Looking the Part

Megan Nanovic Blog 8

Maria's presentation on Blue White Red made me think of the saying "dress for success" differently.  In the past, I have always thought of this saying in terms of people in school, dressing for a presentation, or people dressing well for an interview.  Previously I had not thought about this type of behavior expanded to different countries and classes.  I had not spent much time considering how lower income people dress well, and sometimes better than their employers in order to appear successful.  Now that I am considering how I judge the success of people I do not know, I realize that I do base my judgement about a person partially based on his or her fashion choices.  First impressions play a large part in how a person is judged and a person's outfit largely contributes to that first impression.  People understand that to be viewed as successful, they should dress the part.  The problem with this is hat lower income people may be devoting more money on appearance than what may be advised based on their financial standing.  Some lower income people tend to spend beyond their means.  This can be seen in Hillbilly Elergy.  In this story, there are two types of people who classify as lower income.  There are those who go without, and those who buy expensive things they do not need and go into debt.  It may be important to dress like a successful purpose in order to be perceived as such and therefore gain more respect which may lead to real success.  Despite this possibility, the question remains about how far should people go to mimic success.

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