1.    Take some time to reflect on how you dress and customize yourself. Consider and respond to the following questions:

a.    Are there any personal beliefs or values that are supported and expressed by your dress or body adornment?
b.    Why do you make the choices you do?
c.     How has this changed over the years?

The way I dress has a lot of variety. I am not one to go shopping a lot. I buy an article of clothing here and there about once every few months. So I like to make my clothes last. I wear a lot of jeans and tops, ranging from t-shirts, long sleeves, to nicer blouses and knit type shirts. I get cold very easily so I tend to wear many hoodies, sweaters, and jackets. I have a few shoes; black work shoes, white Nike shoes, a pair of black and white KED knock offs, a pair of Romeos, a pair of heels (that I never wear!), and a few old navy dollar flip-flops. I’d like to say my style has a lot to do with being comfortable but not sloppy. I am most comfortable in jeans rather than skirts or dresses although I do have a few I just don’t wear them as often. (a lot because of the whole cold situation). My tops can be fitting or a little loose but not constricting my body just because it is “fashionable”. Beliefs and values I have that my clothes reflect is comfort, modesty, and financially sensible.  I am comfortable with the way my body is but I don’t feel that is necessary to show off your stomach or flaunt your boobs which is why I like to be more modest and cover those up! I also value being financially sensible. My thought is that if the clothing I have is still perfectly fine the way it is then why not still wear it? I see many people buy clothes all the time and I feel that it is a waste of money to always but more and more clothes.

I make my choices of clothes because of my values and beliefs. I’m open to new things to wear. Sometimes I will see an article of clothing at the store that I normally wouldn’t wear and still fall in love with it. I just go with my intuition on if I like it or not. I do not keep up to date with the latest trends and do not care if I have that latest “Gucci” bag. My style and choices have changed through out the years for the better. When I was younger I was insecure about myself and did not like to stand out a lot. For example with colors, I used to wear a lot of darker colors because I thought it would be more flattering on my body. I have now become more comfortable with who I am and have branched out to more colors. I love to wear turquoise, bright red, white, blues, plaids, etc. they help express your emotion and can put you in a better mood. I feel that my mood can rub off on other people too. If you see somebody in dark clothes you may get a different vibe than from somebody in bright colors.

2.    What were the core beliefs and values in your family and how were they communicated/sustained through dress or body customization?

I was raised in a Mormon household and so a huge value that my parents held was to be modest. This meant to not show off your body. You couldn’t wear tank tops. Your shirts had to have sleeves and short had to be to your knees. Other adornment like tattooing and piercings were out of the question. I am no longer following that belief system although I do value modesty just not as extremely. I am more about not flaunting body pieces like they’re objects. I also have a tattoo, a dream catcher on my back. I find it expressive to who I am. Dream catchers were made to keep the good dreams and let the bad dreams escape. I believe people should keep their dreams and strive to reach them. This is another one of my beliefs that is expressed through adornment, tattoos.

3.    What are the core beliefs and values of your peer community? How are they expressed through dress and body adornment?

My peer community is full of different types of people that have very different beliefs and values. You have got some people that value family and who dress accordingly with appropriate clothes. You have teenage girls who don’t value modest, and dress quite revealing, maybe valuing on getting a guy? There are skaters who value skating and dress with all “skater” attire. There are people who value their jobs that dress professionally whatever associates with their job. Then there are others like me who wear what is comfortable and speaks out to them about whether they like it or not.

The fact after writing this and after doing the watching people assignment this week is that there are so many different values that different people can believe in and it can be reflected on from what they where. And the judgments we make could be totally skewed from the person’s reason for wearing what they do or it could be dead on. You can never know unless you ask a person. And I believe that not everybody knows what their clothes can represent either. I never even thought about what my clothes had to say about my values until this weeks lecture.