This is a guest blog submitted by skatey_blades


You know what irks me?  When seemingly plain people complain about other people (specifically other women) dressing up.  I just read a post describing a night when this girl was out with her boyfriend and saw another couple come into their restaurant, with the girl being ridiculously overdressed.  After the story, the writer went on to describe why she thought the girl’s outfit was ridiculous and how she doesn’t support “dressing to impress”.

Well, I’m here to tell you otherwise. 

Based on the situation she described, in this case I agree with the author that the girl was clearly overdressed for the particular restaurant at which they were.  However, I’d like to make my case about dressing to impress. 

My mother is Russian, and she always, always looks put together, if not downright dressed up.  I must admit, at times I think she overdoes it, but most of the time she gets compliments or envious looks.  She taught me that it comes from self-respect, always trying to look your best and letting people see you at your best.  Catching peoples’ eyes, making them look at you. She was a ballet dancer, so I think part of this philosophy carried over from good presentation on the stage and being brought up to believe in presentation, too. From a young age, she taught me that you need to try and look your best when you’re out and about. 

Sometimes I listened, sometimes I didn’t. I especially hit a patch a couple years ago that lasted until I moved to Europe, about 6 months ago.  I started thinking all rebelliously, and said “I’m gonna wear what I want and don’t care what anybody thinks!”  Well, that just didn’t work. I have a basic flaw in my nature that dictates that in fact I do care about what other people think.  In fact, I care a lot.  So when I wore what I wanted and got strange looks, well, it kinda hurt. 

This stage lasted until the middle of the summer.  I had already moved to France and was still sticking to the whole “wear what I want and ain’t nobody gonna stop me!” thing when I realized I never get checked out anymore, my self-esteem is dropping, and I don’t think I like this. The entire lifestyle there is different: people aren’t chained to their cars, they go out and walk around in the city and take public transportation and are constantly seeing each other. So, instead of being seen by kids in school that already knew me or my other peers, I was being seen by the French.  For those of you that have never been there, everything you’ve heard about the highly attractive male population is true.

So what’s a girl to do?

Exactly.  Change her wardrobe!  Ditch the grungy “who cares?”  look and pick out the “Just try not to look at me” look. 

To me, dressing to impress isn’t all about impressing others.  It’s about impressing yourself, raising your own confidence.  When you think you look good, you feel good. Then you exude confidence and look even better.  Besides, clothes aren’t everything; they’re simply wrapping paper.  With the holiday season coming up, think about it: which present are you more likely to open?  The one wrapped in exquisite tissue with a ribbon on the top or the plain, brown cardboard box?

Granted, what’s in the boxes could be very different.  For all you know, the beautiful box could be filled with dog feces and the cardboard box with a million dollars.  But how will you know if you don’t open them?  And which one are you more likely to open? By setting myself up as the model of the nicely wrapped box, I wouldn’t do that.  The best you can do is to match the interior and exterior, making them each beautiful and worthy of attention.

Do you dress to impress? Is it all the time or just occasionally? Do you know anyone who always gets dressed up, regardless of where they go?