Attire – decoded

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Ah the fashion "game."

Back in college, I did an experiment. I wore a suit w/tie to class one day. I had on a ring, nicely shined shoes, a briefcase, leather gloves, and very nice trench coat. The reaction I got was... interesting. I had people getting out of my way as I walked down the hallway. I had the door opened for me. The few people I talked to did not interrupt me. Then there was the compliments! I was being eyed a lot too.

It was strange and felt unreal to me. Fake.

The VERY NEXT DAY, I wore an old t-shirt (had a few small holes in it), sneakers with white socks, old jeans, and had my backpack that had a rip in it. People cut me off in the halls, ignored me, even avoided me.

By the end of that day, I had decided that our species was superficial and gullible.


Over 10 years later, I still have nice clothes: ties, dress pants, dress shoes, etc. But I only wear them when I fell there is need - a logical need such as a wedding/funeral/etc.

Dressing up to just impress people on a given day means I am trying to impress them with the wrong qualities... and perhaps trying to impress the wrong kind of people.

To each his own, but I wouldn't want someone to like me because of the clothes I wear.

Shale,

On an intellectual level I know that what you are saying is all true. Just about everything you've written I knew already, but I'm so fashion blind, I still can't understand the fashion language. It's hard to explain the bottomless depth of my fashion blindness. When you say things like "wear item such-and-and such that looks good on you, or flatters you", I always knew this to be good advice, but I'm stuck as I have absolutely no idea what something looks like on me!

For example, my wife and I recently went to see a band. I wore my best jeans, trainers and a check shirt (not tucked in, of course - or was that last years thing???) all clean, tidy and ironed. After a few minutes, I noticed a lot of the men around us had (to my AS-shattered sense of dress) more or less identical clothes to me. This raised my morale and I commented to my wife: "Hey, for once I feel like I'm in the right place. Look, I'm dressed like everyone else". She replied "What do you mean, they're all wearing nice looking designer label gear, you're wearing no-name jeans and scruffy shirt".

Fighting the urge to run out of the building and hide myself away for the rest of my life, I protested: "But look, that man's jeans are scruffier than mine, they're all faded and torn". She replies "No way! They're Nobster label and VERY VERY cool and expensive. And look over there - he's wearing a Boshy Toshy shirt, way trendy, looks soooooooo good. And he's even got Fishface socks, too (pointing at a 3 millimetre square logo that I can barely see), you don't get *them* in Walmart." (I made up the label names as I can't remember any real ones, but they usually sound irritatingly daft and I think you get the idea)

Anyway, I felt the familiar sense of shattered self-esteem. At this point I realised that I would have more chance of understanding Ancient Aramaic than the language of fashion. All these people devoting so much time to every thread of their clothes and I had been blissfully unaware of any of it. I had a true "I must have been born on the Wrong Planet" moment. Sometimes as an Aspie you make huge efforts and you think you're getting somewhere. Then you realise you've been deluding yourself all along and you're still at the bottom of a cliff you'll never climb up.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I could read every article on fashion ever written and would still be unable to ever "dress to impress". In the same way as a blind person can never drive a car, however many lessons they have. Something in the feedback loop is missing, impairing my judgement. Knowing that NT's do find appearance important, the only solution I could see for me is to have my wardrobe totally controlled by someone else.

Or just not care at all.

I think your wife was acting very inconsiderately. She shouldn't have kept making you look stupid.

OK- I'm female, and absolutely do not 'get' fashion. Like ManErg, I do not see any difference, and am not label conscious in the least bit. In fact, the only time I pay attention to labels and designers is when I find something that is well-made and fits my odd body correctly and comfortably. Then I'll look for that maker and try their stuff on first. Unfortunately, womens' clothing tends to drift in cut and style, and one year of Gloria Vanderbilt might be made totally differently than the next. So, it's always 'clothing roulette' for me. Guess I'm going to have to invent the Sloper Booth so I can have perfectly cut clothing on demand...

But I am fashion-blind. And I am also very texture-sensitive, so I have to dress to soothe that particular difficulty. That cuts out about 85% of most women's clothing, because there are some fabrics, cuts, etc- that I simply cannot wear. They're like hair shirts- very uncomfortable, and I get self-conscious when I am uncomfortable. I've had to turn down jobs that required me to adhere to a dress-code that included clothing and footwear that were not wearable to me. (And companies who insist that their IT person wear corporate drag, but still have to crawl under desks, into cabling and network closets, etc- are totally clueless in a Dilbertian way!) I am fortunate that I can wear 'business casual' clothing here- it is well kept, clean, and comfortable.

