For whom do we dress?

[FillW]

Surprised "I dress for StyleForum" hasn't come up yet...

If I did I'd be posting pics in threads but I haven't gotten my wardrobe good enough yet by a long shot.

(Still fighting my tailor to get things the way I think they should be) LOL

 

[facet]

I just do it to get noticed by women.







I don't think it's working :/

 

[FillW]

I just do it to get noticed by women.
I don't think it's working :/

So do I and they do...

 

[Layered Player]

I dress for myself first, my wife second (I still try to impress her) and the world last.

 

[Rona87]

For me, I think I dress for the people whom I meet everyday, of course, also for myself~~~

 

[sullivan025]

Naturally, I dress to impress other people. But don't we all?

 

[celery]

I dress for people who have precisely 731 posts on SF, any more or less and I don't care what they think.

 

[kgomez1992]

I chose to dress the way i do because I love clothes, but I also enjoy knowing that the ladies are looking at me not at the guy walking down the street next to me in his dirty ass jack Daniels T shirt

 

[Calibur]

I dress for me and I think I dress the way that I do for a mutiplicity of reasons. I am decidedly a suit and tie guy, irrespective of whether it is required at work (it is), at play (of course not, but I still squeeze'em in every now and again) and everywhere in between.

I am my mother's youngest child and only son, and she definitely put me on parade in my youth, always styling me in clothing far more "high falutin" than my peers -- suits, ties, vests and shoes (almost never sneakers). I think those days were were directly attributable to where I formed my sense of style and taste.

Through the years, both men and women in my circle have seemed to consult me for my opinion regarding their styling choices. I almost never offer it without someone asking as I think one's sense of style is truly a personal choice while it may certainly be informed by what they see in others. But I accept that my styling aesthetic must appeal to some who may not necessarily place the value that I do in how one presents himself.

I am an absolute clothing fanatic -- have been practically my entire life (again, I blame it on my momma). My wife, who has battled with me constanly for closet space, can attest. If 10% of a man's makeup is his feminine side, my percentage was totally allocated to my affinity for clothes.

I know this is kind of long, but I've been a member here for awhile, was scanning the joint with regularity a good year before that, and just thought I should start making an effort to inject myself in some of the goings on around here.

Nice to meet you.

 

[SMatthews]

To each his own, bu as for me, I dress primarily for me what I want to wear and feels comfortable and secondly to impress people I barely know.

 

[Lord Mulberry]

It's all front

 

[upr_crust]

I dress, ultimately, to please my own sense of style, but also make the assumption that, if I like it, others will as well. As I post photos regularly of what I'm wearing here in this cyber-monastery of sartorialism, the opinions of the other posters do factor into what I wear (or, failing that, whether or not I post photos that day).

Obviously form follows function - I don't dress up to do the gardening, and I don't wear fur in August (actually, I don't wear fur, period, but that's another matter). As it happens, I work in a clean office environment (a large bank), with a "business casual" policy, so what I wear, within the bounds of business/business casual dress, is very much up to me.

I can tell you that other people do appreciate the way that I dress, and looking "good" (at least looking well put-together) I find adds to the pleasant ambience of socialization, whether office or elsewhere. Certainly, the women in my office like they way that I dress (I work with a lot of IT people - not much eye candy in that profession - I stand out in contrast).

 

[Geezer]

As a young man, with all the confusion of youth, in an effort both to fit in and stand out at the same time.

As an older man, to stand out enough for me while fitting in enough for them.

Closely informed by an unnatural enthusiasm for clothes (including reading threads here with interest on things I would never wear, but am still interested in). And the added bonus that - whatever the aesthetic (anything from traditional bespoke to high fashion or SWD) - dressing "well" expresses a degree of self-confidence, which resonates well with a variety of people, including women. While intimidating others, of course (usually scruffy men).

Which means, as HF put it more eloquently than I, that dressing for yourself or for others is a false dichotomy. It must be a bit of both.

 

[MyOtherLife]

For whom we dress? whas dis?
whaa the fuu choo mean by than mang...? Choo William Shakespeare oh somethin'?
Choo wanna know why, I dress like these? OK, I gonna tell choo why....

I dress like this for me, thats who. Choo know why?

Because it doesn't matter chee like you or not. It doesn't matter if choo rich or poor. Choo gotta show repec for chooself mang, tha's why.
Tha's why. Because choo gonna end up in dis life jus how choo started mang, bald, toothless, helpless, hopeless and crying for choo mama.
When everythin' is said and done mang, all choo got in this life is chor balls and chor word,
so choo may as well dress good, so choo don't get treated like some pindejo.

The only thing that feels good in this life is money, a nice woman, a good meal, some nice clothes and some bubbles on chor balls.
They gonna respec you, tha's why mang, tha's why. ok?

 

[comrade]



Unless we're narcissistic to the point of near-psychosis (ie. to the point of being genuinely sick; not just using narcissistic in the colloquial sense), we all dress for others as well for ourselves.

Now, the form/nature/impact of how it affects your dress depends on the culture you're embedded in.

And the balance/degree of the impact depends on the relative status of you vs that culture (and if it's a subculture, the status of the subculture vs the wider culture). And, perhaps even more importantly, your intent regarding that interaction.

So even when you dress for others, it's actually because of you, because you want to create a certain effect.

(being explicitly aware of how all these factors are interacting for you personally, is, I would suggest, a very important part of developing a style.)

Interesting analysis.

Brief comment. My wife recently retired after over 20 years in the Psychiatry Department
of a Hospital in the San Francisco Area. During that time, and even now at the various
social events and informal gatherings of the Department, I cannot recall any male professional
staff dressing to an "entry-level" Style Forum standard. You would certainly be an extreme outlier
in that department, as i regularly am as a guest, though i am not a Mental- Health professional.