Do you ever ask yourself if it matters how you dress? What about the way you are arranging your hair? Yes, I know it sounds like some superficial crap, but there is some psychological background here.
I’m going to say yes, it matters, but not because we are all some shallow superficial people, but because looks determines the desire to know that person in a deeper way. Also, the way you look determines your own opinion about yourself. Here is what Dr. David J. Schwartz says about the importance of how people look:
“Looking like an important person helps you perceiving yourself like one. The way you look speaks about yourself. Make sure that this will make you be more optimistic and more confident. The way you look speaks about yourself to the others. Make sure it sends the following message: ‘Here is an important, intelligent, prosper and trustworthy person!’”
As you can see, this is not about biological looks. This is mostly about the way we dress. If we dress like a politician, we’re going to feel like a very important person ant this will boost our self-confidence and we’ll feel that we can do everything we set our mind to. But if we dress like a normal person, we’ll feel just like another person from the crowd. We’ll feel that there is nothing we can do to stand out and that we don’t matter because we’re not different from the other people.
Just think about this: if you take a buss full of 20 people from whom 19 are casual dressed and one is in a suit, he/she will automatically have your attention and you’ll think that he/she is a successful person, right?
The way we dress also tells to the others the opinion about ourselves. If we chose our clothes carefully and everything matches, we’ll appear as a person who takes care of herself and this is a sign of a high level of self-confidence and a high self-esteem. But if we dress sloppy, this will send a signal that we don’t care about ourselves and this is a sign of low self-confidence and a low self-esteem.
Bottom line, the way we dress is our business card for the world, but for ourselves too. Based on this, other people might decide if they are going to take interest in us or not. Also, based on that, our self-confidence can take a boost or not. Of course, the way we dress is not the end of an interaction, but it might be the beginning.
Can you please re-submit your comment? For some reason it doesn’t appear and I love to see other people’s opinions.
This is a fantastic post, and as for myself, I say there’s no such thing as overthinking!!
The other aspect of how we dress, it to reflect our identification with a certain sub-culture. My 12 year old daughter dances at least 6 hours a week and often simply wears sportswear, but on a ballet day, she’ll have her hair not just up on a bun, but in a ballet bun (there is a difference). I have ended up expressing my creative personality more through jewellery than clothing. I don’t buy gemstones and the like. Indeed, they’re probably not my thing. I go for things with meaning. Tell a story or are creative in some way. I recently bought a Mexican ring which was from their day of the dead celebrations. To all intensive purposes, I’m this feeling conservative looking Mum figure, make that even Dance Mum, but there I am with this ring on my finger. The ring itself is silver and the top is resin and there are some tiny dried flowers positioned around a picture of a skull. I bought the ring because I had just finished my A-Z April Blogging Challenge series: Letters to Dead Artists, and it fit the bill. I also liked it because I was feeling a bit rebellious. I don’t like this sense of being the Mum shoved into floral dress mode. That said, I do have a pale pink jumper which makes me look very subdued and I think of that as my camouflage. No one would expect pastel Mum to be controversial.
Hey, I thought you’d appreciate this post about me trying on purple lipstick with my daughter: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2018/02/26/an-extreme-colour-weekend/
Since then, after buying the purple lipstick, she’s basically told me not to wear it out in public because I’m a “Mum”. The interesting thing is, that she didn;’t realize that this was like waving a red flag to a bull. I never thought I’d be the parent rebelling against their kids, but it could well be on the cards.
Best wishes,
Rowena
I believe in dressing “right” for the occasion. Nice post👍
Dress versatile 🙂 It’s about the way we carry ourselves… somebody can look sloppy even the most elegant dress if they aren’t confident… so first its about your confidence, you can fake your dressing sense but not your confidence.
Then yes dress according to the occasion and try to be modest. If you command attention its good. Always good to underplay yourself.
Hey infact im gonna put this as a new blogpost 🙂 instead of a reply here 😂