Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I am quite fond of one video online highlighting the role of one’s clothing choice in conveying a message, mainly because of its cinematography, but that’s beside the point.
It says that even those who claim to be unbothered by fashion get that across through their choice of wear.
In this way, the outfit we choose to don can reveal a host of things about ourselves. It distinguishes the fashion conscious from the one for who comfort triumphs.
Surely, the way a person chooses to dress doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with how the person wishes to be perceived.
Still, no one can deny the importance of dressing to impress when the occasion calls for it. Most would put extra thought into how they’d appear for a job interview, for example.
It should come as no surprise then, that a lot of controversy has been generated because of a certain first lady’s choice of apparel when she visited child detainees separated from their families.
The internet took to demystifying the chosen look, most condemning it as an insensitive act of indifference, others pointing it out as a mere putting together of an outfit. Whatever, the intent of such a choice of apparel, and whether there was any underlying purpose at all, this was not the first time that the US first lady’s selection of attire sparked interest and online debate as to whether it was craftily chosen to deliver a deeper message.
Thankfully, those of us not in the public eye have a little more leeway when it comes to dressing ourselves up, or down, as one pleases. But that’s not to say that what we wear won’t ever come with further implications about personality, values and background.
