Clothing Demystified

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A while back, I wrote a how-to on Ordering Fast Food, and I was pleased with how well it was received. (
Tutorial / WP Thread - How to Order Fast Food)

I recently finished two how-to's on Fashion for Autistics. My goal was to provide an introduction to coordinating an outfit, and making the shopping experience more manageable, and to do it in language that is explicit and useful. These guides are not intended to be exhaustive, but I hope they provide a good place to start.

Style 101 - Building outfits
Syle 102 - Going shopping

As always, I invite any comments or advice you want to add. ^_^

Or else I can pull a Sid and do my own thing. :O)

Sid :O)

Doing one's own thing is always the best way to go. But I think it's always good to study up on a subject, especially if you plan on going your own way with it. Clothing can be a powerful means of self-expression; knowing what messages you're sending is a skill that could potentially come in handy. *shrugs*

I just hope they don't speak spanish to me when I am ordering food at a drive thru. That really confuses me and messes me up

i like thrift stores, mostley because i can get more clothes for the budget i have and the retro look is very cool! but i will buy clothes at target and wal-mart if i must

What I like to do at times is play a dressing game in which I choose what I'm going to wear with my eyes closed. I open a drawer and pull out a pair of jeans or a skirt (my bottom drawers of my dresser have skirts and pants) and then I open the middle drawers and pull out a blouse or sweater or T-shirt. Whatever I pull out I must wear and I always feel so happy when I dress myself this way without caring what anyone thinks of me. It really reduces the stress of choosing what to wear.

But I understand the necessity of dressing appropriately at times, especially for work, and I think tharn is providing a much needed service for some people who find dressing an unpleasant or troublesome chore.

Wouldn't it be easier to just keep a few pairs of identical pants, dress pants, shorts, socks, shirts, dress shirts, etc. and not have to think about it except in practical terms?

Dokken - I think "Big Mac" in Spanish is still "Big Mac". I totally sympathize though; that would really throw me off too!

richardbenson - Good call. When I shop at a thrift store, though, I never come away with clothing I still like 3 days later. I hit Target when I have to shop at a chain store; they're not bad, all told. Wal-mart I avoid like the PLAGUE. Aside from their questionable business practices, I find shopping there uniquely unpleasant. It's crowded, ugly, noisy, and much of their merchandise is tacky and poorly constructed.

cosmiccat - That is a fun game. But really, even when I'm picking out my clothes, I'm not "worrying" what others think of me, per se. I think of what sort of message I want to send. Sometimes, I want my clothes to say "playful" or "expressive" or "approachable"... at other times, I want to communicate "go away", or "ignore me", or "go f*ck yourself". Having some control over the messages my clothing broadcasts, lets ME control whether and how they approach me. And that's gosh-darn useful at times!

Quoting Tharn:

This is interesting. I didn't know you were a guy. I think (I could be wrong) based on the men I know (husband, son, grandsons) that men don't ordinarily worry what others think of them because of the way they're dressed. With women, unfortunately, this is not the case. I know this first hand because I have been the brunt of much sarcasm and comments regarding the way I dress, and yes, those remarks come from other woman. However, I don't think Aspie women are bitchy like that. And please don't interpret this as me saying that all NT's are bitchy and catty. I know that that is definitely not the case. I have just happened to run into a lot who are. But....I guess I never realized that guys have problems wondering what to wear, and I certainly never knew they put any thought into dressing as a means of communicating. But now that I think about it, I realize that they do.

Yep. I'm a guy. I know plenty of other guys who are concerned about this sort of thing, but it's not something we admit to in public, and certainly not to women. I know that women are essentially forced to comform to certain standards regarding their clothes (mainly by other women), which is severely uncool. On the flip side, men aren't provided many options in clothing, and focusing too much on clothes can potentially make you a target of ridicule or even violence.

Anyone I've met who I even suspected of being on the spectrum, has been absolutely open-minded about this sort of thing. Perhaps being Aspie makes you likely to question the assumptions of social pressure, and more willing to risk censure, by default. Whatever the reason, I've never met an Aspie who would stoop to that sort of behavior.

I'm not saying that all guys are going to be concerned about this sort of thing. Indeed, most probably enjoy their freedom to remain clueless! But if a guy does want to learn, he may feel too vulnerable to ask about it. Hence, the tutorials.

What's wrong with a 'uniform'?

I mean, like, always wearing black, blue, or khaki pants and a T-shirt... Jeans bug me too much

I used to wear a uniform back in the sixties and sevties and it was one of the happiest times of my life. A flannel shirt and a pair of thin jeans. Hung them (it) on the back of my closet door everynight and put it on in the morning (until it started to get a tad smelly, and then I wore another almost identical uniform, while the dirty one was in the washer. Uniforms are the absolute stress free way to go. Ask Neil Young. He's still wearing that same uniform last time I saw him.

I fail to see how this is necessary.

Trial and error works perfectly fine for figuring out how people respond to clothing.... and indeed for discovering just how pathetically shallow and irrational the Mundies really are. And when it comes down to it, the practicality of the material and colour in relation to physical laws is FAR more important than the opinions of the boring people.
Clothing for communication?
The only thing my clothing communicates is that I don't give a flying f**k what people think of me (I generally wear the same black clothing everywhere, but have occasionally been known to wander around London with my orange-tassled hat or ski-goggles... not to mention the incidents with black permanent marker).

Me I do uniform. For years now, only black , and some grey, with tiny amount of white. And the same things over and over, winter version, and summer. I own 6 copies of my favourite big floaty black and white shirt, and at least two or three copies of various leggings, four or five of both long and short sleeved huge black T-shirts, etc. And it makes it all very simple.

Clothing is communication for NTs. It's a language they speak. If you want to learn to speak it back to them, then learning about style is the way to do it.

If you don't want to try to send messages through your clothing, then all you need to aim for is something that doesn't hinder other communication between you and them. Like, the extreme: Not wearing anything would be a real barrier to communication, right? OK. To a lesser extent, so does wearing badly mismatched, smelly, or otherwise very inappropriate clothing. But the rules that let you pick out something that simply doesn't create a barrier are pretty simple and that's probably what the OP is hinting at.

First of all, I think a clothing guide for autistics is a good idea. It stands to reason that some of us who have never had an obsession related to fashion or clothing might not be aware of the basic social rules for dressing and selecting clothing.

I agree with this statement:

But I must point out that clothing sends different messages to different people. No matter what you wear, some people will love it, some will hate it, and some will be indifferent to it. In other words, what you wear will always attract some people and repel others. This is inevitable, but I have found there are two common ways to deal with it.

One approach is to design your outfits to attract people you are most likely to become friends with and repel people you are least likely to become friends with. This can be done in numerous different ways. The easiest method is to simply dress like your current friends or people you would like to have as friends, ideally putting your own spin on it so that you don't look like you're literally imitating other people. The advantage for people on the spectrum is that the clothes communicate for you, which helps if you're not very outgoing.

The other approach is to try to dress in a manner that is likely to offend as few people as possible. I can't say much about this approach because it does not come naturally to me - if I try to dress in a neutral and highly unoffensive manner, I think I look boring. However, I think this is the way in which most people dress. The advantage for people on the spectrum is that it's easy to dress this way and it can help you to avoid unwanted attention (of any kind).