This will be my last fashion column in the Renegade Rip. In the past 10 columns, I gave a lot of advice for the money-saving fashionista, fashion-forward, and not-so-fashion-forward person, but I never talked about why fashion is important.
Fashion is much more than an interest to fashion-forward people.
Whether people care about fashion, “practice” fashion, or just throw on clothes everyday, everyone picks the clothes they wear.
No matter who you are, the clothes you put on say something about you.
Some people say that it’s vain to judge people based on their appearance, but it’s not.
Everyone makes an assumption about a person when they first see someone.
Many people misconstrue this notion with not accepting a person because of the way they dress, which would be judgmental.
But generally you can make an assumption about who a person is by the way they dress.
For instance, when you see a man wearing rags, you assume he’s a bum.
If you see another man wearing a collared shirt and tie, you can assume he’s a businessman.
I wouldn’t call it vain to make this assumption.
It’s just a way to know about a person before actually getting to know them.
However, I’m not saying that everyone’s appearance is always aligned with a person’s personality.
It is possible that a scary looking Goth can be the sweetest person, but usually the clothes that someone picks helps portray themselves.
Clothes are a person’s non-verbal way of expressing their personality, who they are, and what they want the world to think about them.
It would be wrong to ignore this insight on a person.
Some people dress based on their beliefs in politics or religion.
There are those who purposefully dress in rags to defy society.
They believe people who care about how they look or dress in brand name clothes makes a person materialistic and a product of society’s consumerism.
You can probably assume that someone who has dreads, wears tie-dye shirts, and walks around without shoes believes in this notion; they’re making a political statement that they profoundly believe in.
Women in the Pentecostal religion wear long skirts and long hair because of its modesty and obedience to God.
Many people make the mistake of ignoring other people’s apparel and not taking the time to care about their own wardrobe.
Some people don’t realize that if they dress sloppy, other people see this as a reflection of their personality and they’re sloppy with everything else.
If someone doesn’t take the time to care about him or herself, why would they take the time to care about anything else?
That’s how people view sloppy-dressed people.
Like it or not, everyone is constantly being judged by their appearance. Fashion is a powerful tool to change others’ perception of you.