The Great Debate- Is Dressing Up Still Relevant in Today’s World?

The Great Debate- Is Dressing Up Still Relevant in Today’s World?

The great debate about whether dressing up is still relevant in today’s world seems to be on everyone’s mind nowadays, especially with the situation known as the “pandemic” being around. Dressing up is important but not every single time.

Sure, you may have to dress up for virtual meetings and events, but to what extent? The key is to only make an effort dressing up for such things when needed. Let’s say you have a virtual wedding to attend (which are pretty common right now), and you have to look nice, or maybe you want to look good for your own reasons. Well then, you have to dress up in that situation. And of course, if you have to watch a virtual wedding online but it’s just streaming and you’re not really a part of it, you can definitely choose not to dress up.

Working at home is still an option for some people, so then does that means that you have to dress up every day? Nope. I’ve been working at home for quite a few years now, and the best part of working mostly from home besides having to attend meetings and what not in person or online in this case, dressing up is needed when you have to be at a meeting or something like that. That’s not to say that you make no effort at all to look presentable in general even if you’re at home because certainly no one wishes to look messy and feel terrible about the way they look.

Going outside in the pandemic is still somewhat of a novelty for many, but that’s one of the times that you can actually choose to dress up or not. It’s the same when it comes to staying at home since there’s no one to show your glorious outfit to. The pandemic was something unexpected but then again without it, how would we know who we are truly making an effort to dress up for? Dress up for yourself. At the end of the day, it’s you who’s going to ultimately feel good or not because you know the truth of whether you’re dressing up for yourself or if you want to desperately impress others (stop doing that from now on if you are as that’s not a good thing to do!) If I’m wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt outside, so be it as I know it was my decision. If I’m wearing a nice office shirt and pants for a meeting, again it was my decision. Make it a point to always make it your own decision when it comes to choosing what you want to wear. Don’t dress up for others and just dress for yourself. Make the right decision for yourself.

Shefali is the author of Own It! Love What You Already Have of which all book proceeds go toward good causes. She is an executive at her family’s business, and board director for two other companies. She’s an alumna of Columbia Business School in New York City and Drexel University. She lives in Dubai with her husband and continues to travel for work. To learn more, visit shefalikarani.com