A Theory
Being a fashion student, not only education wise, but just a student and learner of fashion in general, I find myself observing the way people interact with clothes. I find that it's not in a critical way, or in a way that is picking someone’s style apart, which mind you I do that too, just not for the sake of this article. But rather observing the way in which women in particular express themselves and their femininity through clothing. Right now, for example my neighbor across the street just came home from doing her grocery shopping and I imagine some other errands. I see she is wearing a long gray cardigan, gray trainers, a pink crewneck tee and from this distance I don’t see any accessories. This makes me curious. I’m curious about her motives, her background, and her personal style. I’m catching her in a fleeting moment of normalcy but I’m aware she intentionally chose those clothes. Does she like pink? Was it of convenience? What would she wear to dinner?
I have this theory, or maybe it's just programmed in my brain, to look at the message that these nonverbal cues are sending. I look at these women and I think to myself, they got up this morning, looked in their closet and chose this outfit consciously, why? What are they trying to tell me the world? Perhaps it's nothing and for many women it’s just clothing, and clothes is just utilized for its original function which is to clothe the body. But in a society where entire magazine articles, TV shows and books are dedicated to analyzing what politicians, royals and any other public figure are wearing it's hard not to think this way.
I find that my observations have led me to no particular conclusions, other than in some way or another, no matter how small, we are communicating something with what we wear. Even if someone is dressed not for show, but for comfort, that tells me something about their value system, don ‘t you think? They value comfort. Take a professional workplace, such as an office or a hospital. I am looking at their shoes, maybe the doctor wears heels. My doctor wears Gucci heels everytime I see her, allowing me to make a judgment call that she has luxurious taste whereas my eye doctor wears clogs allowing me to make another judgment call that fashion isn’t her focus. I could be wrong, but that’s why they’re judgment calls after all, based on what I see and what I know from prior experiences.
My point is this: fashion can tell us a lot about a person even if they are unintentionally doing so. The way we dress communicates something we want the world to know about us or even not wearing something can say something about us. For women there seems to be infinite ways to communicate our femininity even for those of us who don’t necessarily have a traditionally “feminine” style, we’re still telling a story, or more like a preview about us that others are going to interpret before we even open our mouths to say, hello. On that note, what do you guys think? Am I reading too much into nonverbal cues, thinking like a stylist or do you agree? Sound off in the comments below because I truly want to hear your guys’ take on this subject. Until next time.
Sincerely,
The Closet Correspondent
Photo Credit: Jan Kaseter