“I Don’t Care What You Wear”

Posted by Jill Chivers in Fashion, Style and Shopping

On March 10, Clinton Kelly, one of the co-hosts of the television style show What Not To Wear (US version), posted an update on his Facebook wall.

Since posting, it has been shared nearly 3,000 times, Liked nearly 38,000 times, and received nearly 3,000 comments in response.

That’s a lot of love for one post.

When you read it, you may understand why.

In the post, which you can read directly on Clinton Kelly’s official Facebook page (here), Clinton shares his views on what you wear (he doesn’t care – but in a nice way), and an executive summary of his version of style.

I’m sharing this post in its entirety here on my blog because I like what he says.  In modern parlance, I resonate with Clinton’s overall message about style, why it’s important, and who it should be important to and who should have a say in what your style is.

I stopped filming “What Not to Wear” almost 10 months ago now. Honestly it feels like it was 3 weeks ago, and for some reason, I’ve had a thought coursing through my mind lately. I figured I would write it down and share it on Facebook, because … well, why the hell not. Here goes:

I don’t care what you wear. I really don’t. And I don’t care what you think of what I wear. I really don’t. I care what I wear. And I think you should care about what you wear.

Your style can make you happy, and even though I don’t know you, I’d like you to be happy, because as a human being, you deserve to be happy. Clothes won’t make you happy in that really deep, profound way. A solid core of happiness, I believe, comes from expressing love to those who deserve it and accepting love from others because you know you deserve it.

Nevertheless, clothes can make you happy in an important way.

Your personal style is a form of nonverbal communication, just like your facial expressions and your body language. If someone were to smile while giving you some really bad news, you would feel especially uncomfortable. If an acquaintance invited you to her house for a friendly lunch and then sat with her arms folded and legs crossed, you would think something was amiss. Similarly, when your clothes do not match who you are as a person, you and others around you experience a lack of harmony, a dissonance.

It’s hard to convince others — but more importantly yourself — that you are a vibrant human being when you look like you can barely convince yourself to roll out of bed in the morning.

And for the record, dissonance works both ways. A $5,000 suits doesn’t prove to others — or yourself — that you’re a good guy if in fact, you’re actually a jackass.

I guess I want you to know that you control your nonverbal messaging. And when you feel as though the message you want to be sending to the rest of the world is in harmony with the message you are actually sending, you feel more confident, more at peace, and quite frankly, happier.

 

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