'Dress' As A Forcing Mechanism
Photo by Andrew Slifkin on Unsplash
I feel like I’ve been writing a lot about “forcing mechanisms” recently - ideas and beliefs that translate into behaviors and actions that force specific outcomes, in ourselves or in others.
Forcing mechanisms serve a purpose if we’re conscious about them, leading us towards or away from the kinds of results we’re looking for.
One forcing mechanism I’ve been thinking about lately is how we dress. This was prompted by an article in The Guardian about “dressing for your age”, especially if you’re in your 40s, 50s and beyond.
Now, normally, I bristle at articles such as these, because here is someone else imposing their value system on others, suggesting that there is “a way” that we should and should not dress that is age appropriate (a bullshit idea if there ever was one). But I thought I’d give this one a shot.
The first key idea in the piece was that, as you get older, your dress code should get louder - “Go 10% more dressy for every 10 years over 40”. The suggestion is to get more formal, add more color, etc. to what you’re wearing. This was reasonably counterintuitive to what we’re normally told about dressing as we age, so I thought perhaps there was some hope in what the author had to say.
But before I got too too far, the author reminded us that “A radical change of style direction is inadvisable…If you have made it through your first half century in jeans and trainers, a complete Savile Row makeover at this point will almost certainly be an expensive mistake.” In other words, change but don’t change too much.
At about this point, I wondered, why do we dress the way we do, in the first place?
For the most part, I feel as if we dress for others. Even when we dress up or down, it’s done so as to be in alignment with some set of norms we want to be mindful of (work, event, party, friends, etc.). Yes, there are elements of personality baked in but the idea is, when are we comfortable - truly comfortable?
The idea that we should exercise change, but not too much, may be right, but it may well be wrong. The key, I think, should always be to dress for who we are. And that may align with the worldview of the author above, or it might not. So, on this article’s premise, I think I’ll pass, thank you very much.
That is, dress the way you want - to be clearer, dress as who we are. Some of us have louder personalities than others and prefer flamboyance in one form or another. Others prefer to be more understated, and are far more comfortable wearing quieter, more subdued tones. There’s no problem with any of that, because, well, you do you.
The key, it seems to me, is to be ourselves in the process and allow how we dress to project that. Not dress for someone we’d like to be, but don’t feel comfortable dressing as - always seeking approval and commentary and discussion, lest we feel inadequate. That’s hardly the point.
The point is to dress comfortably, expressing those aspects of who we are that make sense to us and make us feel something positive. If that's colors, flashy shoes, eyewear, jewelry, etc. then so be it. We don’t need to be told this - we’ll just know it.
This approach, in and of itself, becomes a forcing mechanism. It brings in a group of folks aligned with your approach, your statement of who you are, or it forces others out. Both are fine and helpful, because they help you understand who, in your circle, matters and who doesn’t.
That’s pretty much it, because those that end up opting out over this - should be opted out.
