In 1956, Warner Brothers released a cartoon called “Bugs’ Bonnets.” At the start, the narrator shows the ways in which the things a person wears influence their behavior. A mild-mannered man in a business suit suddenly is put into pirate garb, and he starts shouting and bellowing like Redbeard himself. The narrator then moves to a change in hats; at that point, a truck driving down the road labeled “Acme Theatrical Hat Co.” has its back doors open, and the hats start floating down into the value. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd just happen to be running around in the valley, and they end up wearing such hats as a military helmet, a game warden’s hat, a Native American headdress, a pilgrim hat, a woman’s bonnet, a Boy Scout’s hat, and so on. Ultimately, Elmer has a bridal veil, and Bugs has a top hat land on his head, and the two end up getting married (“Bugs’ Bonnets” 1956). The point is that what people wear does have an effect on their personalities, and more academic sources bear this claim out as well.
If you think about it, this claim is definitely true on a symbolic level. If you see a man or woman hawking a medical procedure on television while wearing a white lab coat, you are likely to assume that the person speaking is trustworthy, because doctors have developed a reputation of being careful and thorough (Lewis, 2012). When you see a person walking down the street in a police uniform, your reaction will vary depending on your experience with law enforcement personnel. A study at Northwestern University showed that if you put that white lab coat on, you will actually be more focused. However, if the white coat could be a painter’s garb, the effect will not be the same (Adam and Galinsky, 2012). This study consisted of three experiments. The first one had 58 participants randomly told to wear street clothes or a white lab coat and then pick out items that did not match the set they were in. The people in street clothes made twice as many mistakes as those in the lab coats (Adam and Galinsky, 2012). The second experiment had 74 participants that either wore a doctor’s lab coat, a painter’s coat or simply had a doctor’s lab coat in view. They then looked at pairs of pictures, looking for four differences. The ones wearing the doctor’s lab coat performed more accurately than the other groups (Adam and Galinsky, 2012). The last experiment had people in either painter’s or doctor’s coats, and they had to examine a doctor’s coat that was on a table of them. They then wrote opinion essays of the various types of coats. Those who could show the greatest sustained attention had doctor’s lab coats (Adam and Galinsky, 2012).
A study at the University of Manchester sought to explore connections between clothing preferences and styles with personality factors, mood and emotions, giving questionnaires to females before they tried on eight garments. Afterward, another questionnaire was administered to find the mood and emotion they experienced in each outfit. Using SPSS analysis, the researchers found that mood was a major predictor in the preference of the clothing style and specific garment (Moody, Kinderman and Sindha, 2010). Could it then be that the man makes the clothes?
One of Norman Rockwell’s famed prints shows, “Boy with Baby Carriage,” three boys and a baby carriage. Two boys are wearing baseball uniforms and are clearly heading to a game. They are jeering at a third, who is dressed in a three-piece suit with a hat and gloves, taking his infant sibling out for a walk; his face shows the outrage that this duty has created inside him. His lapel pocket holds the bottle that he is expected to feed his sibling (Rockwell, 1916). The implication is not, though, that clothes makes the man; here, the suit is clearly forced on the boy, but he does not feel that sense of fatherly (or even older brotherly) love and devotion that the suit may be intended to show, as his face washes out any impression that the suit might make. So the answer just might be that the man makes the clothes after all.
Works Cited
Adam, H. and Galinsky, A. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology 48(4): 918-925. Doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.008
Lewis, J.G. (2012). Clothes make the man – literally. Psychology Today 24 August 2012.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201208/clothes-make-the-man- literally
Moody, W., Kinderman, P., and Sinha, P. (2010). An exploratory study: Relationships between
trying on clothing, mood, emotion, personality and clothing preference,” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal 14(1): 161-179. Doi: 10.1108/13612021011025483
Pierce, T. (Writer) & Jones, C. (Director). (14 January 1956). “Bugs’ Bonnets.” In Edward Selzer
(Producer). Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Pictures.
Rockwell, Norman. “Boy with Baby Carriage.” Saturday Evening Post 20 May 1916.
http://www.best-norman-rockwell-art.com/norman-rockwell-saturday-evening-post- cover-1916-05-20-boy-with-baby-carriage.html
