Why Do Appearances Matter?

After having ignored his alarm clock completely, the boy jumps out of bed realizing that he has exactly 4 minutes before the bus will leave his stop and put him in quite the precarious predicament. Ignoring his daily morning rituals, he throws on the nearest clothes he can find, grabs his backpack, and races out the door. Luckily, he reaches the bus stop just as the big yellow vehicle arrives and has seemingly been able to avert disaster. However, as soon as he steps foot inside the bus and meets the eyes of his fellow schoolmates, a burst of laughter erupts almost immediately, first soft then loud, until an uproar directed at the boy becomes unmistakable. Looking down at himself, the boy then realizes that in his rush, he had failed to realize that his shirt is on inside out, his fly is quite blatantly open, and his socks are not only a mismatch in color, but in length as well. In today's superficial and often fallacious society, appearance means everything to an individual. How someone dresses and looks determines how he or she is perceived by others upon first glance. How someone looks is often the first thing that gets noticed, and therefore it is the deciding factor for most people who prejudge a person based on how he or she is dressed and to what groups and stereotypes that the person can be attributed based solely on the type of dress or look that characterizes him.

Success in today's world is limited by a number of factors, including the way a person chooses to present himself. A corporate executive can only go so far in his career if he chooses to dress regularly in a way that is below the standard of dress for someone in his position. Today, a business suit consisting of a jacket, tie, a pair of trousers, and a collared shirt is a standard outfit for a corporate officer. If one wants to move forward in his career, then he will first have to look the part in order to be taken seriously by his colleagues. Even more important for these white-collar workers than how they dress is how they present themselves in speech and interaction, which is also a part of the appearance factor.