I do not dress to look 'hot'. I do not want to look 'hot', because then that would open up the whole 'try to figure out what this guy wants from me' can of worms. Why attract that? I am most comfortable in clothing that only exposes my face and neck, and my lower arms. And, rarely, my lower legs. No midriffs, no short shorts, no backs, no shoulders, no feet. Comfortable, sturdy, and safe.

I look at it this way- if people are more impressed by my clothing than they are by my mind, I'm messing up big time.

Yeah, I always dress for comfort and not style. People can take me or leave me and as far as I'm concerned, that's what they do anyway.

That is so true. It's one thing to be Ryan-Seacrest-like (yuk!), it's another thing to look like you're a homeless alkie.
Look at the kind of person you're attracted to, and figure out what she'd be attracted to. Angelina Jolie would not date a shlump. All the knockout girls I know hate sloppy men.

People judge people on how they look and dress. Attractive people get treated better than ugly people.

Being superficial or whatever are human instincts that people have so they can find a more healthy mate and thus their offspring will be more successful.

Women are most attractive when they are most fertile say late teens to mid twenties, that is why men are attracted to them the most, it really is because they will have the best chance of producing good offspring. That is why women have this obsession to trying to look younger.

Men it is a bit different because they can father a child at any age, men are judged on their looks, but also it is about success we are judged on. If a man is successful in life a woman is going to be attracted to that because the offspring are likely to inherit those successful traits. So if you dress to look more successful people are going to treat you better, that's why our fashion is a bit different.

That's how I understand it, if that helps.

Typing as a hardcore ADD heterosexual female ... like any of that pap matters, I want to state to all aspie or generally autistic peeps that as long as what you wear is clean and fits (within reason, a clean jock strap does not constitute suitable ) it's fine. My clothes don't tell people anything about me and I sure as hell don't 'smarten up' for the sake of NT's.
Quite frankly, you may shoot me down for this awful cliche but it really is inside that counts dudes >:}

HRH Swan

my style varies a bit...

I tend to refuse to wear anything with long sleeves or something snug snug.

normal everyday wear tends to be:
a pair of jeans (not to baggy but not too form fitting either, kinda like a relaxed fit or whatever.)
the shirt, it all depends, I used to wear blacks/dark blues all the time, but now i wear more whites. Shirts have to be fairly loose fitting, mainly around the neck, They have to be a t-shirt of some sort. Shirts that are solid colours i dont care for, they have to have some sort of design on them.

Sometimes ill dress differently, like a white muscle-shirt with a loose buttondown shirt over it, said shirt open though. Sometimes i will wear a zip-up hoodie (colder weather)

I have worn drssy clothing before, but for casual, i dont consider it so. Only special situations warrant it.

No gun on me - I'm living outside the U.S. at present.


Once I decided to give myself the option of dressing "undercover," I was surprised to discover that my "inside" was more visible than it had been.

Of course, that made me have to look at "inside" bits that can be off-putting. No more four-shades-of-green outfits from Dollar-a-Pound to blame for people finding me odd. Don't believe for a minute that Aspie oddness depends on off-putting attire to repel most of the population.

I'm NT and I have always thought that wearing labels is BS. I don't want to give companies free ad space on my person. I also don't buy anything because of its label. If it happens to actually be the best example of whatever article of attire I was searching for, fine. If not, I buy the no name example instead. But then I tend to think anything off the rack is pretty much all the same anyway. I'm one of those all or nothing types. I don't have the money for custom made couture, so I go with whatever ready-wear items suit me best.

Fashion slaves always look a bit silly to me. But, to each their own.

My own current clothing is what I call my Land's End Garanimals. Mix and match solid color tops, and black pants. All stretchy cotton. But I'm talking in prior paragraphs about when I was younger and anyone gave a half glance at what I had on. Lol.

Fashion is realistically the subconscious mass-consensus of what people find attractive. This opinion can be altered by convincing people that they're wrong before they speak up. This is done in a few steps:
1: Wear whatever you want.
2: Go somewhere you've never been before where no one knows you.
3: Convince the others there that other people already like the way you dress before they say you look stupid.
4: Use those people to influence the opinions of others.

Also just doing something all the time for long enough that people just assume you know what you're doing works too sometimes. And if all else fails you can just dress like me: