What are the implications?
Nowadays, there are a lot of people who are concerned about the way they look very much. The implications can be very different. There are different factors that can cause this phenomenon. The most significant one is for sure social factor.
Almost in all spheres of our life, as in behavior, attitudes and preferences, also in clothing we strive for individuality, aim to please others. Whether we like it or not, but whenever choosing outfit, we subconsciously ask the question if it is fashionable and what others think of me.
Our personal and business life depends on our appearance and relationships with people in general. We can have amazing talents and be good people, but no one will appreciate if you do not pay enough attention to your appearance. Every time we meet a person for the first time, we pay attention on the way he is dressed. As awful as it may sound, but we judge a person by appearance, and it is quite understandable because we do not have other information. And you cannot expect that new acquaintance is going to appreciate your rich inner world, if you do not create the proper impression. Meanwhile, the appearance depends on the type of your professional activity, so it is very important to give it a special meaning.
It should be stressed that the success of your activities 60 % depends on properly chosen clothes. Person is "automatically" associated with the characteristics that his clothes can cause. Uniform is accepted as something special and specific role and appropriate behavior is assigned to it.
Whatever the nature of your activities, you should always comply with it. If you're a designer, you are the main person of the brand!
An excellent example is the movie "The Devil Wears Prada», which shows how to achieve success by changing your style and climbing the career ladder. People involved in the bright world of fashion are very familiar with this question. Many individuals succeeded because of their style.
Clothing may indicate membership in a particular social group. This is particularly noticeable among the youth. Young people tend to imitate their idols and seek like-minded people. Clothes in this case become a kind of identification mark for their own kind.
Each of us is faced with such a term as “dress code”. It is one of the basic rules in any major company. Trousers, a jacket and a shirt are not the most comfortable things. Nevertheless, on the contrary, we will be collected, as required for productive work. The dress code is very large value, and performs certain tasks for educational institutions, firms, important events, activities.
Discos or nightclubs guards conduct so-called "dress control" and can refuse some people to visit a place if their clothes do not meet the rules.
Choice of clothing, in fact, is a private matter. Nevertheless, we must remember few principles: fashion style affects not only person's appearance, but also his attitude toward himself and others. Wanting to look fashionable it is necessary not to lose yourself, to reveal your individuality.
We define fashion as a special phenomenon of mass psychology, based on the category of "hipness" opposing "unfashionable", and on action pair socio-psychological mechanism of infection-imitation. From the viewpoint of mass psychology, fashion is a bright desire to the external diversity.
Considering the style of fashionable and richest region people increase their prestige externally as well as internally by the way they look.
Following the fashion, putting their way to trendy clothes, ideas, lifestyle, people inevitably develop, enrich new knowledge, feelings and perceptions. They form their own taste and preferences.
People assert themselves in their own eyes when they contribute to the fashionable laws. It is clear that self-affirmation may contact various spheres. Women fashion clothing is always associated with sexual assertiveness. Fashion for men is associated with the idea of intellectual self-assertion. Whatever the scope of fashion, it stands for the same thing - the desire for isolation and validating yourself.
Sometimes concerns about the appearance can be a cause of some psychological troubles and it can be treated as a psychological illness.
Concern with their appearance is typical for adolescence and early adulthood. Usually at this stage of development, young people compare themselves with culture idol and come to the conclusion that this and that they lack. Typically, this concern disappears as they succeed in courtship. Girls begin to consider themselves attractive when the boys find them attractive. However, sometimes girls develop excessive concerns about their physical defect, real or imaginary, that they begin to avoid the social situations that could help them to overcome this concern. Sometimes it is real physical defect, in other cases it is some minimal problem, but extremely important for most girls. Here vicious circle can start when the girl more and more isolates herself from other people. The more is isolation, the more she takes it seriously. Support and encouragement from parents does not change the result, since girl takes their efforts for charity. Sometimes this symptom occurs in girls as a reaction to a family matter, for example, she can deny her physical attractiveness not to lose contact with her mother who sees her as a rival. It happens also that girl growing up into the center of the conflict between father and mother when the mother looks at her as a rival, or father uses it against his wife. It happens also that this increased concern with real or imaginary physical defect arises from scratch. Logical arguments cannot dissuade the girl that she is too unattractive for communication with people.
In conclusion, it is worth saying that people nowadays really are too concerned about the way they look. They are influenced by many factors: social one (their friends, parents, school, university, work), media factor (influence of magazines, newspapers, videos, movies and others) and psychological factor (when such concern is caused by individual psychological perception, sometimes illness). Sometimes people get rid of this obsession with the way they look when they overcome teenage period. In this period hormones are very high, that is why children can reflect on the way they look like. Nevertheless, people should bear in mind that they should be concerned about their appearance in normal way, not obsessed. Nowadays people take others as they look like, so person should correspond.
References
Andreoletti, C., Zebrowitz, L. and Lachman, M. 2001. Physical Appearance and Control Beliefs in Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults. [e-book] Brandeis University. [Accessed: 8 Mar 2014].
Borgman, D. 2014. APPEARANCE OVERVIEW. [e-book] [Accessed: 8 Mar 2014].
Croll, J. 2005. Body image and adolescents. [e-book] Guidelines for Adolescent Nutrition Services. http://www.epi.umn.edu/let/pubs/adol_book.shtm [Accessed: 8 Mar 2014].
Devlin, M. 2006. Inequality and stereotyping of young people. [e-book] Dublin: The Equality Authority. [Accessed: 8 Mar 2014].
Young people in a globalising world. 2003. [e-book] World YOUTH Report. pp. 291- 308. [Accessed: 8 Mar 2014].
