فرهنگ و لباس

Some people say that it is possible to tell about a person’s culture and character from their choice of clothes

One of the most important issues discussed vastly nowadays is about to what extent external appearances like clothes can be useful to judge others to categorize their cultures or characters. It seems that it cannot recognize people’s personalities or cultures comprehensively, while clothes give us a general comprehension about people’s personalities.

First of all, some scholars and academics struggle to justify how important clothes are to know about human’s characters. Clothes obviously contain colors, designs and quality. Each of them can delegate some crucial points of their personalities. For example, Burkha has been defined as a symbol of religion in some Islamic societies like Iraq, Sudan or Afghanistan. It cannot present all aspects of its owner. In addition, the kind of clothes should be put as an obligatory uniform in working hours. Citizens, hence, are obliged to use some predefined style of clothes for fashion or to protect them when they are working. And more importantly, the style of clothes is showing a political attitude. For example, Mahata Ghandi is a famous man with a white garment. He wanted to show how useful it is for Indian people to ignore western clothes and plan their public approach in order to develop their national industries, while no one is here to think that a poor person. Meanwhile, clothes cannot be ratified as the only way to know about people’s characters or personalities. It is not easy to judge culturally multifaceted points just by the kind or style of clothes.

People who immigrated to another society almost attempt to behave in an orderly way dictated by the host society. Consequently, their clothes cannot show their motherly cultures. For example, Indian immigrants do not use Indian clothes in the USA or the UK, because they do not want to be categorized easily as foreigners. Some legal professions and judges articulate that some minorities hide their cultural origins in order to work or study more easily or better. Sometimes, they want to preserve themselves or their families from some overt race-discrimination applied in some parts of their country. For example, Australian laws apply and perform some heinous constraints for indigenous nations called aboriginals. Had they not been recognized as aboriginals, they could have lived or worked more conveniently. As a result, all cultural ingredients are not likely to be presented by the kinds of clothes at all.

Having cited above points, I strongly believe in the idea that the clothes cannot be accepted as a useful criterion to analyze people’s cultures and personalities. Because, culture and individuals’ characters are not skin deep. We have to see what lies beneath. While clothes are accepted as an important sign.