Quotessence
Home / Topics / Clothing Quotes

Clothing Quotes

Browse 116 quotes about Clothing.

Clothing Quotes

“Some women wear a miniskirt to reveal their thighs; some wear one to conceal their age.”

“Clothing was magic. Casey believed this. She would never admit this to her classmates in any of her women's studies courses, but she felt that an article of clothing could change a person... Each skirt, blouse, necklace, or humble shoe said something - certain pieces screamed, and others whispered seductively, but no matter, she experienced each item's expression keenly, and she loved this world. every article suggested an image, a life, a kind of woman, and Casey felt drawn to them." (Free Food For Millionaires, p.41).”

“I took time to examine the garments more carefully. Not only could they help clothe me for the summer, but they might also provide insights into the history of Whistling Tor. The library held the ink and parchment records set down by men. But that was only half the story. Women talked to their daughters and granddaughters, weaving memories. If no living women remained, one might still learn something from what they had left behind: a garden planted in a certain pattern, a precious possession set away with careful hands, a gravestone for a beloved pet. And clothing. I did not know who had owned these gowns, these delicate undergarments, but perhaps they had something to tell me.”

“as a general rule, women nowadays dedicate all their energy, all their attention to their appearance; they are not concerned with anything except wearing the latest fashion; they squander all their intelligence in trying to become more beautiful, and not even in any practical way, by some beneficial and hygienic method, like practicing gymnastics, exercising in the fresh air, or swimming every morning. But no, it must be done with ribbons and lace, by cutting their breath short from the excessive use of tight-fitting corsets. And this translates to a waste of time, health, and money.”

“Robert Jackall’s book [Moral Mazes] impressed on me that corporate dress serves a far more important function than mere body covering. “Proper management of one’s external appearances,” he writes, “simply signals to one’s superiors that one is prepared to undertake other kinds of self-adaptation.” By dressing correctly, right down to the accessories, you let it be known that you are willing to conform in other ways too—that you can follow orders, for example, and blend in with the prevailing “culture.”

“Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe - and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! Why don't you go whole hog? Get him a brief case and make him carry it wherever he goes - make him feel shame if he doesn't have it.”

“Because he has finally realized that it is it and not him that is loved by the woman he loves, many a man is jealous of his own car, house, wardrobe, or salary.”

“The responsibility for men's behavior, indeed for civilization itself rests entirely with women here, and in how they dress and behave. Men's animalistic impulses are presumed to be overwhelming and uncontrollable. And as men are brutal, brainless savages, women must hide their bodies to avoid being assaulted. In most societies, a respectable woman, to varying degrees, is expected to cover up. If she doesn't she is inviting assault.”

“If the food that one ate the night before were somehow able to be seen and identified through one’s clothes throughout the day, millions of employees would each fast ten or so days before their payday.”

“Do you want to make more money and increase your attractive mojo? In a 2012 study published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, waitresses who wore red received 15 to 26% more in tips from male customers. In a different study, when women wore a red t-shirt, it increased a female hitchhiker’s chances of getting a ride.”

“Some people will insult your intelligence by suddenly being nice or nicer to you once you make it … or they think you have.”

“If we were not impressed by job titles, suits, and jargon, we would demand that financial advisors show us their personal bank statements before they tell us what we could or should do with our own money.”

“When a young employee at the Anne Fank House tried to wear his yarmulke to work, his employers told him to hide it under a baseball cap. The museum's gal was "neutrality," one spokesperson explained to the British newspaper Daily Mail, and a live Jew in a yarmulke might "interfere" with the museum's "independent position." The museum finally relented after deliberated for four months, which seems like a rather long time for the Anne Frank House to ponder whether it was a good idea to force a Jew into hiding.”

“People used to shop in stores; swiping through hangers, trying on clothes, and being surprised by what looked good on them. Now, clothing is a 2x4 digital image that you scroll past, worn by someone who isn’t you, in a color that isn’t accurate, in a fashion that invites no spontaneity. Our infinity makes us so limited.”

“Experts in the fashion industry say the first clothes that people are drawn to are instinctual. Think of your favorite clothes as a child. Then as you mature, you focus deeper into the self. Now you favor clothes that involve sexuality, yours and other people's. You begin to reflect your profession, your mental state, then address your personal affectations. Your personhood. And then you start to look into the world. At society and history and nature. You feel for texture and you create contrasts and distance.”

“I myself have an extensive collection of leather jackets, despite the fact that the only way I can tell them apart is by looking at the label sewn into the neck. And yet I will continue to buy them because, like many other items in my wardrobe, they are a perennial classic and I have a weird mental block that every time I go shopping that means I forget what I already own the moment I cross the threshold into the store.”

“I don't want them to think that we dress like savages,' she replied, with a scorn that Pocahontas might have resented; and he was struck again by the religious reverence of even the most unworldly American women for the social advantages of dress. 'It's their armour,' he thought, 'their defence against the unknown, and their defiance of it.' And he understood for the first time the earnestness with which May, who was incapable of tying a ribbon in her hair to charm him, had gone through the solemn rite of selecting and ordering her extensive wardrobe.”