I think that my beliefs are not expressed in my dress and body adornment.  I dress very normally, but that is mostly out of habit.  I really like the style of people who can make tattoos and piercings and wild colors look good.  I think that if it is done well, piercings and tattoos are not brands that tell people what category you are in, but they express the person more fully.  Of course, some tattoos or piercings are fads, or they are common and cliché, but some of them are original or used in a way that makes them special and unique.  This is the type of adornment I like.  In the future I plan to get at least one tattoo, which I have ideas about, and I might one day get more but I’m not sure yet.  Piercings are less likely, but if they become very common for men then I might end up doing it.  It will just need to be done well in my opinion, like the art appreciation videos and readings suggest.  One quote I remember was that art is “appreciating something done well,” or similar.  I think that applies here as well.

I make my dress choices because it is my habit.  I have grown up wearing jeans and tee shirts, and that is a common dress style, so I never put in effort to change it very much.  I will wear other things from time to time, but unless it is a special occasion I am usually in jeans, a tee shirt, and a sweater or a jacket if it is cold.  I think that I might make these specific choices because I’m worried about standing out in the wrong way.  Everyone who dresses in a “different” way stand out more, but that isn’t always a good way.  Sometimes it looks really good, and other times it does not.  I think that I need to experiment with looks to see what will be good for me before I start dressing differently for every day.

My dress style has not changed much over the years.  Like I said, I dress the way I do out of habit, and that habit began when I was young.  My style hasn’t changed much with my age, because it was never important to me to stand out at school.  Instead I would focus on school or my friends.

My family’s beliefs and values might seem different than mine based on how they dress.  My parents both dress nicely, even on days they do not work.  They always put effort into what they are wearing for the day, and if they go out at night, for dinner for example, they usually put on nicer clothes.  I think this might be because of how they were raised as well.  It could be that it is a different issue for a different generation.  My mom has one piercing in each ear, and nowhere else, and neither of my parents have tattoos.

My community and my peers are much more open and caring about piercings and tattoos, and about clothing as well.  A lot of college students dress in lighter clothing than adults, and they have more piercings and tattoos than adults on average that I have seen.  I’m sure this will change as my generation grows up, but for now that is the trend.  A lot of my friends have either tattoos, piercings, or wild looking clothing, and sometimes all three.  I’ve noticed that most people with tattoos that I know are also pierced, but having piercings doesn’t necessarily mean they will have tattoos.  If they have more “abnormal” piercings, like things other than the earlobe, they are more likely to have tattoos as well, that I have noticed.  I have wondered before if there is a correlation, or if both of those things are just attractive to certain types of people.  I suppose that it makes sense that someone who wants to have a tattoo would also be interested in having piercings, because they serve similar purposes, just in different ways.  I have found that clothing doesn’t normally have anything to do with piercings or tattoos though.  From what I have seen, all sorts of people who wear crazy clothing with bright colors and patterns do not have a single tattoo or piercing, and others who wear more “normal” clothing have a lot.  But it goes the other way as well.  I think they are all just different ways of expressing ourselves, and everyone has their own preference.

Person one:

Person one is a guy who looked like he was about 45.  He’s white, with light brown hair, that looks like it’s beginning to go gray.  He was wearing black dress pants and shoes, and a white shirt with no tie.  He had a briefcase with him, and he was walking quickly like he was in a hurry.  My guess is that he had to get back to the office from lunch, or something similar.  My assumption is that he’s some sort of business man, and that he values his work, but he likes to break from it during lunch, which is why he wasn’t wearing his jacket or tie.  I think that this reflects on me and says that I assume people in suits have office jobs.  It was downtown, where there are a lot of offices, so it makes sense though.  I think that it also might be a subconscious assumption because of movies and TV and how they portray businessmen.

Person two:

Person two is a Chinese girl who looks college age, so around 20-25.  She’s wearing a backpack and has her hair falling over her face a little bit.  She’s wearing a white shirt and black pants.  The thing I noticed about her was that there is a lot of contrast between her black pants and hair and her white shirt.  I assume she is a college student because most Chinese people around that age are international students at the university.  These assumptions say that I believe college is important and that it is something worth going overseas for.  I also assume she cares about how she looks, because of the noticeable style of dress.  Her backpack also seemed to be holding a few books, and maybe a laptop, so that tells me she cares about school as well.  But this might just be reinforcing my own beliefs that education is important.  It is easy to see what you look for.

Person three:

The third person is also a girl around 20-25, but she is white.  She has blond hair in a ponytail, and she’s wearing a pink tee shirt with jean shorts.  She’s wearing black converse as well.  She doesn’t have a backpack, but she has a purse with her, which is sort of small and slung over her shoulder.  She’s with a guy, who I assume is her boyfriend by their interactions.  She is also wearing stud earrings and she has some sort of tattoo under her sleeve on her right arm, but I can’t tell what it is.  I assume that it’s her boyfriend because of the comfortable way they interact, but it is possible it could be her brother or just a close friend as well.  I don’t know what else to think of her, other than that she has put effort into her dress style.  She looks very peppy to me, and she seems excited about something.  This is because she appears to be energetic and she seems alert.  This could just be her normal behavior, but in comparison to most it seemed out of the ordinary.  I think this might mean that I don’t think most people are energetic, or it could mean that I notice that sort of behavior less often than I should.  This person is the hardest for me to describe, because there wasn’t a lot of information based on her dress and appearance, and since tattoos are becoming very common, I can’t tell much unless I know what it is.