The apparel oft proclaims the man

[carl browne]

New York Times article about the effect of clothes on self-perception.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/scien ... ption.html

[Gruto]

...

[aston]

Quite interesting, as the phenomenon of "white coat hypertension" will attest. Here, the blood pressure of those afflicted with this condition will rise purely as a result of it being taken by somebody (perceived to be in a commanding role) wearing the white coat associated with the medical profession.

[Gruto]

It is nice to see that the old phenomenological observation that we become a different person, or that our attention scope changes, when we dress in certain clothing (and in general use shared symbols and artefacts) has crossed the Atlantic I think that we should see it as opposed to the idea we are an invariant core transmitting our personality through clothing. In reality, there is always an element of creating ourselves anew when we dress. As a consequence, the important thing, when dressing, is not only giving an answer to "Who am I?" We should also reply to "What would I like to be?".

[Costi]

I think that we should see it as opposed to the idea we are an invariant core transmitting our personality through clothing.

I think the two visions can easily be explained together: if we are true to ourselves (as opposed to role playing, when one deliberately embodies something different from what one knows to be, for the sake of acting), there is a core, invariant over shorter or longer periods of time, which manifests itself, but the core undergoes change and so do its manifestations.
For me, therefore, the question remains "Who am I?", rather than "Who would I like to be?". In fact, it's not even a question, it is an affirmation, a realization - an answer without a question, if you wish. I don't know who I would like to be. I am. And I change. My best hope is that whatever I am in any moment is what I would like to be; if I am not, then clothes are the least of my concerns...
On the other hand, we are many things (potentially) at the same time and for some it might be true that dress brings out one facet rather than others. Putting on the white robe does not create a doctor out of nothing, the doctor was in there all along, it just brings the doctor to the fore.
Things tend to crystalize with time and we become accustomed to manifesting one side of ourselves to the detriment of others, but we should avoid petrification. I have seen people change their styles completely and their wardrobes accordingly - and I respect that, there is nothing worse than being dressed as someone different from what you feel you are at any given time. However, counting on clothes to change our core identity is hardly a strategy: the robe does not make the monk.

[Gruto]

Costi, would you walk, talk, think and behave exactly the same, if you were wearing a tracksuit instead of your tailormade garments, your freshly polished shoes and your well-tied tie?

[Rowly]

if we are true to ourselves (as opposed to role playing, when one deliberately embodies something different from what one knows to be, for the sake of acting), there is a core, invariant over shorter or longer periods of time, which manifests itself, but the core undergoes change and so do its manifestations.
For me, therefore, the question remains "Who am I?",

It is difficult to express in words the sense of who we feel we are. When my clothes make me feel that I have achieved some sense of self expression, and I have got it right, I find it satisfying. This feeling of congruence is what gives me the greatest pleasure in my dress. If I changed how I dress I'm sure I would increase the general level of approval, but I'm doing it for myself, therefore, my apparel oft proclaims my true attitudes.

[Costi]

Costi, would you walk, talk, think and behave exactly the same, if you were wearing a tracksuit instead of your tailormade garments, your freshly polished shoes and your well-tied tie?

Certainly not, I even wrote some time ago in a post how the clothes that feel right to me, as Rowly aptly explains, contribute to a good expression of myself, how they make me feel "myself". Otherwise, why would I bother with clothes at all? However, though clothes may help me express who I am (for my own sake of adequacy, first and foremost), they do not make me who I am. If I "wanted" to be a monk and put on a monk's robes, I would not instantly gain the monk's virtues, but only feel ridiculous, because I would be acting at the superficial, outermost (topmost?...) "clothes" level. If I wanted to change who I am, I would need to work through the other, deeper stages, "become" someone else, then expression, appearance (clothes, for instance) would simply follow, without any conflict or sense of inadequacy.
There was a discussion recently about Gary Cooper's versatility in dress and his ability to carry well a wide array of clothes. I believe he did not walk, talk and move the same in a dinner suit as he did in blue jeans and rolled up sleeves shirt, but there was a common thread, a unifying element: his STYLE, that did not make him appear schizoid for all the variety displayed.

[Gruto]

Costi, would you walk, talk, think and behave exactly the same, if you were wearing a tracksuit instead of your tailormade garments, your freshly polished shoes and your well-tied tie?

