Femme Fatale - Original Writing

Clothing has its own meaning in communication. We are being judged by our clothing every time we come in contact with someone. Human communication is accomplished by two ways, one third by words and the rest by nonverbal communication (Hickson, 1989). Clothes serve to be protection, social identification, sexual attraction, and many other services. Someone’s clothing can be different compared to others. Their clothing is based on their age, gender, occupation, personality, and values. According to William Thourlby, there are ten decisions that people around someone make based on their clothing along (Hickson, 1989). The ten decisions are:

As most of our popular culture, everything is always changing. What is in while we are teenagers will be ancient in 10 years. The same goes for the wardrobes of women. I think that the clothing options have had a positive progression because of the acceptance of female sexuality. In the early 1920s women were extremely modest by showing little to know skin in their daily lives. Women were expected to be made up all of the time and that is something that I couldn’t even imagine. Being a Marian girl, there is nothing I love more than throwing my hair up every morning with no makeup. As you move into the 60s and 70s women began wearing skirts, dresses, and girdles. YUCK. There is nothing wrong with a more modest look, the problem I have with clothing is that even when mothers were cleaning the house they were expected to be in dresses or other types of uncomfortable, but nice looking clothing. It has been cool to see how slowly skirts have gotten shorter and more skin is being shown, but the central issue is the mindset of seeing women as sexual object rather than a person. Although in our time no type of clothing is surprising, there is still a sense of judgement from men and even older women when you wear something that makes your look like a “slut”. It saddens me that people really can’t look past what you are wearing. I hope the future for women is going to be

Everyone knows a woman that dresses feminine—in long, flowy dresses, bright pink lipstick, and towering high heels. Personally, my usual attire is composed of a flower headband and a pastel yellow sundress. People typically expect straight women to uphold a certain feministic standard and anticipate that lesbian women appear masculine. Lesbians are stereotyped to have short hair, wear striped flannels and boyfriend jeans, and not wear makeup. Masculine-appearing women are assumed to be gay; however, there is a group of lesbian women who dress femininely. Lipstick lesbians, or LLs, are a part of the feminine lesbian community. The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community has built up recently and an abundance of stereotypes as well. Contrary to popular belief, lesbians are not bound to one appearance. We as humans should have the opportunity to express ourselves in whichever way we desire. Similar to everyone else, lesbians’ appearances do not have to be strictly based off of who they are attracted to. Lipstick lesbians positively influence lesbian stereotypes because they defy masculine appearance and are unafraid to express themselves. By recognizing that lesbians who dress femininely are still lesbians, individuals can avoid awkward and uncomfortable situations by being respectful and acknowledging their boundaries.

One might even notice that this whole “clothing epidemic” is going on right in front of their own eyes. Girls these days especially are prone to being sucked in by the way they dress. They believe that how they dress affects their popularity status. I myself have gone through this being a young girl at one point! I wonder where they could have gotten this idea from? Oh, that is right, this idea has been going on since the ancient times!

What you wear matters! In this day and age, you cannot take your image lightly.

Men could make the mistake of “thinking that women [are provoking] attacks against them by the way they dress” (“Rape Myths” para. 9). A woman’s intention when she goes out in her tight dress can be to attract the attention of the opposite sex, but sometimes that can go too far. On the other hand, wearing the wrong thing can affect a woman’s chances in being accepted in a social setting. For example, if a female celebrity wears something that strays away from what society would consider as “what’s in”, then she can be publicly shamed by social media. That celebrity could receive the label of a “fashion victim”.

Once he was on top of the building it was time to wait again. It was

High arched brows, pursed red lips, perfectly curled short hair and the coy side glance is the representation of what most young women strived for in the 1950s. They endeavour to look favourable for men in the hopes of getting married as this was their goal and purpose in life. Media influenced the scale of expectations women had for themselves and this created a misrepresentation of what a young women in the 50’s should strive for. Beauty pageants, Barbie and Marilyn Monroe emphasised on the importance of perfection, beauty, and sexuality. Although these messaged sent strong messages to younger girls, they remain in the era due to, in some way or another, lack of defying normality in the era.

Thus, some clothes become more likely to be seen as representations of objectified bodies. Looking at clothing as the Second Skin, Cheng (2013) asserted that clothes provide an alibi for racial (as well as gendered and classed) colonial optics

“BEFOR I CAN TALK TO YOU, PEOPLE SHOW THEIR SEX, AGE, CALSS, POSITION, WITH WHAT THEY ARE WEARING. ALL THIS IS REGISTERED UNCONCIOSLY“ Those words said by Alison Lurie in the language of clothes (1992), reflect perfectly the main point of my research. The society we are now living is an extremely conscious society regarding body image and the way we are presented to the exterior. We found an obsessive trend on wanting to look like celebrities by having certain items or looks and in relation to that a fear of not being percepted the tight way. This is where we found relation to how clothes are part of a conversation we haven 't started and are a form of expression. As there will be explained further on, we use clothes as a sign of our identity,as a way of representing ourselves and stand out from the crowd and also influence on how we appear in front of others making them (clothes) a huge part of our non verbal communication. This essay will discuss the ideas behind self -expression and the role of clothes has changed in that mater thought time.

During our life we construct many different identities of who we want to portray ourselves as to the rest of society; fashion plays a vital role in generating who we are. With the ideas from Storry and Childs they state that “the way that we dress can either serve to confirm or to subvert various facets of our identities, such as our gender,

As stated before, psychology is a form of self-expression, and a form of visual communication. The way one dresses may put one in a fashion subcategory. These subcategories are thought of as a whole and are subject to judgment and discrimination of sorts. For example, a person with many tattoos and a vintage style of clothing may be viewed as a “hipster”, and hence the viewer may assume many things of the individual. The fit of garments say many things about oneself. Made-to-fit clothing on men in the business world is more respectable than non-tailored clothes. With women, skirt suits create the balance between attractiveness and masculinity in order to appear respectable, much more than the overly aggressive pant suit. One may see the effect of clothing when one researches on how to dress for an interview in order to make an impression upon the hiring manager.

As a teenager, I know the pressure put on females to look a certain way. I attended a public high school in a rather wealthy area. So, while other girls could afford the “in” clothes, I spent my shopping days at the sales rack. My Christmas lists were full of basic jeans and shoes, because it was the

Sexuality is an issue that has been widely discussed and has often been misunderstood by society. It has often been a misconception by members of the heterosexual community that all lesbians want to be men. Through applying common sense, it can be understood why people may think gay women want to be men when looking in on the lesbian community, some lesbians prefer to express themselves and their sexuality through the way they dress and act; their short hair, masculine clothing, wearing no make-up and their macho

To gain knowledge of how we communicate to others through the way we dress, we have to first understand what identity is. Identity is what we choose to represent ourselves as, be that a gender identity, a sexual identity; it is completely up to the individual as a person to make that choice. Identity forms the basis of one’s pride and being accepted socially only adds to that ego and integrity. The psychology of the matter is the way we dress is more or less based on our moods, habits, inspirations, past, present and future. The character of a person is reflected in the way that they dress, Clothing can act as a simple glance into someone’s life, as we are already know that different clothing can represent different means of culture; Clothes are used a language to communicate with society and to commonly let them know what you want to be viewed as.