How to Dress Properly? Clothes Reveal Lot of Info

This post on how to dress properly covers the following:

1. Choice Of Colors – What Your Clothes Say About You
2. Wrinkles And Crease
3. Pockets Are Not Bags!
4. What to Wear and When;
5. Underwear: Black On White Makes It Gray!
6. Some Tips

Clothing… or the way you dress up, reveals a lot of information about you. If you are always seen in formals, probably you are a serious type person. If you switch between casuals and formals, you are a balanced person. If you are always seen in casuals, you do not take much care about your clothing or the only aim of your life is to have some fun at any cost. This is generalization and of course, there may be exceptions but more or less, the above is conveyed to people who observe your style of dressing over days or weeks.

Hence, you should spend some time – or rather, invest some time – in selection of clothes for yourself. After all, you are going to build an aura about yourself in the society and that too, just with the way you dress up.

In most cases, it would be colors you wear, the type of dress you select – casual or formal – for different occasions, the type of cloth you wear – rugged (jeans), shiny (silk or gloss) or easy (cottons or semi cottons) etc. Then people also judge you by the look of clothes you wear. For example, whether your clothes are always neatly ironed or carry wrinkles with plates fanning out and if you are wearing the right type of dress to any event etc.

You need to nurture a dressing code and know what colors to wear for a particular event. Bright colors (eg: a shining red shirt with a glowing blue jacket) in business are a turn off – unless you are a disk jockey, a dancer or something similar. For most businesses, it is the shirt on a pair of pants (with or without anything over it) plus the footwear. You know better if you need a cap, hat or something similar to talk to someone.

Know the manners of a place and dress accordingly. For example, in some places, people consider it insulting if you are still wearing a hat/cap while talking to them. If you see that others have taken off their hats/caps or head-wear, it is better to remove yours as well. This is necessary and you should research a little on this if you are going abroad.

Finally, irrespective of casual or formals, make sure your clothes are free of wrinkles. If the plates are fanning out and there are pretty many wrinkles on the tops or lower garments, they send out a signal that you have a pretty casual attitude and may not trust you with their secrets. Some may even despise you for the clothes you wear. It is not that you should always be wearing costly clothes. Rather, whatever you are wearing, should look good to the viewers’ eyes. People say that you dress for yourself. Of course, the clothes should be comfortable. But if you want to make an impression on the society, your choice of clothes should be in line with how the society perceives clothing. The following few sections of this post on how to dress properly will focus on what types of clothes to wear and when, usage of pockets etc.

Choice of Colors – How to Dress Properly?

Colors of your clothes make a good impact on your endeavors (interactions) with people. There are different dress codes that you follow at different times. For example, wearing completely formal dress for a crazy music show might not be as good as wearing casuals or semi-casuals. There is no rule that you should not wear tie and bow to music shows when you are going there with friends but still, people generate their own conclusions about you, based on your clothes.

Apart from clothes – formal or casual – you should also take care of when to wear what so that to send out right signals (to create an aura that you wish to create). Likewise, colors also generate some feelings when worn. This section mostly aims at completely formals (also takes into account, the coats and ties). Check out how colors impress the opposite party when you go attend an interview or meeting with a client.

BLUE: A blue suit (a blue coat with blue pants or a blue shirt on darker pants) will send out a message that you are a team player. If your client needs or job requirements are that you should be a team player, wearing blue will send out positive signals. It creates an aura that you are conservative and you can use this knowledge to your advantage.

GRAY: Sends out a message that you are analytical and logically inclined. The color goes well with any kind of interview or meeting. People don’t get distracted with lighter shades of grey and the meetings will be pleasant.

BROWN: The first impression it sends is that you are dependable. People can share their things with you if you appear, in the society, wearing brown often. There are many shades of brown and some browns look like purple. Avoid the purplish brown as it is not the color we are talking about. The greater is the shade of brown, the more dependable you look.

BLACK: Sends out a signal that you are self-motivating person with good leadership traits. Black pants with a white shirt covered by a black coat will be good for you if you are attending an interview for leadership roles. But here, I would discourage wearing pure white shirts on black  pants as it looks odd and may be repelling. Use shirts that are variants of white – shades of Yellow, Apple White etc.

WHITE: White from top to bottom sends out a signal that you are a simple person. As such, I would avoid recommending completely white clothes. But if used as a white coat on white pants with a good matching shirt, it sends out message that you prefer being highly organized.

