Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances
“Yes, because that’s really what this whole multibillion-dollar industry is all about, isn’t it? Inner beauty.”—Nigel, “The Devil Wears Prada”
I had a tennis buddy years ago, who didn’t care what he wore, and as I learned from friends, always had a smell. As an allergy sufferer, my sense of smell is often muted, but even I could tell. No one wanted to play with him. Being new to this tennis group, I was often paired with him. He had a good sense of humor and seemed blissfully unaware of people’s bias toward him.
He reminded me of visiting my grandmother’s younger sister and her husband in East Tennessee. You’d walk into their small house and you’d detect an odor. Everyone commented on it, outside of their earshot. They were often invited over even though they liked having guests themselves. The smell wasn’t apparent when they visited.
I now suspect that neither my tennis buddy or my great aunt and uncle even noticed, or perhaps they wondered why everyone else smelled.
We have biases around appearances, which include smell or the sound of a person’s voice. Yet the standards around what appearance should be varies so widely by location, event, and culture that there is no universal agreement.
I still remember old movies where people dressed up to get on airplanes. By the time, I started flying regularly the standards had dropped, I still remember on one of my initial bumps to first class, the flight attendant asked me twice if I really was in first class. I was dressed very casually. Now, no one would bat an eye.
I’ve now been in the grocery store or in a coffee shop and seen countless people stroll in wearing pajamas and bedroom slippers usually underneath a coat but not always).
Yet there are even standards today. We have expectations about “looking nice” in the right circumstances and locations and apologize if we don’t meet the standard.
I’ve watched standards change a lot in expectations about “Sunday Best.’ Even at funerals and memorial services, dressing up standards have changed. I’ll still wear a suit and tie when I preach, though I’ve been told not to or that I don’t have to.
Often fashion is generational. And sometimes nothing shows your generational hand more than how you dress.
In the 1990s, I’d walk into preach into a congregation and I’d be one of 15 to 20 men in a suit. Now, I’m likely the only person.
I’m intrigued by that, because women ministers have complained (and still do) about being judged for how they dress, though invariably it’s been by other women doing the judging. This often has led women to wear ministerial robes, so that they could avoid the constant fashion judgment, so they could instead be judged on sermon content. Fashion is often a distraction, but it is seen as a statement.
While I believe the parameters for acceptable dress have widened, there are still parameters, even across generations.
And often people can wear something that may not be “attractive” but knowing that it costs $160 dollars gives it a pass. Often fashion is about what it means to be well off. Why people spend 160 dollars on crocs is beyond me, but, hey, it’s not my money.
Yet often now the super wealthy dress down so as not to be recognized as such. Fashion is about fitting in. And when we don’t fit in, people notice. Presidential candidates in jeans, though reserved for men, and if with a button-down. Michelle Obama has a new book on fashion and look and she knew how people looked.
It’s when we don’t fit into the parameters and expectations that people notice.
The pandemic for many changed things in that it meant people only had worry about what appeared on their Zoom screen. Not that this didn’t mean other changes. Almost every expert does seem to be blanketed by a wall of books behind them. Several guest experts have their books arranged by color. And it was on the first season of “The White Lotus” that Connie Britton’s character obsessed about getting the right lighting. Fashion is definitely about how we appear.
Fashion has a purpose. And we expect confirmation. On the flight to Honolulu which would then get me to New Zealand the next day, I heard one man explaining why he was in a suit—because why would you be in a suit on a flight to Hawai’i. He explained he lived there but had flown to Boston and would step off the plane for a meeting, so he had to be dressed up. And he had to fly back in a suit because it wouldn’t fit into his carry-on. I was more intrigued that he seemed to delight in the attention and the telling of the story than anything else. And he was older. I suspected someone younger in their 30s would not be dressed the same.
Most of the other men on the plane were in expensive running shoes and designer shorts and summer shirts. We dress to impress.
Me? I was dressed in my running shoes which I always wear because they are comfortable, though I do like the way they look. I was wearing cargo shorts with lots of pockets and a t-shirt and pullover because planes can get chilly. Sure, I dressed as I wanted, but I also knew I was in the parameters.
On the plus side, I would say that we’ve gotten smarter about fashion. Most everyone wears comfortable shoes that help our feet as opposed to wounding them. That wasn’t always the case. That said, I now own one pair of shoes that might be considered uncomfortable. I never wear them.
I was wearing tennis shoes to work long before others. I consider one of my biggest wins getting into the elevator of the UUA one summer in tennis shoes. In walks the UUA president, John Buehrens. He looks at me, looks down at my tennis shoes, then looks at me. I smile. He says nothing.
This was in the late 1990s. Two weeks later I walk into the UUA, and there’s John Buehrens, wearing tennis shoes. Inwardly, I’m going, “Win!” Outwardly I just smile.
Regardless, we notice what others are wearing. Especially when what they wear stands out in some way. And we have opinions and biases. And fashion can be about permission.
Amelia Bloomer, an early American feminist, created baggy pants covered by a short skirt, so that women could ride bicycles. Women’s clothing had been intentionally restrictive, and she had given women permission to wear something practical. (You can read about Amelia in the terrific children’s book, You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer by Shana Corey and illustrated by Chesley McLaren)
Nigel’s comment about the fashion industry being about outer beauty, not inner beauty, rings true. But it’s also about so much more. It’s about how we present ourselves, how we move through the world, what we have access too.
But we also have judgments and biases about how we appear, not just how we look.
My tennis friend with the smell? Very popular with dogs. And they smell 300 times better than people.
I know my own judgments come up when I see a woman in high heels in the airport. I wonder why she’s doing that to herself. I wouldn’t be surprised if she still wonders if she sees me sitting in first class in a t-shirt and running shoes. Mostly we have appearances we keep up for ourselves and then judge others by them. How much are we biased by that?