People definitely attempt to do so, and sometimes do so subconsciously. Some people dress for how they want to be seen or aspire to be, others dress as a reflection of their environment, including those they associate with, and that sometimes reflects the prevailing attitude and beliefs of that group (and sometimes not).
A simple example of this might be a haircut. Whether accurate or not, a mohawk often signals something to other people (and sometimes signals something the person that wears it, like "I may be ties down with more responsibilities, but I won't let that define me").
I like to think most my clothing choices are made because of practical matters such as comfort and fit, but even within my normal range of jeans to shorts and t-shirts to polo shirts (and maybe the less formal button-up shirt), there's definitely things that fit that criteria that don't feel like they fit how I think of myself. And that's as a man, where I think expectations to do with style and clothing are much simpler.
So we should only accept the intended signaling of people's clothing choices, and never think any deeper about why they made signaling clothing choices?
There's a wide range of choices between wearing clothes that are well suited to what you'll physically be doing in them, and wearing clothes suited to signaling something about yourself, and where clothing falls in that range does say something about the wearer.
I think feeling constrained by what other people think of your fashion is very much a factor of your self-perception and the community around you.
I don't think people ridiculing others for their fashion choices is all that common past teenage years, but I may be wrong.
Looking at the subjects of this article, I don't get the feeling that they are dressing unfashionably - on the contrary, they are making extremely specific and thoughtful fashion choices, probably spending more time and thought on it than people that just go and grab whatever the latest thing is on Zara racks.
You may be surprised, but even grandma-old-style can be very fashionable. Fashion is very much about who is wearing it, why, and how. It may not matter as much "what" you're wearing, as "why" - like modern art in some ways.
Fashion is basically another non-verbal communication channel we humans use to signal a large number of clues to fellow members of the species.
This sounds about right. People are generally aware of how they look and act and what that communicates to others; it is always possible to adjust people's perceptions through words and actions, but the initial impression is, for most people, at least partly a calculated thing.
By all means, people should look however they prefer to, and ideally many knee-jerk reactions to things would be less so, but the world isn't ideal. I strongly prefer people who do reserve their judgement of someone until a more complete perception of them has been made, but I acknowledge that it isn't something I always do, by any means. If I see someone in a suit, my snap judgement thought is very unlikely to be 'hacker' unless they are discussing or engaged in something relevant (just as it's unlikely to be 'investment banker' for someone in a band tshirt and scruffy jeans). However, I don't discount the possibility by any means.
>If I saw you in public with nails painted I'd just think you are daring individual. It might be positive, it might be negative. I'd be more curious but also more cautioned if I ever were to enter verbal contact with you.
I'd be perfectly fine with this reaction.
I realise I've probably been stereotyped about it, but as far as I can see, it's never actually affected me directly.
I don't personally see a problem with adopting certain clothing styles, mannerisms, or interests to fit in with a certain group. I think most people spend far to much time and energy on fitting in to a specific group, but the primary benefit of clothing is signalling. If wearing one type of jacket over another lets me meet more people I want to spend time with, and I don't care all that much about jacket choices, then I don't see any sort of problem with wearing that type of jacket. Being perceived as weird relative to the norms of a desired group tends to be a disadvantage, and I certainly don't praise it. Think what you will, act as you know is right, but when dealing with others be willing to go along with otherwise undesirable behaviors. Why do you disagree?
Yes, it is. Just like you have a taste in music, doesn't music express your personality somehow? It's all a matter of notes, timing and timbre.
The same with clothes: the choice of textures say something about you, the choice of cuts say something, the choice of colour the same. The thing is: the clothes you wear need to resonate with you to become part of your expression.
It's not that your clothes = your personality, but the choices you've done consciously will tell someone else about you, the same as looking around your book shelves at home. The thing is: you need to care about you are wearing for it to become something expressive.
With my clothes I can signal a lot of stuff to others that are into the same things I am, I can signal hobbies, I can signal that I care about a particular type of material or cut, and so on.