The above is not comprehensive list of all the colors available as you know. You can use a combination to produce mixed effects. Note that the above are applicable to formals and not much to the casual T shirts etc.

How to Dress up Well – Wrinkles and Creases

Well, they do not always form a bad opinion but in most scenarios they do. For example, your mom and friends might not find it weird but if you go to your job with a wrinkled pair of pants where even the creases are visibly fanned out, you sure are going down. If your client is visiting you, and you are roaming around in three-fourth pants, it is going to give you a negative score. You may not know but the client can feel that you do not respect him enough.

Dressing up is a necessity – for looking good, professional and to convey how other people mean to you – rather than just covering up your body. I do not say you need costly clothes. But you do need wearable clothes.

Check out the following:

1. Wearing the right type of dress for different events. For example, if it is a friend’s birthday and s/he has thrown a party with a theme, you go ahead with whatever matches with the theme. Again, if you are going to meet your boss or client, you need to be properly dressed – from top to toe. Broken collars and creased out pants are sure to spoil your prospects.

3. The clothes you wear should be neat and tidy instead of just being costly. I know you love that red shirt too much. But do you really need it even when the dirt is visible at the collar? “Come on… who is going to notice…”? Well, almost everyone whom you are going to meet wearing that.

4. If you are going to dress up, dress up completely. Just changing your shirt assuming nobody will give a damn to your pants’ creases fanning out… or the iron lines out of focus… just imagine another person in that outfit before trying to get lazy. It takes just a few minutes to correct the lines and creases using an iron. If you get your clothes ironed outside, probably you may have to look for an alternate dress. It should be complete: to the toes. Your shirt and pants are perfect. But you choose to wear slippers, for example, instead of shoes. Imagine.

IMPORTANT: I do not know if you noticed but your appearance and sometimes even attitude is affected by what you are wearing. I have been stressing the need to dress up properly to even the people who work from home. It is necessary to create an aura for self so that you accomplish what you want. The post does not ask you to buy costly clothes. Rather, it says that whatever you wear, should be clean and fit to wear – when it comes to proper ironing and creasing etc. Also, smaller things like using a little shoe polish enhance your appearance.

Pockets Are Not Bags

There have been baggy pants with plenty of pockets. You must have seen the rappers wearing those kinds – looser than that in the adjacent image. These were (and are) too lose and believe me, you will never look cool in those types of pants. I am not talking about the plated ones but the ones that flows down as if they are about to fall off. They are much more casual than the casuals. Avoid them as they’ll send negative signals.

Coming to correct type of pants – with or without plates – that fit your body properly without parts of it hanging towards lower side of legs, there are minimum three pockets in each pair: one to the left, one to the right and one back-pocket. Some pants have two back-pockets, one for each leg. Still others have more pockets that hang on to the knees etc.

Remember that these pockets are for keeping small things. I have seen many people putting up so much into the pockets that they bulge out. For a good impression on others, do not use bulges on your body: be it a shirt pocket or a pant pocket. They simply hold napkin, handkerchiefs and probably a comb or a packet of cigarettes.

PS: Mobile phones and pens don’t suit the pant pockets. Not only do they cause inconvenience but they look bad too. Imagine you are sitting with a flat surface due to a mobile phone in it. It simply does not look good. Pens too may hurt you or may even break if not adjusted properly. I suggest shirt pockets for mobiles and pens. Small diaries or pocket notebooks too look good inside shirt pockets.

So how do you manage? You have things to carry and you want to look good too? Use a bag or better still, a backpack. A backpack goes well with both formals and casuals. But make sure the backpack looks decent. I’ve seen some good, simple backpacks that can also be used as normal bags at Fastrack stores. If these do not fit your budget, you can check out elsewhere. For ladies, it has been the norm to carry a purse so it is not much of an issue for them.

Also, coming to carrying things, a briefcase or a slimcase is a good option. If you are wearing formals and intend to visit any business related places, I suggest briefcase instead of backpacks.

Summary: The whole idea is to look good and avoid bulges on your body. These bulges come from pockets that are overstuffed with things you are carrying. If you do not wish to carry briefcase or backpack, you can still buy a smaller bag and keep it with you. Or keep items in your laptop bag if you are carrying one. Just avoid the bulges to avoid looking bad.

Bottomline: Be it pants or shirts, they should be fitting properly in proportion to your body. Too tight or too loose clothes are not trendy as some of the manufacturers project them. Too loose clothes flow down when you keep anything in pockets and too tight ones give out bulges.