Certainly not

Thank you.

Clothing (and the situation and task) mobilizes a potential in you. You become a person through the medium. Clearly, there are limits. You cannot play like Messi, because you enter the field of Camp Nou. However, the field, like in invisible hand, activates specific forces in you leaving you just a little different afterwards, hopefully better

There was a discussion recently about Gary Cooper's versatility in dress and his ability to carry well a wide array of clothes. I believe he did not walk, talk and move the same in a dinner suit as he did in blue jeans and rolled up sleeves shirt, but there was a common thread, a unifying element: his STYLE, that did not make him appear schizoid for all the variety displayed.

You may call the unifying element style, watermark or handwriting. But, how much handwriting do you have without pen and paper - how would it look like? We are bounded by our tools.

[Costi]

Costi, would you walk, talk, think and behave exactly the same, if you were wearing a tracksuit instead of your tailormade garments, your freshly polished shoes and your well-tied tie?

Certainly not

Thank you.

Not at all!

Clothing (and the situation and task) mobilizes a potential in you. You become a person through the medium. Clearly, there are limits. You cannot play like Messi, because you enter the field of Camp Nou. However, the field, like in invisible hand, activates specific forces in you leaving you just a little different afterwards, hopefully better

You choose your means according to what you feel, to what you want. The clothes don't make me, I make them. If they represent me, I feel "at home" in them. If I wore a tracksuit, I wouldn't feel (or be) a different person, I would simply feel inadequate. As I would after a bad meal, which does not change who I am. It's not the means or the environment that changes me, I am the same, I simply react to them.

There was a discussion recently about Gary Cooper's versatility in dress and his ability to carry well a wide array of clothes. I believe he did not walk, talk and move the same in a dinner suit as he did in blue jeans and rolled up sleeves shirt, but there was a common thread, a unifying element: his STYLE, that did not make him appear schizoid for all the variety displayed.

You may call the unifying element style, watermark or handwriting. But, how much handwriting do you have without pen and paper - how would it look like? We are bounded by our tools.

That is not a limit, but a challenge - we will never express in writing, dressing or dancing ALL that we are. We should not strive to, either, that is not the point. We remain the same, no matter how much of it we manage to actually express, manifest, exhibit. Or how much we choose to. We are not only what is perceived of us.
What we are is not material. What we show may be material. There is never a perfect identity between the two. There is always a lot left unexpressed. But that is not a lack, or a boundary - it's perfectly natural.
As for your writing metaphor, you need to read between the lines, a book (or a handwritten letter) is much more than what is written in it. But this is not for lack of pen or paper, but for other, more subtle reasons...

[Gruto]

The clothes don't make me, I make them.

So, Costi invented tweed, oxford shoes, the four-in-hand knot, going to a tailor to have a suit made up and everything about how to put the elements together ...? I am all in for personality but calling yourself completely free in your dressing choices, when you depend heavily on tradition, is silly.

[Costi]

What is silly is grossly misinterpreting the meaning of words. I don't wear somebody else's clothes, I wear my own. I make my choices. I don't need to invent the fire to cook, nor water to drink it. But I can choose how I make my fire and what water I drink. Some elements of dress resonate with me, others don't - that is why I make choices and that is why it is not indifferent to me what I wear. But the clothes that I wear do not make me what I am, and if I want to change what I am I do not resort to clothes to appear differently. Moreover, my choices, my dress, the way I put things together is my own, it reflects my internal processes, I don't copy/paste.
If you want to take my words literally (not only out of context), my statement is even more applicable: I design my own clothes, I have them made to my specifications. With a tool like the cloth club, I can go even further and be part of the process of making the cloth from which my clothes are made. I am not a passive consumer of what is on offer in one shop or another.
On the other hand, you write that we create ourselves anew when we dress. From an individual perspective, we create tweed every time we have a tweed jacket made, we create the four-in-hand every time we tie one. We embody these concepts, these notions, we give them life anew. Otherwise, tweed and four-in-hands would become history the moment they were created and never used again.
You are not at all "all in for personality", you are all in for social determinism and sartorial fatalism - we are predetermined by tradition and fatally doomed to blindly repeat history. Personality is an individual trait - your vision is bound (and not the means we have at hand!) by environmental determinism, shared symbols etc. What symbols? How do you know what tweed, the four-in-hand or the oxford shoe means to me? It may have a completely different significance to me, at an individual level, from whatever meaning you give them for yourself. The manifestations may be shared, we may have them in common, but their meaning is not the same at all for us. The correspondence between meaning and manifestation is not bi-univocal. Don't take it for granted that two men that look dressed alike have the same reasons, motivations, aspirations, cultural background that makes their dress a "shared symbol".

