Judging A Book By Its Cover

A few weeks ago, a thought dawned on me that I found quite interesting. We talk of our outward appearances as inward reflections of an individual. We, in almost the same breath, also urge each other to avoid judgment of others from said appearances. But I realized, as I passed a mirror, that we have come to incorrect conclusions of the psychological intent of style. Our appearance is not a reflection of an individual, but rather a projection of how that individual wishes to be seen.

I have a friend at work who occasionally asks me for style advice. She even dragged me to help her pick out glasses. She doesn’t have a style for herself. It was my style that she was trying to appeal to. She wanted to know what I thought looked good.

I often ask my girlfriend what I should do with my hair. If she has an opinion on the matter (which is rare), I follow it. When I received clothes for Christmas, I even noted to my mom (the giver of said gift) that they were of a style that my girlfriend would appreciate. Did I think they looked good? Sure. But I only think so because I think it will look good to other people, particularly her.

In other words, our image is actually designed by those whom we are trying to impress. It is they for whom we dress. It’s for them that we spend time styling our hair and painting our faces. How often do you see yourself in a day? When you do, do you care? When you know that you won’t leave your house and won’t see a soul for the entire day, do you still spend the same amount of time on your style? Most people I know, including myself, stay in their comfortable pajamas, showering only when their own body odor and filth becomes uncomfortable to themselves. You simply don’t care what you look like. Even those who, we joke, are in love with themselves, are not actually in love with themselves (or their image), but rather are extremely pleased and confidant in the way they think they project to their target audience.

Thus, our style is much more accurately a reflection of the people we admire and respect rather than who we are. Of course, they are correlated in that we typically strive to be like those whom we admire. But the distinction is important. Often times there is a miscorrelation, and the two don’t match very well. For example, some may dress relatively well in order to win companionship, after which goal is achieved their interest in style is reduced. In many cases, we don’t admire people for their appearance, or opinion thereof, and thus we do not care about our physical projection to them.

We see it in the personalities across the spectrum. Jocks dress in athletic garb, not so they can join a pickup game than might just break out in the middle of the day, but because that’s the style of their jock friends. Girls tend to care very much about how attractive they are to boys in addition to how their girl friends see them, thus they spend a lot of time, money, and even discomfort for their appearance. Those we would classify as nerds tend to admire those who would respect them for intelligence far more than appearance. Thus they seem oblivious to style completely. Those who claim independence and non-conformity typically conform to a style that is widely accepted by other supposed non-conformists.

Our appearance also reflects how much weight we put on the opinions of others. Some people care little of what others think. These are the true individualists of style, and tend to look rather ridiculous at times. Others care a great deal, and spend a lot of time and effort trying to look just as they ought. Most of us have a range of influences, from wives or girlfriends, who typically have a great deal of influence, to close friends, who also tend to have strong sway, to professional peers, whom we’re often trying to impress, to strangers we often pass by, whom we either try to blend in with to not draw unwanted attention or intentionally clash with to draw attention, depending on our personality.

When we balance the weight we give to each of our influences, the sum total is our reflection of style. We can tell a lot from a person’s appearance. It just isn’t what we typically think we can tell from it.

Judge a book by its cover? No, that’s not what the book is about. The cover's just there to attract readership.