Clothes and Fashion

Learning how to dress is an important part of the education you get as a child. Different situations demand for different styles of clothing. You can think about it what you want, but the style of your clothes determines the impression you make on other people. It always amazes me that with all of the events taking place in the world nowadays, the age-old crisis of how to dress still can cause more havoc than a natural disaster. Ask a teenage girl what she thinks of the recent hurricanes and you’ll get pity and disbelief, but if you ask her what she thinks she should wear on her Friday night date, she is likely to turn it into a dramatic event. How in the world did society ever allow the drama of how to dress become such a dilemma in our daily lives?

We land a job interview and suddenly are emptying our closets and drawers trying to find that outfit that will guarantee success. We get a wedding invitation and immediately are thinking about what to wear and how to dress for the event. Almost anything people do these days requires them to think about how to dress for a certain event or situation. What’s really tragic is that the issue of how to dress has managed to sculpt people’s opinions of others. Someone walks down the street wearing an outfit that you think is too short or too long, too bright or too dull, and we’re judging them. We assume they’re too poor or too distasteful and that’s why they don’t know how to dress. Who decides what the dress code is for society? Apparently we all do.

My family has always attended a very conservative church. I grow up knowing how to dress for church - dresses or skirts. Recently, I attended church with my best friend whose church is very contemporary. I had to pick my jaw off of the floor when I saw people walking in wearing shorts and T-shirts. When I asked my friend about this, she told me that God doesn’t care what you wear, as long as you show up. I had never thought about that. And that holds true for everyday life. Our parents teach us how to dress for various occasions and those invisible guidelines are carried with us into our everyday lives. It really is a strange concept that society places such importance on how to dress when there are so many other issues that should be addressed. But, we see a photo of a celebrity dressed a certain way and suddenly that ideas of how to dress shift a tiny bit and we gravitate towards their style. Maybe it looks “cooler” than what our own closets are holding. No matter what the reason, it’s obvious that the
drama of how to dress will continue to be passed on through the generations. Let’s just hope that the manufacturers start to add a little bit more material to those tiny skirts…

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