One of the things that strikes me when I look at old pictures is the dress. A local paper recently ran a picture that was from the 50's or earlier. The women were wearing dresses and the men were wearing suits. At a county fair. Contrast that with today where people can't be bothered to change out of their pajama pants to go to the grocery. A couple years ago a former coworker of mine saw a lady in line at Best Buy wearing a bath robe. Crazy.
We judge others by what they wear and vice versa. It's not always a conscious process. But it's real. When I worked in HR at my last job, I always had high expectations for candidates. If you don't care enough to look professional to interview, you don't want the job very much. Whom do you want to assist you when you are at the bank- someone nicely groomed with neat, clean clothes or someone who looks like they just dragged themselves in off a bender? They may be equally competent, but that's probably not the judgement you'd make based on their attire. Since impressions matter, why not make the most of them?
Does that mean you need to wear a suit to gas up your car? No. But dressing up a bit goes a long way. My last job had casual day on Friday. Most people wore jeans. Me? I usually wore a dress of some kind. I got many compliments on my outfits. Were they expensive? No. I'm a very hard core bargain shopper. Also, I was probably more comfortable in my clothes than they were in pants. My dresses felt like I was wearing pajamas to work but were much classier looking (and met the dress code).
Try a little experiment sometime. Dress just a bit above how you normally do. See if and how people treat you differently. You'll probably see why I say "Yes to the Dressup".
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