Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Dial M for Modesty

Let me just post part of a comment under one of the blog entries from Modestly Yours, a wonderful blog that's like a breath of fresh air in the blogosphere.

It sounds very noble to say everyone should dress according to their comfort level, but the reality is, at some point, somewhere, there needs to be a limit, because there are those people out there who have a comfort level that would permit them to go totally nude all the time.


Stating that people should be able to dress to their own comfort level and shouldn't have to adhere to any standards other than their comfort level is the same as the old "let it all hang out" attitude of the 1960's. It leads to dress styles that are more and more extreme, to the point where styles are beyond the real comfort level of most people, but they wear them because they're fashionable or because there is truly nothing else available. It seems odd now, but during the early 1970's, there were truly NO dresses available without a micromini skirt length. None. Zilch. Even dresses made for older women. If you didn't sew for yourself or hire a seamstress, the only skirts and dresses available stopped about half an inch short of your crotch. Most women are simply not comfortable with that, and women retreated into the hideous polyester pantsuits that were the other fashion option of the time though most of them weren't particularly happy about the awful fabrics and ugly colors available either.


The sad fact about humanity is that, if you dress in a way that makes you blatantly stand out, whether you're a woman and your dress is unusually masculine or a man and your dress is unusually feminine, or you show a great deal more skin than the people around you, you are going to attract attention to yourself. If you dress in a way that attracts attention to yourself, you shouldn't be surprised when people notice. And short of Utopia, people will notice things that look different - it's hard wired into the human brain, and it isn't something that people can change (that's not to say that people can't adapt their behavior to where they don't stare or make comments, both of which I consider unforgivable, no matter how a person is dressed).


As my father said the day I wore a very striking and attractive but attention getting hat on the street when I was a teenager, and got uncomfortable with all the looks I was getting, "if you don't want people to look at you, don't dress in a way that asks them to look at you - and if you do dress in such a way, don't be offended if you get looks".


It's great to dress the way you want, but you can't dictate how other people are going to react to it.


Some people really know how to drive home a point.


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