If not then you are just being practical and wearing what is expected from you, nothing wrong with that but don't judge and put others down because they take this more into consideration than you do.
I think most people who believe they don't care about fashion do. Cargo pants, t-shirts and hoodies might not be the typical image of fashion or putting effort in one's appearance, but me wearing them at work and free time is still a semi-conscious social marker.
I don't think I put much more or less effort in my appearance than someone who's everyday attire includes button up shirts and designer eyewear, but we will signal different interests with the way we dress. They say to dress for the job you want. It could be that you don't actually base your respect on the effort someone puts in their appearance, but rather the kind of appearance you value.
carefully chosen wardrobe tells you only that given person cares a lot about the impression he/she is trying to make on others. like with makeup it isn't hard to "fake" the impression in any direction you want, although the underlying person is still the same person.
personally I like to know people as they are, not the masks they put on. sometimes much less nice, but closer to true themselves
"everyone can look at someone's dress and decide if it's fashionable for their demographic."
You may have forgotten where you are discussing this topic. I certainly have no clue whether something is fashionable. I'd be hard pressed to tell you if two colors go together. I do no know if I dress more or less formally than my coworkers, or if my normal clothes present any sort of image. My style is not a conscious rejection of fashion, it is simply some clothes that I've concluded aren't too far outside what I'm expected to wear and therefore don't make me stand out.
You know, I actually judge people by the way they dress. This might sound like a very shallow thing to do at first but I think you get a non-trivial amount of information about a person just by looking at how they dress.
Fashion is a visual language and everyone is, deliberately or not, communicating something with it. If you communicate that you don't care about fashion, that's not a problem. If you communicate that you can't really afford very fashionable items, obviously, that's not a problem either. However if the way you dress is telling me that you don't care about yourself or your environment, that could be an issue.
Is a vertical row of buttons the dividing line between caring about appearance and not caring about appearance? Or can we say that as a society we decide what is acceptable to wear in public? If it's socially acceptable to wear shorts and a t shirt, and I wear nice, clean shorts and a t shirt, your conclusion is that I don't care about how I look? That's some serious mental gymnastics. You could reasonably say that I look like I have different clothing preferences.
> How can it be that so many people say they "don't care" about what they wear, yet their overall style is so uniform?
That kind of goes in with "not caring". I agree with your overall thrust here - clothing is a social signal whether or not you want it to be. Even the lack of someone signaling is in itself a signal. It legitimately took me a very long while to figure this out.
For me - comfort is all that matters, even in public, until I get into a social situation. Then it's simply dressing to "the average" as to not stick out. I used to describe this as not caring, but it definitely is caring in my own way. Plenty of other folks dress specifically to stand out, so the opposite is certainly a positive action as well.
In the end, me simply wearing pretty much the same dumpy thing everyday sort of became a personal brand in of itself.
That said, I'd be perfectly happy with everyday uniforms assuming they are comfortable. It would save me mental effort of having to imagine what other folks will be wearing in a given situation.
I wish it was not the case, but when it comes to this behavior, the social norms are not within our personal control.
I mostly like the informal dress, but have been told more than once (by executives) that it makes me appear like someone who cant be trusted with authority. When I dress up, many of my ilk feel uncomfortable around me.
Wear what you like, but I have learned time and again that whatever clothing choice you make, everyone is always judging it and making decisions based on that judgement.
It's not an act of conformity in that context, but it's usually an act of conformity. The most likely explanation I can see for someone dressing formally in an informal environment is a habit of conformity coupled with an insensitivity to change in social environment, neither of which seems like a desirable quality.
A simple example of this might be a haircut. Whether accurate or not, a mohawk often signals something to other people (and sometimes signals something the person that wears it, like "I may be ties down with more responsibilities, but I won't let that define me").
I like to think most my clothing choices are made because of practical matters such as comfort and fit, but even within my normal range of jeans to shorts and t-shirts to polo shirts (and maybe the less formal button-up shirt), there's definitely things that fit that criteria that don't feel like they fit how I think of myself. And that's as a man, where I think expectations to do with style and clothing are much simpler.
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