Does the way you dress reflect your character?
Bikers, skaters, rappers, punks, mods, rastafaris, goths, skins, latin kings, posh people...The fisrt impression is that they are all very different, but is that true? Just because they dress differently doesn’t mean the individual has to be a better or worse person, or does it? Just because a person decides to wear expensive clothes means he is an arrogant, overbearing and insincere person? Or are skaters rebels and violent in nature just because they practice the sport they love? I do believe that because we are free to choose the way we want to dress, clothes do reflect part of our character, because it’s our decision to dress as we want to. However, this does not mean that a skin can’t be nice to you if you have the chance of meeting him (obviously not at 1am in a dark alley) So maybe we are missing out many opportunities of meeting nice, interesting people by judging them for their appearance, and not the real person they are. Do you think we miss-judge people because of their appearance? Can a posh guy be friend with a rastafari?
Albert Mateo
Albert Mateo
From my point of view, an individual’s clothing choice reflects in some way his/her character. However, and agreeing with you Albert, we might create a prejudiced impression of somebody because of their physical appearance therefore not allowing an opportunity to meet them properly.
ReplyDeleteNot surprisingly, the big textile companies decide to take advantage of this aspect by selling clothes according to the impression you want to give to other people. Upper-class individuals are always trying to identify themselves by buying exclusive and extremely posh clothes that mean a great income and profit for these companies. Likewise, they sell other types of clothes, such as skater clothing, to another market segment. They do this because if they sold the same clothes to everyone, people wouldn’t have the opportunity to actually choose their clothes, resulting in an apparent lack of freedom. So we see the textile industry and the esthetical images they create are just a way of covering a larger market share. They sell all types of clothes so that everybody can afford a determined style according to their environment or social class. Moreover, it’s a business strategy in order to assure the company gets some profit.
Having in mind that clothing distinctions are just a consequence of a determined marketing mix, we shouldn’t judge people on what they wear as they might be able to afford luxury brands’ products but because of their environment (school, music, friends…) they choose to wear a certain type of style. This means clothing might not always convey your character but that it will show in what type of environment you were brought up.
In what concerns to relationships between people, it’s actually sad and true that people use to judge people initially on their physical and esthetical appearance. If people realised that clothing and styles are just business, a larger quantity of punks would be friends with rappers, and bikers with skaters and so on. This would actually enhance people’s culture and would make them much more open-minded.
Many people believe that clothing reflects a person’s character as it provides the image that you want to show about yourself. Other people affirm that clothing has no relation with character and that everybody should dress as they like without being judged for it.
ReplyDeleteClothing is considered an important factor when meeting new people as it can give us tracks of his/her personality. In my opinion we shouldn’t grab ourselves to this first impression until we know that person as we can have a surprise and discover that we actually have things in common although we don’t share the same interests in clothing.
This miss-judging of people can be higher or lower depending in the society in which you live, as people who form part of a multicultural society are used to see different clothing styles and types of people so they are more tolerant and open-minded when meeting new people.
In conclusion, clothes are only pieces of cloth and what we have to value is the person who wears them, not the clothes.
In my opinion the way you dress is related with your character because it expresses the image you want to give to people. We choose how to dress because it is part of our identity and our lifestyle. If we, for example, go to the richer area of a city we will notice how people dress in a similar ways, they wear resembling clothes that belong to certain brands; whereas people in the poorer area of the city will dress in a completely different way (although they will dress similarly to those in their area). This means that besides your identity, your style of dressing is also related to other factors such as class or culture.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, appearance is usually related to stereotypes. When we think of a punk or a skinhead the image of an aggressive person who is always angry and is looking for trouble comes to our minds, but this might not always be true. Although our style is part of our identity it is not always related to our character, someone who seems to be aggressive could be really generous, but we ignore this possibility because we judge them basing ourselves on their looks.
Thus I do think that we miss-judge people based on their looks, since even if they are important they don’t define what a person is like. I think that it is possible that a rastafarian and a posh guy could be friends, the only obstacle that separates them is the stereotypical ideas that they have about each other; that prevent them from giving that first step which will start their friendship.
This is a very interesting topic, as it talks about many different views to see people. The most important and basic thing is that people have to be how they want to be, no matter what people think about. However, not everyone thinks like this.
ReplyDeleteMany people, depending on the person they see their reaction is totally different. This started hundreds of years ago, where the stereotypes where created. This is a very normal thing, that people wearing different types of clothes create one impression or another. All of this is because, we have born with the idea that people that are skins, or others that are not common for us to see, are different to us, because, in films, or in TV, we have seen that people, who are bad look like them (not always), and that is why we have this idea.
But I agree with what everyone is saying, the appearance is not as important as everyone says, there are people that are much more valuable than others who where perfect clothes, because, what it is the most important, it’s what’s on your mind, what you want to express to the world, and lots of people show it this way, wearing this clothes. However, not everyone does it, some people, wear what they like, without showing how they feel in such a public way. There are people that have a lot to say, lots of opinions, but they are afraid to do so, and they hide behind their clothes, to be discrete, and some people do the contrary.
I believe that people can be with who they want to, but it is not always this easy, because of the different social classes, which in some part this makes us see who are from our social class or not, but now a days, this has changed, as social classes are each time, much more close than before. Making us see that anyone is different from us.
In conclusion, I think people are not always who they want to be in lives, and that scares them, from real life, and that makes them be who they are, with their clothes. Some people would say, that people from social group should stay there, but I am fully convinced that can’t be what people should do, in some occasions. People have to be opened to new options.
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ReplyDeleteFashion is, nowadays, one of the many ways to express who we are and what we feel without using any verbal language at all. In my opinion, we can consider dressing up as a game because we can combine different textures; choose from an infinite range of colours and sizes to define our style. What’s more, fashion invites us to be creative and have fun. However, the way you dress doesn’t always describe your personality.
ReplyDeleteThe main problem is that society has established the fact that depending on the price of our clothes or the way we dress we are a type of person or another. Therefore we tend to pre-judge people and assume how they are and if we don’t like their exterior image we don’t ever bother to know them better. Hence this means that people usually feel attracted to meet people which are similar to them.
Personally I think this is a huge mistake because judging people like this is extremely superficial and unfair. As Albert said above… Why can’t a posh guy be friend of a rastafari? I would suggest the idea of trying to leave our thoughts about the appearance of others behind and just make an effort to know people’s real personality. You might end up becoming friends of someone who you never considered talking to before just because of their different looks.
I mostly agree with most of the things you have said throughout your comment. Firstly I would like to say that the way you dress does not have to reflect your character but in some ways it can. Does that mean that someone who has not got enough money to wear an “adidas” polo is worst than who actually does? Well, I don’t agree at all with that kind of prejudice. Although in some cases it is good to stereotype, although this may sound shocking I think some gangs who represent certain ideologies dress in a certain way so if you see someone dressed up in a way which for example represents hitting every blond man in the street and you’re blond...you better run. But this is only in some specific cases.
ReplyDeleteAbout what you said of facing a skin in a dark alley...well I am not saying it would not be scary, I just think it would be as scary as finding anyone in a dark alley at 1am. So no, we should not judge anyone for his appearance although sometimes it is good to bare that in mind and of course a posh guy can be friend of a Rastafarian, although I think the chance of them meeting is very reduced baring in mind it is more likely for them to have radically different friends.