Dressing...

Wescli Wardest wrote: I have recently had a conversation with a dear friend of mine. (yes, I have friends) And it leads me to this… What and why is appropriate dress? Of course we were talking about female attire, but I think this could go off to cover everyone. (ha ha.. I said cover)

Example: How much “skin” is appropriate? Should guys wear their pants below their butts? (sagging) What makes a particular outfit look nice and another obscene? Should we dress in accordance as to how we feel others will view us?

I was curious as to how the rest of the community viewed this particular topic as to how we are all so diverse!

This of course is another one of those taboo's. It is thought about a lot, but it is something that is not discussed. But regardless. Who am I to say how much someone wears or does not wear, that is not my place. My place as a Jedi is to follow the Jedi Creed, and this one line speaks my thought on the subject. "Where there is hatred I shall bring love." Now to paraphrase that to fit in line with the sujbect, "Where there are taboo's I shall bring enlightenment and understanding."

As a boy growing up I rarely heard about modest dressing for boys, but I often heard it about my sisters and other women in my former faith.

Now I don't care what people wear on their own time in public or private.

While at work, you adhere to the dress code of your employer. When you are patronizing places of business, you adhere to that establishment's dress code. When you are on your own in your car, on the street, at the park, dress as conservatively or provocatively as you want; won't bother me either way.

Interestingly, I made a new friend a few weeks ago by following an adage I'd heard somewhere about doing something outside your comfort zone at least once a week.

Story time...

I was sitting on a bench outside and a 19 year old woman (she told me her age later) sat down next to me. She was dressed in a see-through shirt that left little to the imagination and very short shorts. But that wasn't the unusual part (if you can say that's unusual); she had a temporary tattoo design off of her eyes that kind of curled around and made a black web pattern slightly down both sides of her cheek.

I leaned over and told her I thought her eye/face design was cool (I actually did think it was cool looking) and asked her how she did it. She was completely taken by surprise that me, a business casual dressed, "responsible-looking" 30-something male would say that about her. She told me most people look at her like a freak and some guys (that fit the description I just illustrated about myself) would actually stop her on the street and tell her she's a freak and to go back to her hole.

We got to talking and actually now have a very pleasant friendship. What does this have to do with dressing? I don't know, I just thought the story fit in here somehow, haha.

MTFBWY,
LTK

I have recently had a conversation with a dear friend of mine. (yes, I have friends) And it leads me to this… What and why is appropriate dress? Of course we were talking about female attire, but I think this could go off to cover everyone. (ha ha.. I said cover)

Example: How much “skin” is appropriate? Should guys wear their pants below their butts? (sagging) What makes a particular outfit look nice and another obscene? Should we dress in accordance as to how we feel others will view us?

I was curious as to how the rest of the community viewed this particular topic as to how we are all so diverse!

Style is a social construct, so any opinion on the matter is going to be subjective. There are no rules about clothing that would be agreed upon across the board. I mean look, in a nudist community a woman wearing absolutely nothing is acceptable, whereas in a place like Saudi Arabia, the norm is to cover everything but the eyes, hands, and feet in public. The rules change based on location and culture/sub-culture.

So that being said, I'm personally open to people wearing styles that are different than the norm. I mean, in most of my videos I wear hijab/cover my hair, which is not the norm for women at TotJO.

But I think it's important to take note that the type of clothing you wear while in a place with expected standards/codes of dress will send a message to the people within that community. Transgressing common norms of style can convey multiple things, depending on the type of transgression:

1. You're an "outsider". You weren't raised in the community, and so you either do not understand the society's standard, or wish to retain the style you were brought up with. Examples can include wearing overalls in a city like D.C, or wearing a miniskirt and tank top in Provo, Utah. This goes along with my second point...

2. You're part of a subculture. One's style or look can identify them as belonging to any number of sub-cultures: goth culture, gay culture, lesbian culture, punk culture, bodybuilding culture, etc. This could also include religious cultures- people within religious groups often will have a distinct style.

3. You're "weird". This is often applied to individuals who create a new style, or who adopt styles that are not well known of in the mainstream. It is also applied to people who wear clothes from a specific subculture at times where it is not expected for the members to dress in that way (such as if a member of the cosplay community were to wear a cosplay outfit out on a regular day). This label is also often applied to people who will wear clothes not considered "appropriate" for the occasion. If you apply to a job interview wearing baggy jeans and a t-shirt, the potential employer will likely think you're weird because you seemingly don't understand the dress code for the occasion, and will not hire you.

etc etc etc.

It's just reality- all societies have rules/guidelines on how to dress. The rules change, depending on how many people transgress the rules. You get enough people transgressing the unwritten rules, the boundary of acceptance grows wider. Like with visible tattoos at work- it used to be if you had a visible tattoo it would be difficult to find a job, that is changing with the rising number of people with visible tattoos.