Yes, I'm backtracking. I was out of town during the week that we went over chapter 3.
As I look back over this class, thus far, I can't help but see that there are many principles working together in dress. One chapter dovetails into another, and it seems that there is not a definite line which can be drawn between chapters.
I can see that there are definite messages which I send by the way I dress. I recently shaved my head (I didn't have that much hair left), and grew my small goatee, and dyed it blond. I can see that I definitely sent a message both before and after I did it. My oldest daughter said that before I did it, the fringe of hair around my head said, "I'm old." She said that it was the sign of age. People at my wife's office told me that changing my appearance, with just those two little changes, made me look ten years younger.
I guess that we don't realize just how much of a message we send out. My son has several piercings. The message that it sends to me is one of a need to be in control, and to deliberately send a message that he needs to be in control. What he doesn't seem to comprehend is that his appearance (that includes the way he wears his clothing and the way he grooms) tends to send a negative message of "toughness" to the public, at large. He's not a guy who would ever hurt anyone, intentionally, but that's not the message he sends.
My youngest daughter is, shall we say, well built. When she was in high school, she wanted, as do most girls, these days, to wear immodest clothing. She had no clue what was going on in the minds of the young men who saw her. I did. I remember what it was like when I was in high school, and I remember the messages I received from the dress of the girls in school.
I watch old movies, and see how people dressed in bygone eras. Style is something that we seem to have forgotten in favor of expediency. Throw on the t-shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes. Forget dressing nicely, and forget the good manners which go with that. Personally, I count that as societal deterioration. I also know someone who has worn pajamas to church. The message it sends to me? One of lack of reverence for the sacred (but I love this person, dearly).
I get messages. I wonder what message my appearance sends.
