Reflection
Non-fiction by Elora Grant

The simple act of dressing maybe isn’t so simple after all. Yes, it is just cloth that helps one stay covered up and modest, but so much more goes into it. More than ever, people are judging and being judged by what they wear. A group or clique can often be identified by their attire. This means, in order to be part of them and fit in, one must be sporting whatever is popular and trendy for that particular group. This may be Hollister’s sexy low slung jeans, one of Hot Topic’s many graphic T-shirts, a studded belt, or an American Eagle sweater. The process of getting dressed for the day is no longer about covering up, but about lifestyle and social interactions. It is a form of self-expression.

Before I can get dressed, I must have some clothes to choose from. This involves shopping, a fun way to spend time if I have money, but something that can easily turn into a chore. It’s a strenuous process of fitting rooms, squeezing into jeans, snagging three different colors of the same shirt off the rack, holding things up, examining prices and hopefully considering them, and simply taking the time to stare at the array of choices that lay before me. While I do usually enjoy shopping, when I am on a mission to find a particular item of clothing, and I have already been in and out of half the stores, I become a little annoyed, as well as disappointed and stressed.

At times, it comes down to trying on a pair of pants three different times, deciding I need a bigger size, then coming to the conclusion that they are too big and returning to my original pair. Of course, once I make up my mind that I will buy them, I look at the price, something that I should have paid slightly more attention to when I snatched them up in the first place. I wonder if this pair of pants are worth my money. Do I even have anything to wear with them? You know what they say, “If it doesn’t match anything you own, don’t buy it. It will never match anything you own.” Finally, my indecisive self makes a decision. I purchase the pants.

After exiting more dressing rooms than I could ever possibly imagine, and 11 purchases later, I haul my bags out to my car, proud of what I purchased with my hard-earned money. Once at home, the tags are clipped off and arranged in a neat pile on my dresser in case I need to make any future returns. I then carefully hang up my newly acquired clothes, making sure they are in the middle of my closet, so they are the first things I see when I slide open my closet doors.

What I wear the following day is carefully planned out the night before. Once in bed, however, I often change my mind or think of another outfit just in case the original doesn’t satisfy my mood when I wake up. More often than not, it doesn’t. I roll out of bed, pull on the chosen outfit, then look in the mirror. I wonder what the heck I was thinking the night before when I picked it out. Shocked that I was even capable of choosing such a poor ensemble, I decide that it just looks completely wrong, and trudge back to my closet. I pick out a new outfit and examine it. This occurs over and over again, until I realize that if I don’t go eat breakfast soon, I will never have time for it.

Is putting on a certain outfit really that big of a deal? Clothes are just that, clothes. Its not like in ten years from now I will remember what I wore on March 11^th, nor will anyone else. While the importance of clothes really exists only in the moment, it can have an effect on one’s social life, no matter how good or bad this may be. A person should be able to get dressed and wear what she wants, a mix of clothing through which she expresses herself and also feels comfortable, without being judged for it. Dressing isn’t a simple task. Not only am I doing it for the image in the mirror, but for people who see me. It is done for one’s social self and every interaction one encounters.