5 Ways Your Clothes Can Affect Your Image and Success

A study showed that it’s possible to find out a lot about someone’s personality, status, age, and income just from looking at a photo of their shoes. In this context, the phrase, “Always dress for success” gets another, very practical meaning.

We at Bright Side have discovered that lots of research has been done on how our clothes can affect our productivity.

1. Non-ordinary clothes make you look more competent.

People that wear clothes that may be considered inappropriate for what they’re doing may actually have a better image and can be seen as specialists in their line of work. Researchers called this “the red sneakers effect.” It was based on their findings that uncovered the fact that students considered a professor who wore red Converse sneakers while giving a lecture to be more competent.

2. Certain styles boost your creative thinking.

Dressing formally, as a study found, increases our abstract thinking. This is explained by the fact that professional clothes create certain social distancing. And when people are more socially distant, they tend to think in more distant terms and find more creative solutions.

3. Your individual style helps to present yourself properly.

You shouldn’t try to fit into a stereotypical image of what your clothes should look like in the eyes of your employers. Instead, you should dress in a way you feel will present yourself in the best possible light. Because, as specialists say, personality matters to employers more than you think.

4. Appropriate clothing makes you feel more attentive.

Wearing thematic clothing can have a positive effect on our cognition, especially focus. In the experiment, people who wore a lab coat made way fewer mistakes while doing tasks that required attention, and the researchers explain this by both the symbolic meaning and the physical experience of wearing such clothes.

5. Your clothes can say something about your goals.

People process visual details without thinking much about it through a process called thin-slicing. Our brain basically makes judgments in milliseconds, and we develop impressions on different things. So, as our clothes make up the most part of our visual presentation, we should carefully choose them to show what goals we want to reach.

For example, as specialists say, rolling up your sleeves will speak on your determination to get things done, or wearing informal clothes at fancy events will show that you want to make social connections.

In what ways do you feel clothes can make someone more successful?