The Devil Wears Prada (2006) has become one of my favorite movies. It can be seen as a satire or sendup of the fashion industry, which is regarded by many outsiders as silly and trivia. That attitude comes about because there are those in the industry who are obsessed with beauty, extravagance, social climbing, status, and who are not above backstabbing and badmouthing others to achieve their career goals.
But no matter how much people sneer at and ridicule the over-the-top activities and mindset of those in the fashion industry, we can't ignore two facts: one, we all wear clothes and two, each day, for better or worse, we must decide what we are going to wear in public as well as in private. There's nothing silly or trivial about that. We may think we only dress for ourselves, which is partly true but we also dress to impress. Otherwise we would put on anything that came to hand; we would wear a lampshade in place of a hat, for instance. Even homeless people are mindful of what they wear.
I recall reading something the 19th-century writer Henry David Thoreau wrote about why we wear clothes. It might have been in his book Walden. Thoreau wrote that we wear clothing for two reasons: to protect ourselves from the weather and as ornamentation. The latter reason tells others something about us, beyond words and body language.
Note: I originally published this blog post on my Facebook page on February 11, 2023. I've made a few minor changes to the text.
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