Clothing and Characterization

I wear t-shirts and jeans for casual wear, classic-cut blazers and slacks and long skirts for work, and Bearcat Green sweats for football games. I wear a wedding band with Celtic knotwork and a Claddagh ring as an engagement ring. When I wear other jewelry, I wear vintage pieces that my mom left for me when she died. Currently, my nails are painted a color-changing green. In a back closet, I have period peasant wear to wear to the Renaissance festival.

What does that tell you about who I am? About who I'm not?

We are all Sherlock Holmes, deducing other people by their outsides. We look at hair -- my short choppy hair makes people think I'm a lesbian -- which can be very flattering. We look at accessories -- a MAGA hat or black lipstick inform us on what category to put a stranger. We look at clothing -- today, I'm wearing a Lil Bub t-shirt and jeans to work, and as I'm the professor, it will confuse a few of my new students who don't realize Friday is my Jeans Day.

According to cognitive psychology, putting people in categories based on their clothing is a heuristic, or information-processing shortcut, called the representativeness heuristic. Does appearance tell us everything about a person? No! Marilyn Manson, grotesque goth that he is, is reportedly a very nice man. The woman in soccer-mom jeggings could be a clown on weekends. Therefore, the representativeness heuristic doesn't tell us the whole truth, However, as people do dress to express their personality, we can use descriptions of clothing as a shorthand for personality.

I woke up this morning realizing that a book I wrote, Voyageurs, depends heavily on clothing as characterization. One character, Cat Pleskovich, wears leggings and tank tops to fit her dancer's figure and daredevil tendencies. Another, Ian Akimoto, has very little clothing to his name because he lives in an impoverished, barren future. However, as a time traveler, Ian uses Method acting techniques, including dressing for character and time period, to fit in wherever he lands.

*****

Part of the intro of Voyageurs, made of clothing and impressions:

May 19, 1814 (Kat)

I stepped out of shadow and paid my entrance at the gate. I had dressed like a gentleman, and the suit set off my tall stature. I strode confidently through the gate of Vauxhall Gardens, as men do. From a grandstand, some musicians played something I didn’t recognize, something that sounded jaunty and Germanic.

A woman in widow’s weeds passed through the gate right behind me like a wraith. She would receive scorn not only because she walked in unaccompanied, but because she marred her period of mourning for frivolities. I admired her gall and wished I could accompany her to reduce some of the harsh judgments against her, but she slipped away before I could offer.

Besides, I had come here to solve a mystery. Someone had left a note in my (Twenty-First Century) mailbox that read, I know you are a Traveller. Meet me at Vauxhall Gardens at 8:00 PM on May 19, 1814. I will be on the first bench beyond the lights to your right.

One purpose of a pleasure garden, I had read, was to provide dark nooks for dalliance. An unintended consequence, however, was the presence of thieves. I walked with purpose, head up, smelling an elusive whiff of a cheroot on the breeze and hearing two gentlemen as they passed me, talking of an assignation.

I thought I knew of all the Travellers. A few of us had met up recently at the 1904 World’s Fair, Wanda and Harold and I, to see the wonders unveiled there. We had connected by email to set a rendezvous, as we lived in far-flung cities, and Wanda had to make her face look pale under her bonnet because St. Louis had been even more racist then. We all ate ice cream cones, of course.

As I walked toward the dark, I felt the note in my pocket as a talisman.  My foray into meeting an unknown Traveller could endanger me. I carried a sword cane, standard for gentlemen of this era, as defense. I walked toward the first bench to the right, in the darkness, and I spied the widow there. She had pulled knitting from her bag and set to it. Through her veil, I thought she watched me.

I ventured into the deeper darkness, and her words, said in a husky voice, startled me. “You are not a man. You walk like a woman.”

I looked at the dark figure, and I noticed – “You sit like a man.”

“Katerina Pleskovich,” the other said in a voice slightly changed. “It’s good to see you in person.”

“Okay,” I said sternly, “You have the advantage on me, and that makes you look like a stalker.”

“Ian Akimoto,” he said, standing and pushing back his bonnet. In the moonlight, he was truly post-racial with glossy dark hair, wide-set Asian eyes, a long, thin nose, full lips. And an odd swirl of freckles on his high cheekbones.  Not handsome, exactly, but perhaps appealing. Incongruously, I chuckled.

*****


What do you know about Kat from her appearance? What do you know about Ian? Where were they wrong about each other, just from appearance? That's the power of playing with clothing, appearance, and characterization.