But you don't dress like you have a disorder!

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Once, my mom and I were talking in the car on our way home and I asked why no one suspected anything about me when I was in fourth grade (I was still socially awkward). She said it was because I acted pretty normal (normal enough to pass myself off as a kinda-awkward NT) and I dressed "hip".

Since when does the way one dress equate to an ASD diagnosis?

On the notes for my ASD diagnosis, it was noted that I was wearing a summer dress on a windy cold autumn day (not verbatim, but that was the gist).

It's not any one thing that equals an ASD diagnosis, it's the lump sum. Hence the "triad of impairments". If you have a "duo of impairments", you may have something, but it's not ASD.

Some people with ASD don't follow trends.

I was always told I dressed weird or dressed up for the wrong occasions and dressed too casual for other occasions. I just could never get it right however, I think what people are trying to say is "I think you're cute and if I think you're cute then nothing is wrong with you!"

Brainwashed by Disney films. Cute people in Disney films were always the victims of ugly people and the cute people never could do any wrong. Which is why people act so shocked when people who do some gruesome stuff are cute.

If you have autism in their minds or aspergers...you must be ugly, smell bad, live in your mother's basement and be ugly.

I came of age in the 70's. Most of my peers wore very tight clothes, halter tops, short tight shorts, lots of makeup, lots of jewelry. I did none of these things. I had no interest at all in looking sexy, or flirtatious, or whatever. I just wore basic sensible clothes, no makeup, no jewelry.

I don't follow fashion, but I don't know if that's ASD related.

I tried on a pair of high heels as a child. I've been wondering ever since why anyone would ever wear something so awkward and painful. I don't get fashion.

While it may not be the case for EVERY person with ASD, as someone said: it is common for people on the spectrum not to follow current trends. When I was a kid, I always wore things that people made fun of me for, but they seemed like normal clothes to me. I couldn't understand what was wrong with them. I wore boy clothes when I was around 7-10 (some girl clothes too, but lots of boy clothes like my jacket and shoes, etc). People would always ask me why I wore boy clothes. Then when I got into junior high, I wore sweat pants and sweat shirts, or shirts with cartoon characters on them, or leggings. Nothing that was in style at the time. In high school I wore more grungy clothes and was semi-goth at one point (black clothes, but no makeup or anything like that). After high school, I wore nothing but long skirts and shirts that people my age just would not wear. My Mom kept telling me if I wanted to look younger, I would have to wear different clothes, but I was adament about keeping the clothes I had.

I don't really get fashion. I like the look of some things, and am still a little nonplussed as to how differently I get treated when I wear
1 - comfortable clothing
2 - a suit
3 - little black dress and high heels

If you look at the actual bits of clothing when they're folded/bundled up, there isn't much difference. But oh boy, is the treatment and reaction I get different!

I get weird thoughts about sitting there, holding up each of the different pile of clothes in front of me as I talk to people, so they are talking to the clothes, and I'm just a voice.

What are these "fashion trends" you speak of?

I think part of it for us is not only that we don't [on average] follow fashion trends or understand that sort of thing, but its also that for someone who is sensitive to touch, as many aspies are, clothing isn't bought for how it looks, its bought for how it feels.

To someone with sensory issues comfort being more important than style tend to be rather important. This means stereotypically, there wouldn't be anything matching fashion.

On top of that, there's that another thing that's common for aspies is to have their "uniform" - the clothes that they wear all the time. For my boyfriend this is a red t-shirt and either black jeans or light-colored shorts. That's what he wears, always. He has about 10 identical t-shirts. This is also not following fashion, and not wearing different "cool" clothing, just the same thing always.

Personally, I don't understand why anyone could care about fashion. I tend to wear outdoorsy clothes because its the most comfortable and have comfort as the first criteria. I refuse to wear things that are popular (I can't stand denim, I won't wear any jeans ever), and throughout middle school I was looked down on for not wearing the same things as everyone else .

In my world, I'm the one that dresses normally and everyone who dresses "in fashion" is weird. I don't get trends or fads, and I rarely find the clothing attractive. Most of it is over-priced, and I just find it silly that so much money goes into clothing, when most people have way too many to begin with.
I can see how people look at my clothes and know that I'm different, but I don't care (for the most part). I need to be comfortable, and I'm not willing to sacrifice it for the sake of being trendy.

Strange but true. I think the issue is that most people associate these things as translating to being unable to care for one's self. When parents dress their children they typically aren't very vigilant about style.

It's not my fault. I wanted to wear my Bugs Bunny costume covered in pig blood to let everyone in public know that I'm a very disturbed individual, but the local police frowned upon this and I got gangraped in prison.

I think she was saying that nobody suspected anything because you didn't stand out enough for people to think you were extremely different. Remember, in fourth grade, how observant are your peers going to be? So as long as you dress normal, nobody will notice anything. Everyone notices the fat kid in fourth grade, or maybe the black person (certain in my school district that is enough to be remarkable) but not the awkward kid that dresses normal, because maybe you are just shy. Nobody noticed anything about me either until I got to middle school and everyone became sociable except me. (Well, a few others, but still)

The only reason I never wore chains or spikes when I was going through my "punk" phase was because my parents refused to let me. I really wish they would have. I was never allowed to expirment with my idenity and when I told them that they said that's a "liberal, hippie concept". I really wish they would have let me dye my hair pink or lime green and wear spikes and chains. My parents were obsessed with making sure I presented as "normal". That's probably why no one questioned how I dressed.