Style
You are what you wear! No, it's not futility, it's a question of psychology. What people see is what they think of you.
The type of clothes you wear, the types of accessories you use, your hair, your choices, the way you present yourself says a lot about who you are, where you're from, what you do and how you feel about yourself and others.
Clothing scholars Mary Ellen Roach and Joanne Eicher discovered that clothing is one of the main ways we send social signals, because what we wear reveals our identity.
Your image speaks about you. What you wear, as Roach and Eicher define it - sends non-verbal clues to other people.
Our clothes show:
Personality
Values and principles
Your confidence
Whether you can be influenced (manipulated)
Your creativity
Your influence
Your intellect
How much power you wield
Your culture
See, writers, costume designers and directors use a character's closet in movies all the time to show clues about them. Think of Harry Potter's glasses, Imelda's shoes, Wall Street's power suits or Cleopatra's jewelry.
The question is: what signals are you sending out?
It's not about trends or being fashionable, much less about wearing what everyone else is wearing, but about how capable we are of expressing ourselves individually.
Perceptions
Certain types of clothing change the first impression we make.
The choice of clothing can strongly influence the impression you convey and is a powerful communication tool.
Researcher Mary Lynn Damhorst (author of the book The Meanings of Dress and article on the significance of dress clues in the social context) says that “dress is a systematic means of conveying information about the wearer”.
When it comes to communicating confidence and ability, what you wear plays an important role in creating positive first impressions. Clothes define how others perceive you
What are the three words that describe how you want your clothes to make you feel? Maybe you want your clothes to make you feel powerful, confident or smarter. Or maybe creative and unique.
Make sure that the way you dress (the words) resonate with what you want to express.
Once you have identified the feelings you want your clothes to evoke, it will be easier to choose the right pieces.
Undoubtedly, defining your personal image is a big step towards a conscious, intelligent and financially savvy lifestyle. By knowing what you want, you're less likely to make rash decisions, fall victim to impulse spending or buy things that only look good on the rack and don't work for your closet.
Follow the series of posts here to help you identify the message you're conveying and what you really want to convey.
