Adornment to me is the best way to portray yourself to someone. Like our assignment this week when we were supposed to make insights about people based on their appearance, I feel like in order to portray how I view myself to people I need to dress like it. And that is not to say that I dress in order to impress people, but rather I dress in a way that shows people who I am and how I feel about myself.

 

How I would describe my style would be in three categories; comfort, brand and stylish. I say them in this order because this is the order in which they are important to me. First comfort, I like to be comfortable in what I wear not only the material that I like to wear but what I feel comfortable wearing. Next is brand name, I pretty much only wear 3 brands; Lululemon, J Crew and Nike. I really like these brands and what they put out as well as how comfortable they are. The last category for me is style. I like stylish clothing, but what I think is stylish not what other people think is stylish. So my closet is not as full as my roommates and that is because I am extremely picky when it comes to the clothes that I wear around. I do not have any tattoos or piercings on my body mainly because I don’t want them but also because my parents disapprove of those things and since they are paying for my education at the moment I will listen to them and not cross them. The last thing that makes my adornment is my hair. I like to put gel in my hair because I feel more confident in myself if my hair is done correctly. That is my style based on my clothing and body art.

 

Now onto the choices that I make, which stem from two groups as everyone’s do: my family and my social group. First off with my family, they have preached to me since I was young to make my own decisions and not worry about what they thought of me because they will love me no matter what happens. This is hard for me to do though because I like pleasing people and showing people that I care so I like to make my parents and siblings happy by making choices that will please them, thankfully those choices are always in my best interest so it works out in the end. I come from a family where there is a lot of pressure put on ourselves to succeed, since both my parents are doctors I cant very well take over for my dad without doing a lot of schooling first. So because of this we are forced to try and succeed in our own areas of choice, mine being math and economics. My parents and family view this as a good choice for me because they see how talented I am at math and how truly passionate about it. So overall my family influences me more than anything but not because of the expectation they put on me but because of the expectation I put on myself to be as good or better than them. You can see how my family influences my dress or adornment by me trying to be comfortable in my own skin.

 

I am the baby of the family so my friend group or social group tends to be on the older side. I’ve always enjoyed hanging out with my brother’s friends because I feel like I fit in better. As well as being the baby I am also old for my grade so I got to do everything before my friends did. Because of these two things I have learned that true friends are hard to come by and that once you find them you should appreciate them. This is expressed through my dress by the comfort aspect; if I’m comfortable with you then I will dress like it and let you see me in my “natural habitat”. This is to say I wont always wear what I think is stylish around you or I wont do my hair sometimes. My dress and body adornment are very important to me, not because of what other people think of me but more because of what I think of myself and want to portray to people. If I do not accomplish that then well at least I like what I look like.

I am a huge people watcher, I do it all the time especially at airports or amusement parks. I think that no human is the same even and to understand a different human you must sit and watch them when they are unaware of it. This may sound a little stalkerish but the difference is you do not follow them around you just watch what they do for a certain amount of time then move on to a new stranger. When I normally people watch I try not to judge people by their appearance but rather their mannerisms or their decision making process so when asked to look at a person and not judge them but draw conclusions based on their appearance or how they wear their clothes can make me uncomfortable but I gained some insight of myself because of it.

The first person i observed was who I believed to be an athlete at our school solely based on the fact that she had one of those highlighter backpacks on. But when I continued to observe I noticed that she had the whole nike outfit on from head to foot, The ducks sweatshirt and sweatpants and some green nike shoes (she was too far for me to be more specific with the shoes). If I was new to this school I would assume that this person was trying to stand out by wearing only oregon apparel with the athletes backpack, but now i would assume that this person’s closet has a lot of free sweats and sweatshirts so it is only fair to assume that this person just grabbed whatever sweats were clean at that time. I am assuming she either had practice earlier in the day or just woke up because her hair is in a ponytail and is slightly damp (no rain at this time). But overall what I believe about her is that she is just another student either going to or coming from class in comfortable clothes.

The next person I observed is a (sorority) girl at starbucks. I say this with confidence because she is wearing her letters on her sweatshirt. She is also wearing yoga pants and uggs, or as I like to think about it the sorority girl uniform. I say this because I can look around the room and see 4-5 of the same exact outfits around the room. This particular girl is sitting with her laptop open drinking her coffee and doing what I assume is homework. I have a hard time studying in a place like starbucks so when I see people studying there I assume that they are only have studying and half people watching, so I am assuming that this particular girl is not really studying. The values I see in her though just from this quick encounter is that she likes (or pretends to like) the other girls in her sorority (there are a couple other girls right next to her with the same letters on) but more importantly I assume that she is probably older than 21, studying journalism, in good health but a little stressed about something, and most likely from California (just one of those feelings).

The last person I observe is a man who I would say is 40-50 and most likely a teacher, I say this because he is carrying a cup of coffee, a computer, a book and an envelop with a bunch of papers. The book appears to be a math book so I am going to assume that he is a math teacher. I am concerned because of how much stuff he has with him but he seems to manage just fine. He is wearing a button down shirt and khakis that are a little bit too big for him so I am assuming that he either just lost a bunch of weight or that he likes baggy clothing. He doesnt look sick so I will finally assume that he just likes baggy clothing. his hair is a little messy and he has a stressed look about him so I am going to assume that he is either late to class or that his research is stressing him out. Lastly I would think that he is Russian, this has no real bases but I just have that feeling about him.