[davidhuh]

http://www.thelondonlounge.net/forum/vi ... 009#p54278

[Gruto]

What is silly is grossly misinterpreting the meaning of words. I don't wear somebody else's clothes, I wear my own. I make my choices. I don't need to invent the fire to cook, nor water to drink it. But I can choose how I make my fire and what water I drink. Some elements of dress resonate with me, others don't - that is why I make choices and that is why it is not indifferent to me what I wear. But the clothes that I wear do not make me what I am, and if I want to change what I am I do not resort to clothes to appear differently. Moreover, my choices, my dress, the way I put things together is my own, it reflects my internal processes, I don't copy/paste.
If you want to take my words literally (not only out of context), my statement is even more applicable: I design my own clothes, I have them made to my specifications. With a tool like the cloth club, I can go even further and be part of the process of making the cloth from which my clothes are made. I am not a passive consumer of what is on offer in one shop or another.
On the other hand, you write that we create ourselves anew when we dress. From an individual perspective, we create tweed every time we have a tweed jacket made, we create the four-in-hand every time we tie one. We embody these concepts, these notions, we give them life anew. Otherwise, tweed and four-in-hands would become history the moment they were created and never used again.
You are not at all "all in for personality", you are all in for social determinism and sartorial fatalism - we are predetermined by tradition and fatally doomed to blindly repeat history. Personality is an individual trait - your vision is bound (and not the means we have at hand!) by environmental determinism, shared symbols etc. What symbols? How do you know what tweed, the four-in-hand or the oxford shoe means to me? It may have a completely different significance to me, at an individual level, from whatever meaning you give them for yourself. The manifestations may be shared, we may have them in common, but their meaning is not the same at all for us. The correspondence between meaning and manifestation is not bi-univocal. Don't take it for granted that two men that look dressed alike have the same reasons, motivations, aspirations, cultural background that makes their dress a "shared symbol".

I don't subscribe to social determinism. However, I do think that things around us influence our visions, ideas and acts. A car makes us a driver. Pen and paper makes us a writer. I know, these things don't mean that we become good drivers and writers but they still make an impact on us like a fine suit can make us feel better, more free and more brave. In other words, I am interested in the dynamics between ourselves and environment and I think that investigating the relationship can tell us a lot about the art of dressing.

http://www.thelondonlounge.net/forum/vi ... 009#p54278

Dressing for the story is a brilliant substitute for dressing for the occasion, which seems to make less and less sense.

[Costi]

Dressing for the occasion is conforming to the environment, to what you think is expected, proper, permitted. The "right" clothes, the ones you think are in agreement with social requirements, will make you feel accepted, conforming, acting within the boundaries of convention. They can instill a sense of "belonging".
Dressing for the story is responding to your inner needs, the "story" is your own. Mr. Talese says he would dress in a suit and tie no matter whom he would meet or where he would go. His story was that he was "a reporter", so he felt like living up to his idea of being that.
We usually try to strike a balance between these poles and it doesn't take much reasoning to feel what is the right way to dress so we would at the same time express something of ourselves (mind you, Mr. Talese was particular about the colour of his buttonholes, for instance!) and feel adequate with respect to social expectations (or whatever is left of them...).
I agree cars make us drivers (whether pen and paper make us writers is debatable...), in a certain sense clothes make us dressers, too. We don't come into the world in flannels and hats, but we do come into the world with a mind, with a heart, with eyes and ears. There are so many kinds of drivers as there are kinds of dressers. We have a lot of freedom to act within our environment, we just have to choose to do it, rather than be passive spectators of the world. We are not statues of stone shaped by waters and winds. We are alive!