The One About My Attire…

In all honesty, I tend to take my appearance pretty seriously. This doesn’t mean that I’ll spend an hour every morning trying to think of what shirt looks good with these shoes, but I want my dress wear to represent my own personality. I tend to treat every person I meet or spend time with in a polite and mature manner. I tend to dress in one of two ways: gym clothes or casual clothes. When I wear gym clothes out in public, it is almost always because I’m coming from the gym or going to the gym immediately following what I am doing. As comfy as they are, I don’t prefer to wear gym clothes out in public. When I wear casual clothes, I’m wearing a collared shirt, jeans or khaki shorts, and a suitable pair of shoes. I wear this because I personally hold a lot of value in first impressions. Because of this, I want to always be presentable in case I meet someone. I don’t want that person to walk away and think that my mother still dresses me. I make this choice because its how I was raised and I believe it’s nice to be dressed well. Quite frankly, my attire and body style has changed so dramatically throughout my life that whenever I look back on some of it I can’t help but laugh. I have always been athletic and involved in sports, so up until I got into college, I would often wear athletic outfits; I’d wear gym shorts, high socks, Nikes, etc. I even went through a skinny jeans phase my freshman year of high school. One thing that stands out, though, is a Dodgers cap that I wore every single day. I wore that hat for about five years straight until my mom was forced to throw it out. I always wore what was considered in and never really exercised individuality until I got into college.

My family has a wide variety of beliefs; some of my family are extremely hard working and value professionalism and hard work, while others are more lax in the way they dress. Some of my family don’t really care how they dress and believe that the only person they need to satisfy is themselves, which I think is admirable in it’s own right. As for the hard-working side of my family, the attire is pretty much the same; my grandfather, who has worked in a welding shop for longer than I have been alive, wears the same outfit just about every day: steel-toe boots, jeans, a t-shirt, a flanel jacket, and a hat. When someone sees him, they know that he probably spends a lot of his time doing some form of manual labor. As for both of my uncles, they are both their own business owners, so they present themselves in a professional way just about everywhere they go, this is probably where I get my own values from. As for my mother and my aunt, they both came from very little, worked hard, and now are quite well-off. I think they show this in their apparel because a lot of it is quality clothing. I believe they value what they accomplished and try to show that through the way they present themselves. As for the rest of my family, they do not concern themselves as much with their appearance. They don’t value the idea of satisfying other people, they believe that the only people they need to satisfy is their family and they don’t do that through the way they dress.

The core values of my peer community are widely ranged. Some of my friends dress very professionally because of jobs or a desire to dress well, while some of my friends dress to have fun and be similar to the way their friends dress. I think both value systems have their ups and downs; the friends who dress professionally are always dressed well, while the other friends are showing off their interests more in the way they dress. I believe that the peers who dress professionally do so because they are at a different point in their life; a point where it is less important to adhere to what is socially desirable and more important to look professional to the people you work with. As for the others, I think they just want to have fun and show that they want to have fun. It is not a bad thing to be young and want to do similar things that are similar to what others around are doing. I think that the values just differ based on where each individual is in their life and what they each hold most valuable.

Reflection:

For me, this unit was one of the best ones in terms of realizing and understanding the objectives for the entire unit. I was forced to evaluate myself based on what I wear. After reflecting on it for a while, I began to realize how much about my values I try to project in the clothing that I wear. In the post I created about my values, I took the test and it showed was I valued most. After thinking about how my actions showed what my values really were I was a little disappointed, but in actuality a couple of the things I value, I seem to project in the way I dress. After assessing some of the things I wear and correlating them back to earlier units, my understanding of my own values and how much our own appearance can reflect our identity grew stronger.

This artifact also shows the value of analyzing attire at different generations. When I wrote on how my peer community dressed, I was writing about peers I have that are different in age. The generational differences in the way people around me dress is profound and displays how we can project not only our values but maybe even our age. The very first line of Sanders‘ reading states that. “A person’s physical appearance affects his or her self-definition, identity, and interaction with others.” And I believe that this almost sums up the objectives all-together; people are going to dress in a manner that reflects who they are and what they believe in.

Future Goals:

In the future, I look to apply my goals from my first portfolio entry, into the way I present myself. After I learn to make my actions reflect more of my values, I want to continue that trend in the way I present myself. In my opinion I do a decent job of that currently, but there is always room for improvement and after better putting my values into action, my value of appearance may change. Below is an image of me and my family, I’m not dressed like I usually was back then, but my image is that of not caring so much about the things I’m wearing, but the people I’m surrounded by.

Bibliography:

Sanders, C. R. (1989). Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing. In Customizing the Body (pp. 1-35). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

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