Person/Persona

    The line we draw between our person and our public persona, is a hard one for us to delineate.  Yet nearly all of us have this divide to one degree or another.  We choose a style for its ability to conceal our perceived imperfections.  We do our hair in particular ways to accent the best parts of our facial structure.  And many of us, because of the requirements of our work, have essentially two entirely separate wardrobes; one that serves our work persona, and one we think of as our "real" clothes.

    Part of my point here is that those real clothes may only be somewhat more real than our work drag.  Even though we aren't trying to impress the boss, or present a professional image to a client at a meeting, we are still making an effort to present a certain aspect of ourselves, that we want to promote to the world as being "us". 

    Part of what I find endlessly interesting, is that this subterfuge we all indulge in is a socially acceptable, understood kind of lying.  "This is not who I actually am, this is just what I am willing to let you see of me, and that, is manipulated through textile, color, texture, and fit to propagandize me to you in the way I wish."

    Why is this so acceptable?  I think its mostly because we have been universally at this for so long.  It comes from the very root of our whole involvement with Attire, and that, is lost in the furthest reaches of our past.  Besides, the nature of Attire as a language is largely composed of these deceptions.  The assumption of power, the presentation of sexual allure, the expression of emotional states we may or may not be feeling, all are essential to how Attire works. We could no more excise this visual lying from Attire's structure, than we could wish to cease communicating our thoughts.
    Because I'm basically a pollyanna, (I admit it freely) I choose to see this, not as a negative about our species.  What it represents to me is something altogether sweeter.  Its part of a vearning we have to be loved, and acknowledged.  We all want to be seen, felt, understood and appreciated, and since we want to be lauded for what is best about us, we lift those parts of us up, and push the bits we feel are less desirable, into the darkness.

  

     What that means is that, with few exceptions, we are engaging willingly in this process of self advertisement all the time.  And with that comes a good deal of blurring of lines.  The marks between what constitutes our base line self, and that which we have to a degree constructed, get harder and harder to find. 

    So, do we become our own fantasy of ourselves in time?  I think to a large extent, we do.  Is that a bad thing?  Not always.  There is a danger though of losing oneself in the fantasy, which we have seen many times with people in the public eye who become so attached to, and identified with their persona, that the real them fades, rarely to be seen, even by themselves.  And the result is usually disastrous.  I suspect that the more famous one becomes, the more care one has to give to keeping those markers between person, and persona, in clear view at all times.