First Impressions: How Clothing Begins a Conversation Before We Speak

How Clothing Begins a Conversation Before We Speak

People have been getting information from us before we speak, shake hands, introduce ourselves, or tell them who we are. Our face, posture, movement, grooming, clothing, and general appearance give a visual impression. When we meet somebody else, we do the same thing: we start to interpret what we can see before we even know their history, personality, values, or intentions.

Psychological research shows how quickly this process can take place. In a seminal 2006 study, Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov discovered that people could make judgments about unfamiliar faces after only 100 milliseconds, or one-tenth of a second. Their experiment involved rating attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, competence, and aggressiveness. Longer exposure did not significantly change the correlation between the quick judgments and judgments made with no time limit, but more exposure made participants more confident in their judgments. Full Article: Go here

This is not to say that one person can read another person’s character in a tenth of a second. That is a significant difference. The research does not show how accurate an impression is but how quickly an impression can be formed. Todorov and Willis went on to discover that even different photos of the same person could result in very different impressions. The image that people prefer also changes with the context in which a photograph is shown. 

Which gives us an important insight into fashion: Appearance is information, not yet explanation. Shop mens sequin blazers. Go here

The models in Angelino sequin blazers

When I walk into a room in a tuxedo, or a three-piece suit, or a sequin blazer, or a long dramatic coat, people get visual information about me immediately. You could describe my clothing as formal, creative, conservative, theatrical, professional, unconventional, confident, youthful, traditional, or expressive. These interpretations are not necessarily correct. But the visual communication has already been started.

Clothes as the First Conversation

So clothing can be a sort of visual language.

Let’s say two men show up at the same evening function. One is in a standard black tuxedo. The other is a sharply tailored ANGELINO sequin blazer with a distinctive color and texture, black pants, and a black shirt. Shop for Tuxiedo. Click here

Black tuxedo, double-breasted

The first signals knowledge of a traditional formal code. The second one says something else: a desire to be seen, an interest in fashion, or a wish to give the event a little more expression.

Neither is necessarily better. They just convey different intentions.

One reason I consider fashion more than decoration. Clothing gives us a way of participating in a social environment before we have verbalized our identity. We communicate how we want to enter a situation through color, proportion, texture, silhouette, pattern, and detail.

Another example is a wedding. When I go to a wedding in a suit or tuxedo that has been carefully chosen, I’m not just dressing myself. I am responding to the importance of the occasion and expressing my respect for the people who invited me. When I pick something that is very expressive for a stage performance, I could be communicating energy, creativity, and the nature of the performance itself.

So, in different circumstances, the same person could make very different first impressions by dressing differently.

First impressions are not the same as identity.

This is a very important distinction.

A first impression is an interpretation, not a full knowledge of the person.

A well-fitted suit doesn’t mean the person who wears it is disciplined. Someone dressed in jeans and a T-shirt is not necessarily casual in their personality. Not every person who puts on an over-the-top sequined jacket is necessarily seeking attention in all aspects of life.

“Appearance gives signals. It doesn’t give the whole person.

Psychological research itself warns us of this limitation. People form quick impressions, but that does not mean they are accurate reflections of stable personality traits. In fact the different photos of the same person can give different impressions, and that shows how much perception can depend on presentation and context.

Fashion gets especially interesting. We are constantly dealing with a visual introduction to ourselves, and knowing the introduction is only part of the story.

Embodiment and the Connection of First Impressions

Research on enclothed cognition has shown that clothing can influence the wearer's psychological processes, both by the physical experience of wearing it and by its symbolic meaning. In the original experiments by Adam and Galinsky, they used lab coats and showed effects on attention. However, a subsequent preregistered replication failed to reproduce the original Stroop-performance effect, so the specific laboratory-coat effect should be interpreted with caution. The larger idea that clothing can affect psychological experience remains a live research question, not a settled universal rule.

This has to do with embodiment directly.

A garment is not only what I see in a mirror. I live in it, bodily.

I can feel the weight of the fabric.
I can feel the jacket on my shoulder.
I walk, and I see the movement of the trousers.
I sit up.
I look at my outline.
I watch the reactions of the others.

The clothing is the part of my bodily experience of walking through the world.

Like, a well-cut suit can make me more aware of my shoulders, my posture, and the way I'm moving. A flowing coat may have a different relation to movement. An expressive ANGELINO sequin blazer makes me more aware that I’m entering a room visually rather than blending into it.

The point is not that clothes automatically cause a certain psychological state. Rather, clothes create the conditions for an experience of the body, and that experience can be part of how I carry myself.

The First Impression of Self-Authority

This is where first impression meets self-authority.

If I understand that clothing speaks, I have a choice: I can let other people, advertising, trends, or social expectations make all my clothing decisions for me, or I can become conscious of what I am communicating.

Having self-authority doesn’t mean you ignore society. This means listening to society but not losing my ability to choose.

I can ask myself:

How do I want to feel in my physical body?

Where am I going to?

Who am I going to see?

What do I intend to convey?

“What does this event mean to me?

Does this clothing say something that is really mine?

These questions turn dressing from an automatic routine into a small daily exercise in agency.

That’s why I think fashion is such an interesting place between the individual and society.

I dress my body, but other people see the result.

My clothing influences my physical experience, but also it intervenes in the social environment around me.

I make a personal choice, but that choice is within a larger cultural language.

When millions or thousands of people make individual decisions, those decisions influence what designers create, what manufacturers produce, what stores sell, and what society eventually accepts as normal, fashionable, desirable, or possible.

So the first impression isn’t just “What do people see me as?

It can also be: "By what means am I electing to enter the world?”

That is a much bigger question.

Fashion allows me to make that entrance on purpose, not by pretending to be someone I’m not, but by making my outward appearance more purposeful, more authentic, and more like who I want to be.

Clothes are thus simultaneously communication and embodiment. It is a physical experience of myself when talking to others. First impressions are just the beginning of that conversation.

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