Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Why we wear what we wear

I've been thinking for years about why people wear what they wear.  I've been trying to figure out why the heck people wear attractive, fashionable, and alluring clothes.

I know there are obvious reasons:

They've become habituated to following the crowd during adolescence when they are particularly prone to experiencing peer pressure and have not yet developed confident enough personalities to resist it.

They simply don't think about it on a day to day basis.  They simply select clothes from their wardrobe which are comfortable and which feel familiar and make them feel good.

But is that all there is to it?

Certainly sometimes we deliberately select clothes which we know are fashionable and even alluring.  Who are we trying to attract?

A complaint that is supposed to be common among men goes something like this, "Hey Baby, Why did you wear that if you didn't want me to look at you?"

A reason occurred to me today that I'd never consciously articulated to myself before:

We select attractive clothing, not because are trying to attract everyone. Rather, we select attractive clothing to attract "the one", or at least people with whom we hope we will discover a kinship.

Through our clothing we advertise that we are intelligent, or graceful, or have some sensibility which we value.  We hope that people who have similar sensibilities will recognize us by seeing what we have selected to wear.

If someone who does not share our sensibilities approaches us, our reaction may be, "Wait a minute.  You don't share my sensibilities.  I wasn't wearing this for you.  Get away from me."

But when someone who does share our sensibilities approaches us, we feel a sense of kinship and are pleased to discover we're not alone.

It is similar to public displays of affection.  We don't really care whether strangers see us being affectionate.  We're being affectionate for ourselves.

I think we wear clothes for the invisible circle of future friends who share our sensibilities.

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