Dressing for each other
Do we? Maybe sometimes? We do dress to impress or dress for the occasion. Now, looking into some of the idioms in this territory.
Dress to kill — To dress in extravagantly fancy or stylish clothes to impress others.
Dress to the nines — To be dressed elegantly or stylishly, often for a special event.
All dressed up — to make (something) more attractive, impressive, or fancy.
Dress (up) as (someone or something) To wear clothing or accessories that cause one to look like someone or something else.
To dress for success. To wear clothing that is appropriate and likely to impress others, especially in professional settings
To dress out. Put on the clothing or uniform suitable or required for an athletic activity.
To dress to hilt. To dress in a very formal or extravagant outfit, possibly one so ostentatious or grandiose as to be inappropriate.
To Dress (up) like a dog’s diner, Dressed in very showy clothes that attract negative attention.
To be all dressed up. To be dressed very nicely, perhaps more formally than usual.
Off like a prom dress. A humorous phrase said of a quick or sudden departure. Likened crassly to the stereotypical quickness or eagerness with which American high school students have sex after the prom.
Mutton dressed up as a lamb. A disparaging term for an older woman who tries unsuccessfully to look much younger or finds herself attractive in the style of younger women.
Dress to the teeth. Very well dressed and fashionable, typically for a formal event.
Most of the above convey that we dress for others or an occasion, not ourselves. Somehow, I needed help understanding this. In fact, don’t we dress for ourselves or to impress ourselves? To feel good about ourselves rather than for others? I have often found myself under pressure when I think about dressing in a particular way for others.
For example, in my hometown, putting on something appropriate (which means covering from head to toe) so that catcalls can be warded off is a pressure.
One of the elders in the family insists on having something on the neck every time she spots me. So that is an added pressure, as by nature there are generally does not like any adornment in that area, like to air that area out.
The inappropriateness that ensues when someone scans you the moment you meet them, that too without elan, makes you think the next time you are meeting the person, to tone down what is put so that that gaze is way lesser. Or maybe a burqa needs to be acquired.
Or on Indian streets, the gawking by strangers can be returned by a stare back, which is like rebelling against the already established system of “I would gawk at you, no matter what, and I consider it my fundamental right.”
In any of the above conditions, if you are secure in what you are wearing, even if it’s battered jeans that might show most of the legs or a plunging neckline that you think you can carry off, maybe in a departmental store, nothing or nobody else matters. Once we achieve that securedness, we might dress only for ourselves. That might lead to some crumbling walls of validation, which is needed from others within the self, and the pleasure someone takes in giving that unsolicited suggestion on what you should wear. It’s a lot of work until you dress to kill, even if it is on a factory floor, where all others are from the opposite gender.
