FASHION = IMAGE?

Clothes may just seem like pieces of cloth sewn together to you but what do they do besides cover your body, really?

People all over the world spend billions of dollars every year for fashion. They use so much money just to get the clothes they want – the clothes that will make them look great. Every person has a different fashion sense because each one wants to project a unique image of herself.

Even though sometimes we are constrained to wearing a uniform, for example, we can still find ways on how to make it uniquely “ours”. Do you remember your high school days? Back in our days, it was having the shortest pair of socks that was the “in” thing; the shorter, the better. The goody two shoes always wore the knee-length socks, those in the middle wore mid-length socks while the ones who wanted to look good – the rule breakers – wore the ankle socks.


For the office workers, most girls are made to wear a blouse and a knee-length skirt with a slit either on the side or at the back. Of course, not all employees would confine to this standard. Some tellers in the bank would have their skirts shortened to turn it into a mini skirt while others would cut the slit even longer to reveal more flesh. There are also others who would wear lanyards with cartoon characters, even though there’s a prescribed lanyard for all employees.

Uniforms are made to control people. The absence of rules tends to make people go overboard. But most of the time these people still try finding loopholes in the rules to make the outfit look uniquely “hers”. Aside from control, uniforms also allow people to save money on clothes. Since people aren’t allowed to wear other clothes, they don’t need to buy as much clothes.

For those who don’t need uniforms, that’s where more self-expression is involved. The people in uniform make do with what little freedom they have with their clothing but those who can wear anything they want can define themselves with their clothing from head to toe. From where I’m from, in U.P., we can wear anything we want and based on clothes alone, I think I’ve learned to read the personality of others more easily.


Those who are always in slippers are probably not very concerned with how they look while those who do wear the more decorative or colourful shoes care more about their outward appearance. The people who wear more vintage clothes are probably the artistic ones, while those who are always in shirt and pants are the more classical ones.

See, if we didn’t have clothes, then we’d have to get to know others first, personally before we get a glimpse of who they are. If you see someone wearing crazy clothes, you’d probably stay away from him, no questions asked, right? That’s the beauty of clothing, the power of fashion. It helps us project the image we want ourselves to have.

By: AIMEE TE