The Naked Self
by Christopher Ferdinandi
ChrisFerdinandi@hotmail.com

Take off all your clothes. Come on, don’t be shy. Do it! This won’t take that long.

Now that you’re rocking your birthday suit, take a look in the mirror. What do you see? More specifically though, who do you see? Are you the same person now that you were a minute and a half ago when you had your clothes on? Of course you are, but have you ever thought about how what you wear affects who you are?

Recently I’ve been thinking about the very Western concept of self-discovery. It’s all the rage nowadays, and it’s a pretty straightforward concept – from late teens into early 20’s people do things and along the way figure out who they really are and what their place in the world is. Of course it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the basic gist of it.

College is basically a Mecca of a self-discovery. I mean, why else do you come here, to get an education or something? No, under the pretense of furthering your knowledge – and of course you do some of that, too – you come to college with the intention of discovering who you really are. You grow and learn and meet new people, and (hopefully) your perception of the world changes a little before you walk across that stage in four – ok, let’s be realistic… five – years.

But how much of what we call self-discovery is actually discovery? I’d argue that a lot of the discovery in self-discovery is actually reinvention. Specifically, you discover something new that you like/don’t like and make the conscious decision to change yourself accordingly. Often its only a small change, but much like evolution, over time those small changes accumulate until one day you realize you’re a very different creature than you were two or three years ago.

At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering why I have you clutching my column while you stand stark naked in front of a mirror shivering because it’s November and your dorm still hasn’t turned on the heat. Put your clothes back on and I’ll explain. No really, please, put your clothes back on. I’ll wait.

But back to my original point: Clothing is an integral part of self-reinvention. Whether it’s conscious or not, the clothes you wear reflect how you perceive yourself and affect how others perceive you. For example, you can spot people from New Jersey and Long Island from a mile away just by the clothes they wear (hint: FCUK t-shirt, Armani Exchange hat, destroyed DKNY jeans, and REALLY nice shoes). And when you see the aforementioned New Jersey native, you’ll think one of two things. If you’re from NJ, you’ll think, “Hey, I’d love to pop in some DJ Tiesto and get hammered with that kid!” If you’re not from NJ, you’ll think, “Ha, I bet that kid gets hammered listening to crappy techno music!”

See how clothing can generate false perceptions though? I bet there are a lot of people from NJ who don’t even like DJ Tiesto! (And of course, a lot of them who don’t wear really expensive clothes all the time either).

A better example, though, would be to look at the “gothic” style of clothing (and I use quotes because modern goth isn’t really goth). Dressing in all black, wearing really odd striped stockings and fishnets on your arms, it all conveys a lot about you to people who see you. It says, “Hey! I listen to weird music! And I’m so into that weird music that I’ve decided to make being weird an integral part of who I am!” And for people who dress that way, what they wear is ultimately just a reflection of how think about themselves – they simply wouldn’t feel comfortable dressing any other way.

But that goes for everyone. Take someone who’s really engrossed in hip-hop, not just a musical genre but as a culture. Now put him or her in a goth kid’s wardrobe (and just for kicks, dress the goth kid in the hip-hop guy’s clothes). Both of them would feel really, REALLY awkward.

Clothes don’t just convey musical preferences or geographical locations, though. They convey attitudes (reference: the paragraph on New Jersey/Long Island), socioeconomic status (designer clothes vs. cheaper stuff), and hobbies (sportswear, jerseys), just to name a few. This can lead to stereotyping and judging (again, see the paragraph on New Jersey/Long Island).

You may assume someone who wears designer clothes has lots of money, but maybe they actually live paycheck to paycheck and wear nice clothes to hide that. Or maybe the kid in Wal-Mart clothes is well off but can’t justify spending $150 on a pair of jeans.

In Western culture, we’re all so uncomfortable and self-conscious in our own skin that we use our clothing as a way to hide and alter what we have underneath. What we put on in the morning reflects who we are, what we want to be, and how we want others to see us.

If we all started walking around naked though, things wouldn’t be much different – Image is too deeply ingrained in Western ideology. We’d very quickly begin judging each other by body shapes, body flaws and so on. I imagine the plastic surgery industry would see a huge boost in its already flourishing business. And without clothes, how would we reinvent ourselves?

But even disregarding those problems, the “Nudist Plan” would still be doomed from the start – You know how brutal New England winters are.





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