What Your Clothes Say About You

I realize time and again that so much of what I intend to communicate, I fail to. What's worse, I often signal the opposite of what I mean. I am conscious that I am always communicating, whether deliberately or not. Everything I do is interpreted by observers, including some I don't notice.

That's true for all of us. Watch a dog watch their human sometime.

Here is an example of how clothing misleads: I happen to like shirts with French cuffs.

People who catch me in a shirt with French cuffs likely assume I'm pompous. That's what I used to think about this more formal style. It said to me: fancy and self-important.

The line "clothes make the man" is paraphrased from Shakespeare. The sentiment appears among the bits of advices offered by Polonius ("neither a borrower nor lender be") with specific reference to "they in France of the best rank and station."

I preferred the American button-down collar. Maybe that was a consequence of The Preppy Handbookcoming out exactly as I was developing a fashion sense.

A nephew of mine who was partial to the French cuff, I believe inherited from his grandfather (other side of the family), recommended it to me. I started to say, "Well, it's complicated. You have to —" and then he pointed out all I had to do was stick in the cufflinks in the morning.

I believe he may have given me a pair for Christmas to prove the point. He mentioned the Three Musketeers. They are credited with popularizing turned back sleeves.

So the next time I was at the outlet store, I took a look at the shelves. There were many more shirts with French cuffs on sale at a considerable discount, versus the conventional "barrel" cuffs. Over time, I have conducted an unscientific study. In general, French cuffs appear to offer the better bargains.

That has prompted me to acquire many shirts with French cuffs. I have never bought cufflinks, except silk knots in bulk in mainland China, for about twenty-five cents each, after much negotiation.

Thus for me, French cuffs are all about frugality.

Yet they project extravagance.

I continue to wear them, because I cannot pass up the savings when I find them. I also need to continue to amortize the cufflinks, even though the dressier ones were presents.

But I wonder if I have created an image that is not what I would claim. It is impossible to be conspicuously modest; that's a self-defeating endeavor. It's crucial, however, to be mindful of perceptions at all times. Nothing is as superficial as it seems, because it symbolizes whether we care about how we move through the world.

Photo: Tymonko Galyna / Shutterstock

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