The way we dress up. How does dress communication work?

You Are What You Wear - Jennifer Baumgartner

"Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner, a clinical psychologist, wrote the book on this phenomena, which she refers to as the "psychology of dress." She explains in "You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You" not just how psychology influences our clothing choices, but also how to overcome important psychological concerns that your wardrobe may be bringing to light in your daily life or at work." - Forbes

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

After the epidemic, the problem of self-identification has become even more pressing. Everything we put on our bodies tells something about who we are. It expresses our social standing, tastes, values, worldview, and attitudes toward the social environment in which we find ourselves. This is what I refer to as "dress communication."

Long before we start talking, we communicate. People make snap judgments about the person standing in front of them in less than a second based on their looks.

Our appearance is a powerful kind of nonverbal communication. We must choose clothing, shoes, haircuts, and accessories in the same way that we use words and intonations to communicate different thoughts. This is referred to as "style."

Every aspect of clothes, including style, feel, fabric, and colour, has the power to talk. We can make the look work for us if we are aware of this. Dress communication, like any other kind of communication, may serve a variety of purposes: drawing attention to oneself or remaining unseen, emphasizing the gravity of objectives or adding lightness to the image, demonstrating conservatism or progressivism.

We make decisions on a regular basis, but we don't always realize it. We frequently dress to "fit" various situations, such as our place of employment, status, or others around us. The focus of clothing communication shifts from "dressed to impress others" to "dressing to express oneself."

When we know who we are and what we want to say to the world, we can begin to dress in a way that communicates who we are. We may construct a list of our personality qualities after we know who we are. Then we chose clothes based on "what would these garments say about me," rather than "fits well on the body." Then we dress not to match our position but to show our inner status via our clothing. These are two significant distinctions.

Here is a video to help you better understand what does your style says about you.