In light of her recent weight loss, blest with sons brings an excellent post regarding the reality of judging one another on the basis of appearance.
To prove to you that you really must go over and read the entire post, I’ll quote a snippet. Okay, a whole story:
I remember once when my husband was deployed. My best friend and I were thinking of going out to dinner with the boys after a lovely day spent at my house scrapbooking. We were both in sweats and I told her I had to change before we went out. “How come you get to change when I don’t?†she asked. And I explained: “Julie, you are thin. If you go out in a sweat suit, you still look good. People will assume you just went for a run. If I go out in a sweat suit, I look like a slob and people will assume I’m too slack to bother getting dressed.â€
Now recently, in the comments here, Jenn said:
I think I tend to dress as who I WANT to be, if you can understand that. I want to be perceived a bit more as urban and arty, but live in a rural area, so I can do that by wearing things that are a little more contemporary-it makes me feel more chic and not so much like a frumpy stay at home mom.
Yes, I totally understand. I want to be blest’s mom:
My mom taught me early on to dress the way I wanted to be judged. For example, if you want the doctor to take you seriously when you go for visits, she said, don’t dress the part of frumpy, frazzled mommy. Dress the part of clean, crisp professional. She learned that lesson in numerous conferences with teachers and principals. When she showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, she wasn’t taken seriously. When she arrived in her tailored suits and heels, with her head held high, she ruled.
What about you? Are you sending the message you want to?
For me, there’s still room for improvement. I’m normally viewed as being organized, crisp and professional if you will, but my fashion authority leaves something to be desired.
I expect there is always room for improvement, no matter who or how well put together we are!
Good point! And very encouraging, as well.
Anyway, who’d even want to hang around with me if I looked perfect all the time?
I had a couple of thoughts about this…
The first is… When I feel like I look nice, it goes a long way. For whatever reason, the clothes I choose to put on have a bearing on my attitude. If I feel like I look sharp, I tend to also act that way. If I feel like I look sloppy, many times I’ll act that way. I think it works in reverse too…If I’m in an unmotivated mood when I get dressed in the morning, I’ll probably put on the first thing I see in the drawer.
The other thought kind of ties in with that…I’m not quite sure how to word it, but…How do you dress well without being a hypocrite? Take “Blest’s mom” for instance: I would never dress in a suit and heels because that’s just not me (unless I had a job that required that – which I don’t). I should also note that I wouldn’t wear jeans and a t-shirt to a teacher’s conference because I do believe you should dress appropriately for the occasion. But I would want to dress in a way that would demand respect and also show who I really am (and want to be). Maybe it has something to do with being confident in who you are and portraying that through how you dress. I feel like my thoughts are scrambled. Does this make any sense?
Jenna ~ that all makes perfect sense! You have to be you, doing what you are doing, going where you are going. Sometimes I just think, “what would I wear ideally in this situation?” That is, thinking about what I want to wear, not what I have to choose from.
I think there are an awful lot of people who don’t even care to realize that some occasions require more than just jeans and a message t-shirt.
The “jeans, nice t-shirt, and blazer” uniform is perfect for those kind of occasions, if it works for an individual’s idiom.
I’ve been struggling a little bit about how I want to dress. After years of dressing in unflattering clothes, I recently found an interest in fashion and adopted a rather “artsy” style of dressing, which is completely at odds with the conservative career I’m heading into.
I always dress sharp when the occasion calls for it, but the question is what to do when I don’t have to wear a suit. On one hand, I want to be taken seriously as a scholar and professional, but on the other hand, I want to have fun dressing as a student while I still can, because the impending 80-hour weeks will leave no room that. In the end, I just decided to be myself because no matter what I decided to wear (nothing scandalous, of course), I’ve already proven myself. If I’m going to be spending most of my time doing grueling work, I may as well look good doing it.