Monday 14 December 2009

Silent clothes leave us speechless





The ultimate luxury for me is a decent chunk of time to sit down and read the paper at lunchtime on Saturdays - preferably accompanied by a large coffee and bacon roll. I loved Rachel Cusk's article on female writing Shakespeare's Sisters in this Saturday's Guardian.  One sentence that stuck out for me was Cusk's description of Chekhov's Three Sisters,  
"What they feel is not embodied by what they are."
So often I find that clients at Renideo are accomplished people but their clothes don't communicate their abilities or interests to the outside world - leaving them feeling frustrated and sometimes quite down. What they are is not embodied by what they wear. The wonderful picture on the right, taken from The Sartorialist blogspot , shows a woman who is confident in herself, being feminine on her terms.  Cusk explores a division between women accepting a male version of feminity i.e. marriage and motherhood and those who prefer to explore femininity on their own terms.
"Woman is filled with visions and yearnings that are never matched by reality; she has a power of visualisation, of imagination, that her lack of worldly power forever frustrates. Yes, she might produce literature out of this conflict in her being. But she is more likely to produce silence."
I see the clothes that we choose to wear as a representation to the world of how we feel about ourselves and often we feel frustrated that we don't communicate the different aspects of our characters. Yes we are professionals who produce high standards of work with similar expectations from colleagues but we also love to jump in puddles with our kids at the weekend and sex up our looks for Saturday evenings with our partners.  When we don't manage to communicate this through our appearance, due to lack of time and/or expertise, we often opt for "silent clothes".  Those outfits that don't offend but say nothing.  Silent clothes don't only fail in communicating who we are to the outside world, they can also prevent those that we love from understanding us.  Silent clothes will not offend anyone but neither will they inspire children to grab our hands and head for the puddles.  Our daily routines can be tiring so the non-verbal signs of clothes can tell partners and friends what we feel but don't always have the heart to say.  If we put on that dress with the brighter colours then we tell friends we want to have fun, they respond by being more light hearted and suddenly we're inspired to laugh and socialise. 
Yes at this time of year clothes must serve a practical purpose but used with insight they can do so much more!



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