Style 101 for Autistics
06 May 08 by tharn
It doesn’t take too sharp an eye to see that many Autistics lack a certain amount of clothing-savvy. Maybe we don’t see any reason for it. This viewpoint has some merit; if your clothing protects you from the weather and from indecent exposure laws, why bother further? Department stores are crowded and confusing, and fashion “rules” typically border on utter nonsense, or at least some inexplicable sense, except when establishing some arbitrary “fashion don’t”.
The fact of the matter is that coordinating an outfit is actually an important skill to learn. The way we dress tells others a little about ourselves: how casual we intend to act, how much and what kind of attention we want, our interests, our cultural background, our appreciation for the weather, our perspective on our body, etc. Even non-autistics get anxious approaching strangers socially, and even this small amount of information helps get the social gears moving. By being aware of our own style, we can be more welcoming and discerning in whom we meet.
The rules themselves are actually not so hard to grasp once they are in plain English. An outfit is comprised of multiple articles of clothing, each with its own particular qualities: color, pattern, weight of the fabric, cut, and so forth. In order for an outfit to “work”, two things are necessary:
- Each article of clothing should share at least one quality with the others. For example, the theme of the outfit may be “blue”. So you select a blue shirt and blue jeans and a jean jacket. The more similar the articles, the more “together” your outfit will be. But be careful; if they are too similar, your outfit will be boring - or downright silly.
- Each article should bring a few unique qualities of its own. For example, your shirt may be blue (like your pants), but it can be a lighter blue, perhaps with a design on it. These differences contribute vitality to the outfit. However, if each article fights the others for attention, the outfit becomes an eyesore.
Within these two extremes, you have a lot of freedom. At the same time, the choices in clothing may be overwhelming and you may not know where to start. Start with a simple palette - i.e. pick colors that share a common tradition. Cityscape colors, floral colors, ocean colors, greyscale, simple crayon colors, etc. Combinations of colors from within any one palette tend to work together simply because they invoke memories of the same thing. If you pick a palette that you like looking at, and ignore clothing outside of your palette, you will be able to remove a lot of clothes from consideration entirely.
The colors black and white behave like wild cards. That is, they can pass as being any other color - just a very dark, or very light form of that color. Keep in mind that white shows shadows very well, and so it draws attention to its folds and wrinkles, and the volume it covers. Black tends to hide shadows, which draws attention to the outline of your body instead of the volume. If you use a lot of white or black, be aware of these effects.
One thing to look out for on the way out the door (and I do suggest a glance in the mirror) is the amount of attention each article of clothing demands. If your t-shirt has something very witty to say, you want it to draw more attention than your other clothing. Likewise, you probably want your socks to blend in. Try to draw attention to each article according to how much attention you think it is worth.
Alright, this should have you well on the way to getting started. Next time, I’ll tackle the actual shopping trip itself, some staple items to shop for, and perhaps a few more helpful guidelines.
An autistic person might want to get some advice on whether or not their clothes are not too far out of style, and on how the clothes fit. Also, bright red and royal blue look nice together, but bright red pants and a royal blue shirt on a man are going to look very odd or very artsy and cutting-edge, depending on the situation. On a woman red pants and a royal blue shirt might be slightly less odd looking, but it also depends on the situation, in some communities it might look like one is trying to hard to get attention, and people might get suspicious of a person who look far too different than they do. Unless you have a lot of money for different colors of shoes, it’s good to go with black or dark brown for leather (or vinyl) dress shoes. Athletic shoes can be different colors, I think… though maybe that’s my own quirk. I like red athletic shoes.
I think of denim blue as a neutral. I think every color works with blue jeans.
I’ve seen some people who seem to be on the spectrum walk around everywhere barefoot. I don’t know if they can’t stand shoes or what, but this was in the Winter (California Winters can be plenty cold) and this one guy I’ve seen in a grocery store with no shoes on (which was probably against the store’s rules). I don’t know if this guy would have been tortured by shoes or not, but I suppose it would make life difficult sometimes. This guy has hair down to his waist, too. He seems to be happy when I see him so maybe his outfit doesn’t cause him any problems.
I know some other ASD people who are into wearing costumes for every day clothes, so they stand out because they look a few centuries out of style instead of just a decade or so. I’m sure it’s fun, and maybe worth it to get the odd looks from people, but it seems a little extreme to most people. On the other hand, sometimes I kind of like seeing someone in a costume walking down the street, so who am I to criticize?
Full disclosure: I’m not known as a snappy dresser, but I think I avoid scaring people most of the time. :-) Remembering to brush my hair before going out has been a challenge and I’m 48 years old.
Ms. Clark,
Thank you for your heads-up on these points! I’ll certainly get into sizes and staples in 102. I didn’t want to make this task seem more daunting than it needs to be, so I decided to omit some info for now. I hope my audience will forgive me, but this is not intended as an exhaustive source on fashion - just a sensible place to start.
The phrase “in style” is one we hear frequently, and it bears some explanation. There are fads in clothing - facilitated to some extent or other, by clothing manufacturers - which are ultimately short-lived and arbitrary. To be “in style” is to be conscious of these trends. However, being in style is expensive; it involves frequent shopping and actively seeking out current trends. Beyond its potential as a hobby, I’ve never seen any merit to this scheme.
But then, I’m a guy. I imagine females experience more pressure to conform to current fads.
Wear socks, shoes, pants, and shirt at the very least. Avoid vulgar, overly-revealing, or distractingly unusual clothes. Match clothing items that are similar to one another, but not identical. Granted, there will be situations under which these rules change a little, or permit trivial exceptions. If you decide to break or bend a rule, any fashion disasters (or successes) are your own look-out. However, I’d suggest mastering the basics before you consider matching leopard print with plaid.
PS - I would suggest readers stay away from pairings like red and blue unless they are sure what they’re doing. Although the navy blue is a duller, darker blue that lets the red to take center stage, they otherwise have nothing in common. They can still be incorporated into an outfit, but it takes some finesse. As a rule, colors that are next to each other on the color wheel (analogous colors; e.g. blues with greens), or directly opposite (complementary colors; e.g. blue with orange / brown ) provide safer combinations.
I have excellent clothing savvy, not perhaps in Moondogs league (he used to dress as a Viking in downtown New York) but nobody can deny that my clothing is not distinctive most of the time.
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laurentius -
I’m certainly not saying that all Autistics are poor dressers, or even that no Autistics are great with clothing. In fact, I don’t doubt that you are a shining example of just that.
However, I still claim that disproportionately many Autistics are clueless. I believe the causes of this deficiency are (1) the unpleasant experience of navigating stores, and (2) the vague, non-sensical, even mystical approach typically used to explain style.
So any advice you can share that makes the whole process more understandable, would be greatly appreciated!
[…] Style 101, I presented a very basic framework for building outfits that “work” together. While […]
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