A few years ago I was oblivious to fashion, I would buy clothes randomly and pick clothes randomly to wear for the day. Now, although I'm still no expert on fashion, I've come to appreciate how fashion works, and I make some effort to understand fashion and to dress fashionably.
My theory of how fashion works is an application of my general theory of how the mind learns. The human mind learns by looking at a finite amount of information it's gathered through experience, and making assumptions about the unknowable infinitude of reality by "connecting the dots". For example, an infant hears a large but finite amount of English sentences, and at some point can use that finite amount of information to understand an infinite amount of English sentences which the infant has never heard before.
How does the way the human mind learns, apply to fashion? It's because, just like people make assumptions about language based on the finite number of sentences they've heard; in the same way, people make assumptions about YOU based on the finite number of other people they've experienced. When you meet another person, at a subconscious level, they compare you to a huge spectrum of other people they've met, carefully considering how those other encounters worked out for them. All of this takes place in a fraction of a second, thanks to unimaginable intelligence of the subconscious mind. To the conscious mind, the entire process is invisible, except for a subtle signal, a gut feeling that YOU are cool, or that YOU are not cool.
It's unfair, but that "first impression" is formed long before you open your mouth. Granted, you can revise it with how you introduce yourself and how you act; impressions are not etched in stone. But, the "first impression" is completely made before you even realize you're being judged.
So how do you get the best out of that first impression, when it happens so fast? The answer, following the explanation I gave above, is to make yourself resemble, as much as possible, cool and awesome people. For example, if you're a mirror image of Brad Pitt, you'll probably make a lot of good first impressions.
Fashion is the art of using clothes and accessories and everything else about your outward appearance to align yourself with good people. Of course, different people have different ideas of who's good, so most fashion attempts to align you with an "average" cool image, one with broad appeal, or at least broad appeal within a certain subset of society. But the thing is, everyone is constantly meeting people in the grand social game of life, and so peoples' idea of a good person is constantly changing. But that is beautifully built into how fashion works.
EASY FASHION, HARD FASHION - THE TRADEOFF
A good measure of how effective a particular fashion is, is how difficult the fashion is. Various things contribute to the difficulty of the fashion: expense, requirements on body type, careful planning and research required, time requirements, and so on. These factors play the important role of a filter. If a particular fashion- a particular method of attempting to align with cool- is very difficult, then that will keep the uncool from pulling it off.
If a fashion strategy was so easy that everyone could do it, then everyone (or almost everyone) would do it, and then doing it would have no value, because it would not align you with any exclusive subset of cool people.
What kind of person is going to invest the time/money/effort/research it takes to follow a more difficult fashion strategy? Answer: a person who cares about making a good impression, and who deliberately wants to work on improving themselves. Such a person may or may not be cool, but if they want to improve themselves and they're actually putting so much energy toward that goal, then even if they're not cool now, they will improve. As long as they stay true to their goal, their growth and evolution is inevitable.
And therefore, of all the people who manage to pull off a certain fashion strategy, most will be genuinely cool people, and if there are some douchebags among them, at least they are douchebags who care and are investing in themselves; chances are, the latter will become cool in time. So, the harder fashion does align you with cool.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU NEGLECT FASHION?
I know that you're one of the coolest people around. I mean, you're a Glowing Face Man reader, so it goes without saying! But, when you meet someone new for the first time, who has never even heard of you before, they don't initially know that you're such a cool person.
When you meet a new person, they'll quickly compare you to other people and make assumptions about you based on similar-looking people from their past.
Looks are extremely complicated and difficult to analyze, and beauty is subjective anyway. But we can analyze the first-meeting situation by replacing appearance with investment. Your appearance is complicated and infinite-dimensional; but the amount you've invested in your appearance, this investment amount is much simpler and lends itself much more to conscious understanding.
With that in mind, let's do a couple thought experiments. First, pretend that you've always totally neglected fashion. You dress kind of "randomly", grabbing whatever shirt is on the top in your drawer. Shopping for the cheapest clothes instead of the best-looking clothes. Just as a thought experiment.
When you meet New Acquaintance, they are immediately going to compare you to other people they've met. Who will you resemble, based on appearance? You will resemble other people who also neglect fashion. Other people who grab the top shirt out of the drawer. Other people who buy the cheapest instead of the sexiest.
I know that you are cool and sexy. But of all those people who totally neglect their appearance, a lot of them have problems. They might be depressed, they might have low self-esteem, they might be boring, they might be addicted to online games, and so on. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, and I've known some very awesome people who completed neglected their looks. But on the average, the average person who completely neglects their looks, has problems.
