The Clothes

I saw something interesting the other day. It does seem that I see something interesting every day, but I guess how this blog came about. I saw two women talking in an office setting. One of them was obviously the boss of the other. How could I tell? Genius! Okay, I could tell not only by the body language, but by how they were dressed. I realized that other people could also tell she was an important person by the way she dressed. I then extended that to realize that the clothes really do make the person.

Everyone dresses their role. Would you ever expect to see a CEO wearing ripped up shorts and a t-shirt that says "Shit happens" on it? Even in the privacy of his/her own home? Never. And why is that? Because they have to dress the way they do or else people would know that they are important.

If people wore no clothes, no jewelry, no nothing, how would people know who is important? Body language, you say. How about in an email or in a blog where one never sees the other person? The words they use, the topics they discuss, etc, would give you an idea of who they are.

But what does this all mean? Aren't people just free entities, able to explore this rich world of ours, to live their lives, to be equal to all other humans? No, actually. People need to label and classify the group and level of themselves and others. Even the words I chose to use like "is important" were chosen to show the bias, because who can be more important than anyone else? It is all a belief, all created by each person, as to how important they really are, and how important they want others to see them as.

You can fool the masses. You can dress like a CEO - just walk into the store and by the clothes. You can learn to hold yourself like one as well. You can talk about the things that they talk about. What do you think this would do? As they say in Science: try it!

Why did I pick a topic that is so obvious? People know that the clothes make the man. I know I have heard it all of my life. But, I think it is all an act. If you start acting like someone else, or a different station in life, you will become that person/station. CEOs and such do not dress the way they do because they want to, they do it because it is an agreed upon way to mark themselves so that others might approach them with the correct attitude. How embarrassing would it be to start working at a new company, be less than friendly to some wandering stranger in the hallway, only to later find out that it was the founder/owner of that company?

So, it works both way. One can move up the ranks of society, and in doing so one must update ones wardrobe. Or one can dress as the upper ranks and one will nature rise with the force of the rest of humanity pushing them upward.

It is hard to dress in a manner that one believes is not right for them. If you change your clothes, you will change who are you. Try it.

The Edward