflection as I engaged in sexual acts. I have gazed in horror at my reflection during periods of self-hate, poking and prodding at my body, imagining what I would look like if parts were bigger or smaller. While I have squinted at my reflection through streams of tears, I have also preened and pouted, noting my dilated pupils as I indulge in my own reflection. Throughout my life, my bedroom mirror has reflected many transformative, mundane, intimate, and violent moments back at me.

At age twenty-nine, I still live in my childhood bedroom, and the mirror that was once bedecked with permanent marker and lipstick kisses has been wiped clean. These days my mirror is unadorned, but often it serves as a physical framing tool in the digital capturing (and sometimes dissemination) of my image. The act of photographing one’s reflection can be traced back to the creation of the camera, and it became a popular aesthetic during the early noughties after rising to prevalence within fashion blogging visuals. In 2016, an exhibition at Tate Modern London entitled Performing for the Camera explored how the medium of photography has been used throughout history to explore identity. The exhibition included the work of Amalia Ulman, whose performance Excellences & Perfections explored the construction of self and aestheticisation of everyday life on social media. The work included many self-portraits of the artist’s own reflection, highlighting that in these instances, the camera, mirror and subject become inextricably linked.

Veronica Schanoes notes that “mirrors represent a reflection of women’s fantasies, experiences, and desires under conditions often hostile to their expression.” When I was a little girl, I was unashamedly playful with my reflection, making funny faces in the back of spoons and peering into puddles before splashing my reflection away. It recently occurred to me that I now find it uncomfortable to lock eyes with my reflection beyond a fleeting glance. Whether this is due to my ageing body and anxieties surrounding change, or my struggles with confronting my own issues and placing myself in this world, this realisation prompted me to reconnect with my reflection through mirror gazing. 

Over the past few months, I keep coming back to my bedroom mirror. I’m not sure what I am looking for exactly, whether the traces of my adolescence are hiding in the shadows of its reflection, or answers to questions I have about the future lie beneath its surface. What I do know though, is that my bedroom mirror has played an imperative role in the crafting of my identity and continues to serve as a connection to myself, as if the glass provides a bridge between the girl I was and the woman I am. Existing solely within the physical site of my bedroom, the bedroom mirror’s role in my life goes far beyond the mere function of a looking glass. The concerted effort of locking eyes with my reflection daily, particularly in my bedroom mirror, reminds me of who I was, who I am, and who I could be. I keep coming back to my bedroom mirror as a form of coming home.  

Words: Rose Coffey