That means, when you meet New Acquaintance, having invested nothing in your looks, New Acquaintance is going to group you up with the other people who invested nothing. You'll be grouped with people who had problems (on average), and so New Acquaintance will assume you have similar problems. Of course, this all occurs deep in New Acquaintance's subconscious mind, deep below whatever New Acquaintance is consciously aware of. But New Acquaintance is aware of that subtle "gut" feeling that tells them not to give you their phone number.
Now let's do another, maybe more positive, thought experiment. Let's say you're heavily invested in your looks. You've spent lots of money, lots of time, lots of research, and lots of effort on your appearance. I won't even specify that the appearance thus obtained is particularly sexy or prettier or better in any objective way; beauty is subjective and changes from year to year anyway. So, regardless of the result (which is arbitrary in a world of changing fashions), just imagine you've made the investment.
New Acquaintance, upon meeting you for the first time, is going to subconsciously compare you with hundreds or thousands of others. And, the people you will resemble, are people who invested a lot in their looks.
People who invest a lot in their looks have some things going for them. They care enough to make the investment- this usually says a lot about their motivation, their self-esteem, their general mental health, their self-discipline, etc. Again, there are exceptions, the well-dressed douchebag, but on average, people who invested a lot in their appearance tend to be pretty cool people.
That means, New Acquaintance's subconscious mind is going to notice you resemble some pretty cool people. Because you invested a lot in your appearance, and those cool people also invested a lot in their appearances (never mind the actual outcome, which is pretty arbitrary and seasonal). Now, New Acquaintance assumes that you, too, are a pretty cool person. You win :)
THE MORAL OF THE FASHION STORY
The moral of the story is, pick some fashion strategy- it really doesn't matter all that much which, as long as it's congruent with you- and invest into it. Maybe you're not very wealthy, but what you lack in money, you can make up for with time/effort/research. Maybe you're very busy, then what you lack in time/effort/research, you can make up for with money. And so on. It doesn't matter all that much what you invest, just as it doesn't matter all that much what the final results are.
By investing into a fashion strategy, you bring yourself into alignment with other people who also invested into the fashion strategy. The mere fact these people invested in their looks, statistically makes them much more likely to have high self-esteem, high self-discipline, high ambitions, and so on. That means, you are aligning with all these qualities.
FASHION IS ALWAYS CHANGING. WHAT ARE THE CONSTANTS OF FASHION?
Baggy pants, or well-tailored pants? Fashion is always changing. (Lots of things are always changing... check out my article, The Joys of Change) In a stormy sea of fashion, what can you use as your anchor?
Some things which will never go out of fashion are: devotion; self-esteem; self-discipline; ambition; dedication; motivation. Unfortunately, you can't wear these things, they're abstract concepts. But by applying them when you choose what you wear, you make the abstract concepts shine through your fashion.
Apply devotion when you pick out your clothes, and your clothes will shine with devotion. Apply self-esteem, and they'll shine with self-esteem. Pick a pair of pants ambitiously, and your pants will shine with ambition. Choose some jewelry with dedication, and it will glimmer and sparkle dedication to mesmerize your audience. Design your wardrobe with inspired motivation and enjoy a wardrobe which advertises how motivated you are.
How does fashion work? It works very well, as a matter of fact. It signals personal qualities about a person. A man with no qualities cannot use fashion to deceive people into thinking he has qualities: the mere act of building his fashion, would require that he have qualities. Even if someone did it all for him, that's still a testament to the fact someone's willing to invest so much in him. Fashion is very truthful, even if some fashion marketers might not be. For, when we look beyond the specific details of fashion (which change like the wind), what remains is a beacon that shines light on peoples' core character traits.
Be sure that your fashion shines a good light on your own traits. Then enjoy the benefits of a good first impression.
Here are some other articles I wrote. I used lots of dedication, self-discipline, ambition, and motivation to write these articles.
Is Society Biased Against Smart People?
Running On The Treadmill
Introduction To Toastmasters
Book Review: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development For Intelligent People
The Mirror Model Of Social Interaction
My theory of how fashion works is an application of my general theory of how the mind learns. The human mind learns by looking at a finite amount of information it's gathered through experience, and making assumptions about the unknowable infinitude of reality by "connecting the dots". For example, an infant hears a large but finite amount of English sentences, and at some point can use that finite amount of information to understand an infinite amount of English sentences which the infant has never heard before.
How does the way the human mind learns, apply to fashion? It's because, just like people make assumptions about language based on the finite number of sentences they've heard; in the same way, people make assumptions about YOU based on the finite number of other people they've experienced. When you meet another person, at a subconscious level, they compare you to a huge spectrum of other people they've met, carefully considering how those other encounters worked out for them. All of this takes place in a fraction of a second, thanks to unimaginable intelligence of the subconscious mind. To the conscious mind, the entire process is invisible, except for a subtle signal, a gut feeling that YOU are cool, or that YOU are not cool.
