In usual, I like to wear a colorful t-shirt, a short skirt, and a pair of comfortable flat shoes. For the adornment, I wear a silver necklace and a pair of ear rings. I am a girl so I want to be beautiful and gorgeous so I make up every day. I think women should make up and dress up themselves carefully because we need to show our beauty to other people, especially to men. There is a popular slang in China, “there is no ugly woman but only lazy ones”. I believe this slang is totally correct. It is very hard to make up well and it will cost much time to study and practice, so women have to give up something, like time and money, to study how to make up. I think it is valuable because delicate makeup can make me to feel more confident. I pursue comfortable life and this belief also can be reflected on my dress. I like to wear comfortable flat shoes rather than high-heeled shoes even though high-heeled shoes can make me more beautiful. I would not like to suffer pain that be caused by high-heeled shoes because comfort is more important than beauty.  There is no tattoo on my body because I believe a girl should be elegant and tattoo is not suitable for women. My opinion is traditional so I think tattoo always means non-traditional. My style of dress almost keep same from twelve years old to now. The only change is the attitude to make up. I start to make up from I entering the college and I never make up before that. Before entered college, I think I am a student so my most important task is to study well rather than make myself look beautiful. As I entered the college, I recognized that I already become an adult so I want to make me look like more mature, and learning how to make up is the first step.

The core belief in my family is that wearing comfortably and wearing based on family financial situation. No matter for my father or mother, they always put the comfort of clothes in the primary consideration when they go shopping.  As a man, my father do not care much about his appearance, and generally, he just wears an ordinary t-shirt, a pair of jean with casual shoes. This kind of dress makes him feeling comfortable. However, when he working in the company, he would wear business suit because he think it would make other feeling more professional. For my mother, she always wear a blouse, a long skirt and a pair of low-heel shoes. Both of my mother and I do not like wear high-heeled shoes because it is too uncomfortable. In addition, my family will buy and dress according to our income situation. My family is not very much in the past so we just bought and dress ordinarily. But in recent years, our income increased so we bought some luxury adornments. My father wear a Gucci belt and my mother have a LV handbag. They use these luxury adornments not for showing wealth but only for comfort. They think these luxury adornments are delicate and they have relative income level to afford it. I inherited my parents’ values and beliefs, so I also have several luxury adornments after my family’s income increased.

There are some different values and beliefs in my peer community. Some of them like to dress up with some luxury adornments to show that they are rich so that acquired a kind of satisfaction. The adornments on their body often value more than $5000. In their value, money is very important because they think people would admire them for their wealth.  In contrast, some of my peers just like to dress up simple and modest. They do not like to wear luxury adornments because they think the elegant personality should come from the inner rather than be reflected by those luxury adornments. In addition, there are some of my peer like to tattoo because they think it is very cool. They think the non-mainstream adornments can show their differences with others. In their values and beliefs, they want to be different and attract others’ attention.

Overall, I think the personal dress can reflects people’s personality, values, and beliefs. Just as Sander argued, “A person’s physical appearance affects his or her self-definition, identity, and interaction with others” (Sanders 1). However, we also cannot judge a person only based on appearance because it is not accurate.

Reference:

Sanders, C. R. (1989). Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing. In Customizing the Body (Chap. 1). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.