Course Objectives:
- Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty.
- Investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging.
- Analyze values and belief systems of physical appearance across cultures, sub-cultures and generations.
Artifact: Unit 05 Personal Adornment Reflection
This is interesting to connect my dress and body adornment with my personal values and beliefs because I never think about it before.
I always wear simple sport T-shirt with simple pure colors like black or white. I like sports pants with basketball shoes because I really like playing basketball with my friends. For the body adornment, I cannot find some special adornment on my body, like piercing, tattoo, the only adornment that I can see is a bracelet which is made of some kind of wood. On the whole, my dress and adornment are easy and comfortable for myself. In my beliefs, dressing should be comfortable for self. T-shirt, sports pants and shoes are convenient to do sports or exercising in gym and also are convenient in other aspects. I do not have piercing and tattoo because I think a mature man should not pay much attention on those things to attract other’s attention. In my values, the most important feature for man is his strong heart rather than popular appearance. However, there is an adage in China, ‘everyone wants to be beautiful’ as well as me and that is why I have the wood bracelet. I think appearance also is a factor to attract people even though it is not the most important factor. This style of my dress did not change much during these years because I like sports since I was young.
In my family, my father and my mother have the opposite philosophy of dressing. My father’s dress style is really similar with me and I think I was affected by him to form my dress style. He always likes wearing a white t-shirt with a black coat. For the lower part of body, he likes loose jeans and sneakers. In his values and beliefs, life should be easy and comfortable. Of course, when he working he would change dress to business dress like suits and leather shoes. He told me that it is a kind of respect to others so he have to dress formally. My mother likes dress up herself carefully no matter in the free time or working time because she really pursues the beautiful appearance. She believes that woman should be beautiful and there is no ugly woman only lazy ones. She almost makes up every day, and carefully choose necklaces, bracelets, earrings and other adornments.
There are several kinds of dress style in my peer community and they also represent different personal values and beliefs. Some of them also like simple and comfortable dress just like me because they have the similar belief with me which is men should not pay much attention on appearance. However, some of my friends really like to dress up stylish, they always wear bright colorful coat, cropped skinny trousers, and casual shoes. They also love piercings and tattoos. In their values and beliefs, men also have the right to dress up delicately and popular dress is very cool. Some girls like using luxury bags, such as Chanel, LV, and Gucci. In their values, every gorgeous girl should have a delicate handbag and the luxury stuff can show their elegance.
In conclusion, I believe that everyone have the right to choose their favorite dress style and there is no true or false for dress style and it just depends on your values or beliefs. When we judge someone who we do not familiar with him, we should not just judge him base on his dress or adornment because it usually can make a mistake.
Reflection:
The topic in this week is the relationship between personal values or beliefs and personal dress or body adornment. Through thinking about my dress and how it represents my values or beliefs, I learned how evaluating personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty. For me, I think a man should not pay much attention on appearance so my dress and adornment are really simple. Through this artifact, I also think about the appearance of my family and my peer community. I have some understanding of how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging. The people who with stylish and colorful dress always make others feeling they are not good students or do not pay much attention on their occupation.
In addition, through observing other’s dress I got some understanding of the difference of dress between different cultures. Just like Muslin women have to wear voile to cover their body. It shows the values of Muslin culture, women should not expose body to others. We can see the unequal social position in their culture.
Future Intentions:
In the future, I will still follow my personal values to dress. I will see if I change my dress style with the change of values in the future.
References:
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