It's unfair, but that "first impression" is formed long before you open your mouth. Granted, you can revise it with how you introduce yourself and how you act; impressions are not etched in stone. But, the "first impression" is completely made before you even realize you're being judged.
So how do you get the best out of that first impression, when it happens so fast? The answer, following the explanation I gave above, is to make yourself resemble, as much as possible, cool and awesome people. For example, if you're a mirror image of Brad Pitt, you'll probably make a lot of good first impressions.
Fashion is the art of using clothes and accessories and everything else about your outward appearance to align yourself with good people. Of course, different people have different ideas of who's good, so most fashion attempts to align you with an "average" cool image, one with broad appeal, or at least broad appeal within a certain subset of society. But the thing is, everyone is constantly meeting people in the grand social game of life, and so peoples' idea of a good person is constantly changing. But that is beautifully built into how fashion works.
EASY FASHION, HARD FASHION - THE TRADEOFF
A good measure of how effective a particular fashion is, is how difficult the fashion is. Various things contribute to the difficulty of the fashion: expense, requirements on body type, careful planning and research required, time requirements, and so on. These factors play the important role of a filter. If a particular fashion- a particular method of attempting to align with cool- is very difficult, then that will keep the uncool from pulling it off.
If a fashion strategy was so easy that everyone could do it, then everyone (or almost everyone) would do it, and then doing it would have no value, because it would not align you with any exclusive subset of cool people.
What kind of person is going to invest the time/money/effort/research it takes to follow a more difficult fashion strategy? Answer: a person who cares about making a good impression, and who deliberately wants to work on improving themselves. Such a person may or may not be cool, but if they want to improve themselves and they're actually putting so much energy toward that goal, then even if they're not cool now, they will improve. As long as they stay true to their goal, their growth and evolution is inevitable.
And therefore, of all the people who manage to pull off a certain fashion strategy, most will be genuinely cool people, and if there are some douchebags among them, at least they are douchebags who care and are investing in themselves; chances are, the latter will become cool in time. So, the harder fashion does align you with cool.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU NEGLECT FASHION?
I know that you're one of the coolest people around. I mean, you're a Glowing Face Man reader, so it goes without saying! But, when you meet someone new for the first time, who has never even heard of you before, they don't initially know that you're such a cool person.
When you meet a new person, they'll quickly compare you to other people and make assumptions about you based on similar-looking people from their past.
Looks are extremely complicated and difficult to analyze, and beauty is subjective anyway. But we can analyze the first-meeting situation by replacing appearance with investment. Your appearance is complicated and infinite-dimensional; but the amount you've invested in your appearance, this investment amount is much simpler and lends itself much more to conscious understanding.
With that in mind, let's do a couple thought experiments. First, pretend that you've always totally neglected fashion. You dress kind of "randomly", grabbing whatever shirt is on the top in your drawer. Shopping for the cheapest clothes instead of the best-looking clothes. Just as a thought experiment.
When you meet New Acquaintance, they are immediately going to compare you to other people they've met. Who will you resemble, based on appearance? You will resemble other people who also neglect fashion. Other people who grab the top shirt out of the drawer. Other people who buy the cheapest instead of the sexiest.
I know that you are cool and sexy. But of all those people who totally neglect their appearance, a lot of them have problems. They might be depressed, they might have low self-esteem, they might be boring, they might be addicted to online games, and so on. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, and I've known some very awesome people who completed neglected their looks. But on the average, the average person who completely neglects their looks, has problems.
That means, when you meet New Acquaintance, having invested nothing in your looks, New Acquaintance is going to group you up with the other people who invested nothing. You'll be grouped with people who had problems (on average), and so New Acquaintance will assume you have similar problems. Of course, this all occurs deep in New Acquaintance's subconscious mind, deep below whatever New Acquaintance is consciously aware of. But New Acquaintance is aware of that subtle "gut" feeling that tells them not to give you their phone number.
Now let's do another, maybe more positive, thought experiment. Let's say you're heavily invested in your looks. You've spent lots of money, lots of time, lots of research, and lots of effort on your appearance. I won't even specify that the appearance thus obtained is particularly sexy or prettier or better in any objective way; beauty is subjective and changes from year to year anyway. So, regardless of the result (which is arbitrary in a world of changing fashions), just imagine you've made the investment.
New Acquaintance, upon meeting you for the first time, is going to subconsciously compare you with hundreds or thousands of others. And, the people you will resemble, are people who invested a lot in their looks.
People who invest a lot in their looks have some things going for them. They care enough to make the investment- this usually says a lot about their motivation, their self-esteem, their general mental health, their self-discipline, etc. Again, there are exceptions, the well-dressed douchebag, but on average, people who invested a lot in their appearance tend to be pretty cool people.
