Dress for Success
The other day I was walking down an aisle in Wal-Mart and I ran across some Michigan State University sweatshirts with hoodies. Now having graduated from Michigan State I was intrigued. I was shocked because they looked old and worn out. The silk screened image was barely there. I thought a hoax has been carried out on the American people. I have students that come to class with holes in their jeans all the way up to the crotch area. They think they look cool. I, being the age I am, think they look like they should be milking a cow. Some how in the last forty or fifty years that “Dress for Success” thing has been thrown out the window in favor of the “Come as You Are” model of success.
In the past year my son interviewed for a job. Of course I told him to wear his suit because he would make a better impression. He thinks the suit may have been a detriment because while the work demanded professional credentials the work place was extremely casual in nature. Even at school it is difficult at times to tell the students from the teachers. When I was growing up the male teachers wore suits and women dressed up.
Recently my sister and I have noticed that we seem to be heading for a class system of dress. Most people will fall under that “casual” crowd. They can dress with holes in their jeans, wear tennis shoes with everything or whatever but there is another class that will show a definite separation between the “commoners” and the “wealthy”. Eventually, the commoners won’t be able to compete with the wealthy. Labels on clothing have become very important from your jeans right on down to your shoes and even your purse. As a young woman growing up I never knew much about labels. Even today I don’t know a lot about them but I know that eventually those labels will separate us all, rich and poor, so that you will know who you “peeps” really are. The wealthy can occasionally “slum” with the poor but they can’t “marry” them. They can have fun with them but “those people” will never be invited to the party unless they happen to be working at it.
In politics this clothing issue is more than evident. While politicians are having their “state” dinner parties and dressed to the “nines” the poor are living on the streets getting handouts to stay alive. The divide is drastic and yet we are so busy accepting this casual attire we can’t see the class system that is really developing from all of this. While my students think it is “cool” to wear ripped, tattered clothing they lose the sense of style that comes with developing attire that fits who you really are and what you really care about as well as appropriate for the time and place. Clothing can be used to express yourself but when you start looking like a massed produced person expression is lost. It used to be we had our every day clothes and our church clothes. Many people don’t go to church on a regular basis any more and maybe don’t feel the need to dress up but when you do dress up you tend to walk a little taller. Your sense of self is stronger. You feel more confident and self assured. You know when you look good and you can feel it.
Today so many are so busy being part of the crowd and buying the lies that are being sold to them that they don’t even realize how their sense of style and self is being whittled away by corporations putting out shoddy merchandise with little or no standards. Trust me the wealthy are not dressing like the masses. They are still buying fancy designer gowns and Armani suits and attending everything from the opera to those state dinners. They are still dressing for success but now they know who their “peeps” are and those peeps are the people that hold the power in America as well as the world. Those huddled masses that make up the rest of us, they are the commoners that will never be invited to the dinner except as a maid, an usher or a specimen to pull out to show what good deeds the wealthy are doing for the rest of us, yes, we the commoners. The next time you get dressed think about what you are saying by what you wear.