[A quick note about the Happiness Coaching: It's still going on but it's taking me a long time to work through.  I haven't abandoned it but I'm having to respect my limits to avoid burnout.]

Getting dressed

The Urban Panther (UP) started a debate about appropriate clothing, and as with so many of her wonderful posts I ended up getting my buttons pressed.  Rather than rant all over her beautiful blog I decided to try and write out my thoughts here in a slightly more coherent form.

My main point is that the clothes you wear play a very important role over and above keeping us covered and warm.  They are not just about protection from the elements, though they do this very well in some cases, but about identifying us as belonging to a particular group, or indeed groups.

Goths, punks, geeks, rockers, mods, chavs, old style film gangsters, professionals, blue-collar workers, red hat ladies, scouts, school kids, uni students, furries, LARPers, trekkies, hikers, footy fans, Harajuku girls, cosplayers, … (yikes, you get the point, right?)  They all identify themselves as being part of the group by what they wear.  I’ve sometimes wished I had clothing that could allow me to identify myself better to others (any ideas for relaxed-urban-gay-geek-fashion-hating-intelligent-gamer menswear?)

An offensive outfit

When someone wears something that offends you, it’s probably got more to do with what’s associated with the outfit, than the actual outfit itself.  The point made by UP was that it was disrespectful (in her opinion) for a young girl to wear “a tight t-shirt and even tighter sweat pants with ABERCROMBIE stamped across her ass” to a funeral. I agree with this, as did most commentators, but I do so from the assumption that she wore what she would normally wear around the house or with friends.

If she were to tell you that she bought these clothes especially for the funeral, or that they were her best clothes that she always wore only to important occasions, or that they were clothes she always wore to visit the deceased, would you feel the same way?  What if it was the expected outfit worn by those with whom she identified when attending a funeral – could it then be compared to outfits worn by people from different cultures?  Certainly this argument is weaker when it’s a young girl – her culture is very much still that of her parents/family or the teenage exploration/rebellion outside of that, but even then you have no way of being sure that her choice of clothing is not one made with the greatest of respect to the deceased, if not to others in the room.

A tangential point

In the comments great debate surrounded suitable attire for work and whether people should be judged by their clothing.

This particularly got me riled, because it is something that I have strong opinions on.

I used to think that I didn’t care about the clothes I wore.  Then I realised that there actually were clothes I wouldn’t wear.  This was a big deal for me.

Think about it a second, if there are clothes you won’t wear, then clearly you do care about what you wear.

So I started to see that I had an image I gave to others.  And that my image was important to me, despite the fact that part of that image was rejecting the importance of image over substance.  So I started to be able to make choices about my image that represented me to the world.

I wore corporate attire when I wanted to belong to the corporate world.  If I attended a dance rehearsal wearing a full suit & tie I would get some pretty odd looks (though it has been done, by an ex-member of our group who was a manager at a menswear store and had come straight from work).

When it comes to meeting clients, I avoid wearing smart clothes now.  It’s my velvet red ribbon.  It’s my brand.  It’s my image.  I only want to work with clients who judge me by my work, not my clothes.  I want them to give me work that I can do at home, when it suits me, and not work that involves me meeting clients.  My image is part of this.  It represents who I am, what I am comfortable with.  I make a purposeful stand away from corporate clothing as a way of signalling that I do not want to play the corporate game.  Does this mean I lose potential work sometimes?  I’m sure it does.  As does the way I talk, behave, sound, work, and other forms of communication & interaction.  The point is that I don’t actually want that work anyway.  My challenge is to find a way to support my lifestyle without making compromises on these areas.  It’s not easy, but for me it’s important and it’s worth it.

Others prefer corporate life for the benefits that it brings them.  They dress appropriately.  As do I.  My work at the moment is almost exclusively from the corporate world.  I do not dress in corporate attire, I am still dressed appropriately.

Personal choices in clothing

Part of my exploration of myself this last year involves looking at what I wear, what clothes I have that actually reflect who I am and what I feel.  I notice that a lot of what I wear is by default, it doesn’t reflect me and I don’t like it.  It’s pretty safe however, so for now it acts as a temporary stop-gap.

What would I wear to a funeral?  It depends on who I am attending as.  Am I going as my parents’ son?  My boyfriend’s boyfriend?  Myself?  Out of respect for my family or boyfriend I might adapt my outfit for the first two.  For the latter, it would be based entirely on how I felt.  And if I were being forced to attend the funeral of someone I didn’t know just because my parents felt it would make them look bad if I didn’t go?  Hmm, scraggy jeans, ripped suede shoes and a baggy casual shirt sound just perfect.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• Too fast to write about it
• Talking to my Munchkin
• Scheduling crisis: Finding a balance