That means, New Acquaintance's subconscious mind is going to notice you resemble some pretty cool people. Because you invested a lot in your appearance, and those cool people also invested a lot in their appearances (never mind the actual outcome, which is pretty arbitrary and seasonal). Now, New Acquaintance assumes that you, too, are a pretty cool person. You win :)
THE MORAL OF THE FASHION STORY
The moral of the story is, pick some fashion strategy- it really doesn't matter all that much which, as long as it's congruent with you- and invest into it. Maybe you're not very wealthy, but what you lack in money, you can make up for with time/effort/research. Maybe you're very busy, then what you lack in time/effort/research, you can make up for with money. And so on. It doesn't matter all that much what you invest, just as it doesn't matter all that much what the final results are.
By investing into a fashion strategy, you bring yourself into alignment with other people who also invested into the fashion strategy. The mere fact these people invested in their looks, statistically makes them much more likely to have high self-esteem, high self-discipline, high ambitions, and so on. That means, you are aligning with all these qualities.
FASHION IS ALWAYS CHANGING. WHAT ARE THE CONSTANTS OF FASHION?
Baggy pants, or well-tailored pants? Fashion is always changing. (Lots of things are always changing... check out my article, The Joys of Change) In a stormy sea of fashion, what can you use as your anchor?
Some things which will never go out of fashion are: devotion; self-esteem; self-discipline; ambition; dedication; motivation. Unfortunately, you can't wear these things, they're abstract concepts. But by applying them when you choose what you wear, you make the abstract concepts shine through your fashion.
Apply devotion when you pick out your clothes, and your clothes will shine with devotion. Apply self-esteem, and they'll shine with self-esteem. Pick a pair of pants ambitiously, and your pants will shine with ambition. Choose some jewelry with dedication, and it will glimmer and sparkle dedication to mesmerize your audience. Design your wardrobe with inspired motivation and enjoy a wardrobe which advertises how motivated you are.
How does fashion work? It works very well, as a matter of fact. It signals personal qualities about a person. A man with no qualities cannot use fashion to deceive people into thinking he has qualities: the mere act of building his fashion, would require that he have qualities. Even if someone did it all for him, that's still a testament to the fact someone's willing to invest so much in him. Fashion is very truthful, even if some fashion marketers might not be. For, when we look beyond the specific details of fashion (which change like the wind), what remains is a beacon that shines light on peoples' core character traits.
Be sure that your fashion shines a good light on your own traits. Then enjoy the benefits of a good first impression.
Here are some other articles I wrote. I used lots of dedication, self-discipline, ambition, and motivation to write these articles.
Is Society Biased Against Smart People?
Running On The Treadmill
Introduction To Toastmasters
Book Review: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development For Intelligent People
The Mirror Model Of Social Interaction
Posts
4 comments:
Hi Glowing Face Man
I found your site last week when I was looking for some information on self-discipline and I ended up reading through all of it.
Thank you for your help - it came just when I needed it :-)
I don't agree at all with your comment about fashionable people tending to be cool (by cool, I take it to mean that these are people with whom one wants to associate). I live in Shoreditch wish is probably the trendiest part of London and it seems pretty clear to me that the whole fashion thing is pretty shallow. People who look good might be "cool" on the surface, but on a deeper level they aren't usually the most interesting people.
How one dresses is important, but it should be right for the individual. And one should dress in a way that makes one feel comfortable (not physically, but emotionally)
I think that all you are actually saying is that if one wants to hang around with well dressed people, then one probably needs to be well dressed.
Brian: You see the fashionable Londonite and think, "That guy's shallow." I'm going to assume you're representative of the greater population. If the greater population thinks the same as you, then they are also looking at the fashionable Londonite and thinking, "Shallow." In that case, the "fashionable" Londonite has FAILED. He's actually not fashionable at all, but anti-fashionable... If he were fashionable, that would make you like him. It's very similar to how if someone uses words which are too big, we think "what a stuck-up nerd", so in fact the wordy nerd is MISUSING the words (unless he's intentionally trying to make people dislike him).
You're absolutely right about dressing for your own emotional comfort. When I'm dressed well I feel like a million dollars, and that translates really well into my interactions with people :)
Well see there is the thing, he/she is fashionable and amongst the people he/she is interested in being with he/she is probably quite successful. But if one isn't interested in fashion, or being part of a fashionable scene, then there is no point in emulating the fashionistas because it won't lead to happiness. Just MHO.
(Having said that I did buy an incredible coat last week, as as you said, it does make me feel a million dollars!)
Anyway I found your site through the RTK page, I'm off to Japan to learn Japanese for 6 months at the end of November. How is your Japanese coming on?
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