Selection of Clothes: What to Wear and When?

SUMMER CLOTHES:
Ever tried a radiant reflecting material shirt in summers? It will not only increase your own body heat but will also prevent others from talking to you. People might ignore you as bright colors in summers are a turn off, especially if the cloth material employs reflective material.

That doesn’t mean you can’t wear it. You can wear such radiant colors to parties and functions, meet ups etc. where there is not much light – preferably after the sun goes down.

The best things to wear during summers are light colored, cottons or semi-cottons. That will not only keep you cooler, it will be pleasant for others’ eyes too. But you need to be careful of colors. Blue, Light Blue, Apple Green and similar light color variations are best for summers – especially during the day – even if you are not going out.

As said earlier, there are twofold benefits:

1. you will feel better and
2. you will look pleasant to others who will resist bright radiance emitting from your clothes.

Again, bright colors in cottons are okay. But if the cloth material is something that reflects light, it will repel people. And as said earlier, clothes should be cleaned and ironed.

The clothes you wear, need not be costly. They can be anything in your budget provided they satisfy these two conditions for summers:

1. Clothes, especially upper clothes – shirts and tops – are light colors or subtle variants of white, green and blue.
2. Clothes do not reflect light. Some clothes tend to reflect sunlight or even electrical lights and are repulsive. People will tend to ignore you as they cannot take the reflected light for long.

WINTER CLOTHES:
Winter is a season where you can wear any shades. Consider previous sections as to how to dress up for different occasions. Nevertheless, bright colors add to the beauty of winters.

There are a variety of clothes and colors to choose from – according to your wish. Overcoats, mufflers, socks and shoes add to your personality. Just make sure you follow these two points:

1. Dress according to occasion
2. Dress up in a way that your body is saved from the cold atmosphere.

Dump the clothes that stick to your body on perspiration as when it will rain, the clothes will stick to your body. Avoid very light colors such as pure white unless you want to show your six pack to the world.

Since rains drench your clothes, do wear matching undergarments as there would be good chances of your main clothes sticking to undergarments to give away information about what you are wearing inside.

Carry Rain Coats with you. That way, you’ll be less drenched and your clothes will not give away the shape and build of your body.

How to Dress Properly: Underwears

Though it might not appear a huge topic, there are certain things you should know. You already know you need comfortable underwear or you will spend the day adjusting your undies – in meeting, on roads, in restaurants and everywhere. Buy the proper size that are neither too tight nor too loose.

What I want to stress here is that you should have matching underwear for your different dresses. Wearing a black underwear on a white colored top will look very bad, especially if the outer dress is made up of lighter material. Remember that black and white makes it grey so people around you will know what you are wearing inside. For best, wear matching (same colors or similar colors) inside. That would blend well, without giving away any type of contrasting colors, neither on top nor on bottoms. For example, white underwear under white and yellow shirts.

Clothing Tips

Tip 1:

When if you are wearing a dress to an occasion – formals or casuals – the top should be lighter (in color) compared to the bottom. I don’t know how to put it up in words. Let’s take an example: Pants and Shirt!

If you are wearing pants and shirts, the color of shirts should always be lighter and cooler compared to your pants. For example, white shirt on black pants is good but black shirt on white pants is not.

Tip 2:

When selecting clothes colors, there can be two combinations:

1. Similarity in colors or
2. Contrast colors.

Both are good. But “similarity” in color makes it look more like a uniform rather than a good piece of suit. If you are wearing a white shirt and then opt to wear a white pants too, you will look like a corporater as they are the only ones I have seen wearing white on white. But then, if there is a little difference in shades, it looks better. A completely white shirt on a Grayish White or Brownish White pants will look better.

PS: The above does not apply to complete suits. For example, it will look good if you wear white coat over white pants. But then, the shirt too if white, it should blend in with coat.

Contrasts too should be light colors above and dark colors below. And you need to check out the contrasts. Yellow shirt on a gray pair of pants would look odd. Yellow shirt on black pants would look good. If you are confused, place the clothes one on the other. For example, place a pair of pants somewhere and check by placing shirts of different colors on it. You will know which one looks better. Pick that one.

Tip 3: While we are here, black goes with any color of shirt so keep one or two pairs of black pants ready – just in case you do not find any matching colors.

The above explains how to dress properly, how to choose clothes, and what do colors of clothes tell about you. If you wish to add more or have any doubt, please comment.

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