Clothes are judged everywhere, no matter how we feel about it. Why does the appearance of others sometimes irritate us so much? Psychologies collected the opinions of experts.
“I can’t stand shooting modernity. Everyone is sure that they understand better than you, they will definitely express their valuable opinion. There is no such thing on historical shootings,” a friend of the costume designer complained, who agreed to an advertising project, where all the characters are ordinary buyers of a Moscow supermarket of the 2014 model.
More than one successful TV show plays on our desire to discuss the appearance of others. The emotional tone of the audience “Take it off immediately” and “Fashionable sentence” is supported by categorical assessments, indignant, condemning remarks and glances. Drama and passions – the forbidden fruit of ethics – confidently hold the rating. Fashion and style expert Alexander Vasilyev is not shy in expressions, and answers questions directly and in detail:
To judge whether others are well or tastelessly dressed, not only experts are taken. For example, not so long ago, the well-known blogger-“thousander” Ilya Varlamov, who is not at all an expert in fashion, caused a lot of responses with his posts on the topic of clothing (http://zyalt.livejournal.com/1111482.html). He ridiculed passers-by for bad taste and gave advice on how they should dress.
Like many of us, the blogger sees other people as part of the urban landscape. He believes that he has the moral right to speak out on this topic – how to criticize another ugly building. If you think about it, each of us has a list of the most hated items of clothing. Someone can not stand men in T-shirts “in the net”, someone is pissed off by leopard leggings. I have one of these “red rags” – a men’s T-shirt with a wide shoulder, a kind of sleeveless T-shirt, often it still fits its owner, telling everything, everything, everything about the emerging bust, friendship with the “rocking chair” or love for dumplings with beer. I used to think that only a narrow-minded man from 15 to 50, rude and sweaty, can wear such a T-shirt. You should have seen my amazement when Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner appeared in this T-shirt in one of the episodes of the One-Story America TV project.
What is the reason for disgust, indulgence towards a person dressed in an inappropriate, in our opinion, way? “The reason for strong emotions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is always in ourselves,” says psychologist, art therapist Sasha Moreno (Vienna, Austria, http://alexmoreno.org/). – We all tend to see and notice the unpleasant part of ourselves in others and fight it, but in fact – with ourselves. This struggle can take on a variety of forms: the struggle for the purity of the race, for beauty, for purity, for any truth. If we are enraged by something, irritated by other people, it means that we have an idea, a conviction about “how it should be”, “how it is right”. Then everyone who has the audacity not to conform to our beliefs about correctness becomes our “enemies”, over which we need to be ironic, remake them, and in extreme cases, destroy them. We are unaware that the reason for our “belligerence” is our own low self-esteem, self-rejection and fear that some kind of Other threatens our “I”. The easiest way to maintain or increase your own self-esteem is to belittle others who are not like you (not like you in any way).
Tolerance, tolerance for oneself and others is one of the sides of inner freedom, a sign of psychological maturity, the psychologist explains. A free adult with adequate personal boundaries accepts himself and the world as they are, and allows others to be themselves, rather than meet his expectations of beautiful or right.
The eminent St. Petersburg fashion designer Tatyana Parfyonova is also close to the idea of tolerance: “It seems to me that momentary irritation about how others look is associated with a bad mood. In general, biliousness is known to be a sign of poor digestion! I live in St. Petersburg, and the “reality of the Motherland” makes me very happy. I see a lot of beautifully dressed people and I often notice “deviations” from imaginary standards. They make me happy and inspire. Evil to criticize people who are dressed “wrong” is wrong. You need to be patient and tolerant of a variety of tastes. In my opinion, there should be no negativity towards non-standard manifestations of personality. There is no old-fashionedness, no excess.”
How far we are from tolerance is clearly demonstrated by the photo work of a student from Vancouver Rosea Lake (Rosea Lake) – the girl posted it on her blog about a year ago and received a lot of responses.
She called the photo Judgments, which can be translated as “Judgments and condemnation.” Drawing her friend’s leg, she tried to understand the boundaries of public opinion about a woman, directly related to the length of her skirt. Where is the line between bold and provocative and how many centimeters separate the right from the old-fashioned? This photo perfectly illustrates the ridiculousness of our perception. Whatever length a woman chooses, she will still be condemned. Long? “Dresses like an old woman.” Short? “Behaves like a prostitute.”
“There is something for a sociologist to do here,” comments Mikhail Lurie, Photo Dean of the Faculty of Anthropology at the European University at St. Petersburg. – If we systematize all the comments on this picture by content and take into account such social indicators of their authors as gender, age, occupation and country of residence, interesting results could be obtained. In general, such a wide response to the remark, the general meaning of which – no matter how you dress, evil tongues will find what an insulting label to hang on you – allows you to discover with bewilderment how popular among the general public all over the world is still basically feminist and very popular. an ancient discourse about the cruel power of cultural stereotypes in relation to a woman and her appearance. Fashion designers, if they haven’t already, should jump in quickly and design tights with this judgment scale – they would clearly be a commercial success.”
Many do not realize that in nature there is no unified or generally accepted costume code. In other words, we interpret the same appearance by virtue of our horizons. “Clothes and our appearance are the code we use to tell the rest of humanity who we are,” says Fyodor Ilyichev, fashion editor at the topbrands.ru online store. ‒ Imagine the situation: you are a girl and have just bought an expensive dress from an avant-garde designer. You walk down the street and feel like a continuation of the design experiment, the dress inspires you to feel more important in this world, successful, competent and, of course, beautiful. In the evening, at a meeting with friends, you receive compliments, everyone is surprised at the unusual cut, modern materials. Now let’s look at the situation through the eyes of passers-by: some of them find your dress funny, some think that it spoils your figure, and someone may even feel annoyed by its non-standard look. That is, the code that you encrypted in your outfit and that you are so proud of will only be read in your social group.
From now on, in pursuit of inner harmony, it will be interesting for me to “dissect” my irritation, mentally change the subject in it and see what happens. That is, to independently perform the trick that Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner did with me. It’s so nice to catch yourself thinking: “I thought it was a gopnik, but it turned out to be a professor”, “I thought it was a tramp, but it turned out to be a famous film director.”