To not really get why people don’t like clothes?

[keeponwishing]

I’m not talking about specifically liking fashion or following certain trends.

I mean in general, clothes are a personal choice. They can express who you are, there’s do much choice out there. Why people say they don’t care what they wear?

Polyester everywhere... I used to love clothes. Not anymore. The quality is crap, but the price is still high.

I think it would be possible to express myself through clothes, but fundamentally I don't want randoms to know anything about me.

No. See my previous post. Clothing is about decoding the wearer. Faces aren’t really the same and you can’t change them every day.

Typical unknowledgeable response.

Shallow in fact.

I would suggest that if you have an MA in this area then you're more invested than most.

(I say this as someone with a related degree, albeit not a Masters level).

I think that's the only problem, sometimes your clothes don't always say to others what they say to you!
Today I was wearing a very loud maxi dress in fuschia pink, red and green. It may have been giving 'look at me' vibes to others but for me it's just an item of clothing that always makes me smile and feel cheerful.
It's that whole dopamine dressing thing. Wear what makes you happy or feel confident, regardless what others think.

But why would you want to do so?

Why do you want to force your "self-expression" on people around you? What if they are not that bothered with you? Why do you want to "make a statement"?

I don't trust judgement of people who want to evaluate my mood, confidence or personality without asking me a thing. It's creepy. And it very presumptuous and error-prone, because you assume people use the same visual code as you do.

Invested or interested?

I don’t care what people wear. Even that says something.

What l do care about is people dismissing it as lowbrow or shallow when they have no interest, and therefore consider themselves superior to someone who is interested in clothes. I can predict what they wear.

It’s unconscious. You either do it or you don’t.

When I gained weight my interest in clothes waned, it was really all about whay covered the rolls, black, navy , all very drab, now I’ve lost the weight and am slim again, I love clothes, and have re found my vanity.

i think there can be multiple reasons people aren’t interested in clothes, lack of money, lack of enjoyment over their own appearance, significant stress factors in your life, mental health issues ie depression etc.

i don’t see it as making a statement though, I dress for myself, but I do agree that other people judge you on how you present, we can all pretend we don’t or it’s shallow, but we do, someone’s appearance says something about them, it’s a statement we make whether we like it or not.

i guess the statement I made when I was overweight was I was trying to cover it up, whether I recognised I was making that statement or not.

When I was young I was a goth. I spent a lot of time on what I wore, how I styled my hair, makeup and accessories. As I got older I realised that what I was actually trying to do was to fit in with a particular social group that I felt represented who I wanted to portray myself as - an edgy, non-conformist cool person. This was more important for me as a young person than the considerable hassle of dying, crimping and back-combing my hair, painting the back of my leather jacket with cool band logos and trying to get the perfect winged eye liner.

Now I'm an old fart I genuinely cannot give a shit. I wear clothes that are comfortable and that more or less suit the social situation. If I'm going to a wedding or fancy event then I'll dress up because that's what's expected. If I'm just going out for errands and I can get away with jeans and a top then I'll do that. If I'm working from home then I'll probably be in a t-shirt, joggers and some fluffy socks. I cannot explain how little I care if someone thinks I should be wearing something else to conform to their expectations.

I'd love to see an example of what you wear and what statement you think it is saying! Unless somebody is wearing something absolutely outrageous, I rarely look at someone at think "aw they must be X type of person".

Oh I think this is an interesting point. MIL and SILs have spent a lifetime saying clothes are unimportant and nobody should care. To worry about appearance is shallow and vain, etc.

Funnnily enough, it has never stopped them criticising the appearance of others, calling people fat and also calling people vain and up themsleves and all for show.

Because I resent the effort I feel obliged to make in order to ‘look good’. So many other endeavours so much more worthy of my time and attention yet here we are.

my response is to work out the colours and shapes that work for my ‘geometry’ and then wear those shapes as a kind of uniform. I’d much rather not bother.

Now l do that with every single person l meet. Shoes can be a big teller.

I was brought up in poverty and never had many new clothes. Most were hand me downs and in my teens pretty much the only new things I had were school uniform.

I learned that clothes do not make the woman nor express me and that I had far more worth than just my clothes.

I also learned to view the bullies who picked up on my lack of fashion as mindless morons with more money than sense… and further, people entirely at the mercy of whatever some equally mindless backroom guy or so called celebrity thinks he can impose on women this year. I often think of them as chortling in the back rooms laughing about who and how many they can make look ridiculous now.

I don't want to express myself with clothing.

It's great if that's how you choose to express yourself. Other people may choose a different way or not really give a shit what other people think, and that's also great.

But you will be doing so unconsciously.

that forum will never cease to amaze me 😂

If nothing else, you know it takes exactly the same time to put on clothes that look , I don't know intentional, stylish, or like there's some thought behind it, than it takes to put something randomly grabbed from your wardrobe?

Love clothes, always have. I am never ever going to set foot outside my house in public view without thinking about my clothes. Many of you will think this makes me terminally superficial, and you might be right. But for me it is an enormous pleasure to know that I have composed my appearance knowingly. And I am nearly 70, I still care. I'm not personally vain, but I would have to have fled a fire that destroyed my wardrobe before I would go out in another person's choices.

😁

You’re clearly not understanding that if I walked by you and the street I’d know nothing about you apart from a judgment based ln how you decide to present yourself?

Yeah we get that. You're clearly not understanding that some people really don't dress for others or give a damn what passersby think of them. Other people are not in my head when I get dressed in the morning, or even when I'm walking past them in the street. Other than not bumping into them.

Bet they’re judging you like mad though😂

That's OK then. I suspect my clothes say fuck off and leave me alone.

Which suits me perfectly.