Imagine your self been a business person, considering your position you are left with no choice than to have a personal assistant, a person who will help you out with some of your tasks. And you know, as a businesswoman you were invited to a prestigious institution to orient some set of students.
Just like your normal doing you went to the program with your personal assistant, on getting there, the host of the day and the audience with a standing ovation welcomes you. The ushers like their job ran towards you and your personal assistant and instead of facing you they faced your personal assistant, collected the bag from her, and with a warm smile on their faces they ushered her to your seat. How will you feel.?
As an individual, the way you dress SPEAKS a lot about you, your level of education, exposure, the potential you carry, and sometimes your denomination.
Oftentimes, when we talk about dressing lots of people have the mental picture of putting on expensive dresses. However, the reverse is the case.
Oscar de la Renta once said, “being well dressed hasn’t much to do with having good clothes on, it’s a question of good balance and good common sense.” In other words, you don’t need to have the whole money in the world before you look good, even with the little you have you can still look pretty good.
This brings about the question of how should you dress.
Dress confidently; As a gentleman/gentlelady dressing confidently should be your utmost priority, you should dress like you own your world just like Peter Morrissey said; “dress like you’re embracing your life not hiding from it. The way you dress also gives you a whole lot of confidence.
“Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself” (Amil Kalantri)
Dress comfortably. What do you think about dressing comfortably? decency? Yes, decency but aside decency there is much to dressing comfortably. I would love to address this from the angel of the occasion.
Where you are going should direct your sense of dressing, there are some occasions you go to and when you get there you feel totally uncomfortable with the way you dress, not because what you wore reveals your nakedness but because your dress doesn’t suit the occasion.
For example, attending a funeral you shouldn’t dress like you’re celebrating the person’s death (high heel, jewelry, and heavy make-up) its an abuse to the family of the deceased, it more or less like you’re mocking them. Same goes with a dress for a conference it should not be like that of a party, what about an interview? You should dress cooperate but your cooperate dress should not include the wearing of high heel and heavy make-up as you will be a center of attraction and this will also cause distraction.
Having viewed comfortability from different angles, decency should not be left untouched. What is the point of wearing a dress when you can’t walk comfortably, through a lady’s dress you can point our a church person and a prostitute. You should not wear a dress that reveals your nakedness, “the dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress” (Edith Head).
Do not under-dress; Decency should not in any way overshadow your dress mode, just because you are asked to wear a long skirt doesn’t mean you should wear a skirt long enough to fit your mother, just because you don’t want to leave your hair uncovered probably because of your religion, doesn’t mean you should tie your scarf as a lady chased from her husband’s house. Do not underdress because if you dress anyhow, you will be addressed anyhow.
As a person your dress SPEAKS a lot about you, it speaks about your past, present and what you’re passing through, your dress doesn’t speak about what you want to become rather it speaks about what you are, therefore, “no matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up” (Regina Brett).
– Afe Joy Ifeoluwa
400L, Department of Linguistics and other European Languages,
Kwara State University.
