Fashion and first impressions

As schools have started, several opportunities have opened up as well. There’s the chance to make new friends among class- or schoolmates. Before that, the opportunity to make a good first impression.

Among senior high and college students – who are mostly their own persons already – first impressions are often more significant than one might think. One student may strike others as either friendly, serious, fun to be with, lousy etc. on first meeting. It follows, therefore, that one should try to look his or her best during these first days of school.

It’s partly the way one carries oneself and partly appearance. Of the two factors, appearance is much easier to manage – one just has to look right. And to a large extent, appearance consists of the clothes one wears.

There is much more to clothing choices than most people might imagine. For those who have the ‘exquisite taste’ in their veins, what they wear is merely a matter of habit; they decide in a snap, from the top of their heads. But for the rest, they have to be a little more careful in the choices they make; they need to try harder, so to speak.

Image consultants would vouch on how the right outfit can positively influence the impression of others on the person. There are very subtle ways in which clothing influences all kinds of impressions about a person. Clothes make a huge difference in what people think about someone – and without that person knowing or in ways that’s hard to explain.

First impressions involve assessments that go way beyond how well someone is dressed and how neat and tidy that person looks. In an experiment, 300 subjects, both men and women, were made to look at images of a man and a woman for just three seconds before making ‘snap judgments’ about those images. The result was very revealing.

In some of the pictures the man wore a custommade suit; in others he wore a very similar off-the-rack suit bought from the fashion boutique. The differences in the suits were very minor – all the big differences were controlled such as color and fabric, while the face of the model was intentionally blurred so that the facial expressions would not influence the subjects’ judgments.

People judged the man more favorably in the custom-made suit. Curiously, the judgments were not even about how well-dressed he was. The model was rated as more confident, successful, flexible and a higher earner in a tailor-made suit than when he wore a boutique equivalent.

There’s also the finding of another study that “teachers made assumptions about children’s academic ability based on the kids’ clothing.” Clothes indeed say a great deal about a person, and can signal a great deal of socially important things to others. The impression that clothes generate may actually be unfounded – but the impression holds.

Yes, an impression can be either way – good or bad for the person concerned. So the challenge for everyone is to choose the right outfit for the kind of personality that one intends to project. It is important to choose outfit styles carefully.

Of course, not all first impressions last. The real personality of the individual soon takes over. But even then, especially on the job, people are expected to look a certain way.

Fashion is not just extravagant vanity. While it’s true that one’s personality is ultimately the thing that matters, having the right fashion style can speak a lot about a person, instantly! Dressing to impress is not sheer vanity, after all.