Can I wear my wings today?

Why can’t we wear exactly what we feel like wearing?

Why is it so wrong to come to work in shorts instead of the ‘normal’ formal suit on a very hot day?

Why is it only ok for little girls to walk around in tutu’s or fairy wings?

“Dress is the way in which individuals learn to live in their bodies and feel at home in them. Wearing the right clothes and looking our best, we feel at ease with our bodies, and the opposite is equally true: turning up for a situation inappropriately dressed, we feel awkward, out of place and vulnerable. In this respect, dress is both an intimate experience of place and vulnerable. In this respect, dress is both an intimate experience of the body and a public presentation of it.” (Entwistle,2000;7)

Today I decided to dress up like a fairy. I was really physically uncomfortable. I was not taken seriously and people took me as a joke. This was only because I was dressed like a “childish” young girl…

“Dress is part of the presentation of  self; ideas of embarrassment and stigma play an important part in the experience of dress in everyday life and can be applied to discuss the ways in which dress has to ‘manage’ these as well as the way dress may sometimes be the source of our shame. However, the ridicule is not simply that of personal faux pas, but the shame of failing to meet the standards required of one by the moral order of the social space.” (Entwistle,2000;35)