Most of you have seen the meme online: "My boss told me to dress for the job I want, not the job I have, so now I'm in a disciplinary meeting dressed as Wonder Woman/Darth Vader/The Goblin King/[insert other cool but oddly dressed character here]."
There is a very strong visual connection between clothing and character, and I don't just mean in a "the guy in the white hat is the good guy" or "the girl in the red coat dies" way. Human beings are very visual, and what each of us wears tells something to the people that see us. I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just the way we're hardwired.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we would react differently to being aproached on the street by a young man in a sharp suit as compared to a young man in grubby casual clothes. A young woman in provocative clothing would deliver a different message than the same young woman in conservative business dress, or even in "mom jeans."
As a former costume designer, I was very aware of this. You have seconds to make a visual impression on your audience. Now you can decide to misdirect - put the character who is eventually going to stab everyone in the back in average clothing in unassuming pastels - but the moment your character is out in view of the audience, they are making assumptions and judgements (for better or worse) based on what they see.
The great thing about writing is you don't have that snap visual decision made by your audience. You can take your time to describe the character when it best suits the story. You can build in layers. Maybe they need to know immediately that her hair is red, but it can wait 'til later to point out that she mainly dresses in purple. Or maybe the color or cut of his clothes are important and need to be described as soon as possible, while his physical stature and description are less important and can wait.
Back to the joke about dressing as a character from above, how many of you feel that your clothing is dictated by the "character" you have to present yourself as at work? Are you able to dress as "yourself?" For example, if we're going on the "dress for what you want to be" idea, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the job I dress for is generally "witch." I don't mean a "and your little dog, too!" witch (though I tend more that way in the winter - striped tights and dagged velvet skirts don't mix well with 90 degrees and high humidity). I mean a Pratchett witch.
Those of you familiar with Terry Pratchett's Discworld books will be familiar with what I mean. The primiary purpose of Terry Pratchett's witches is to know things. To know everything. To know when to use the things they know to help people, and when to just be quiet and keep out of it. If I had to sum up the primary purpose of all the jobs I've had in the past 10 years, "knowing things" would actually be a pretty good description.
In addition, I was extremely heavily influenced by a little series by Monica Furlong when I was a kid. Most of you haven't heard of it, and I'm pretty sure it's out of print now. It's refered to as the Doran series; "doran" being a word that literally means something like portal or doorway, but is used in the series to be mean a wise person who lives in harmony with the world. It takes place in the late ancient/early medieval British isles.
So I dress like a witch, but a witch as filtered through Downton Abbey with a little bit of hippy thrown in for good measure: broomstick skirts and lacy tops in the summer, lots of heavy dark fabric in 20's, 30's, and Oz cuts in the winter.
I came across my personal sense of style in college; I was coming out of a period of rebellion against contemporary fashion and had worn mainly ankle length jumpers and pale colors for the majority of high school. But I have a distinct memory of going to a meet and greet the weekend before freshman year, striding out in a long black full skirt (so full that I could do a high kick unencumbered) with a fitted burgundy top (two colors that were new to my wardrobe then but that I wear all the time now). I was also wearing snugly laced black ankles boots and I remember thinking that this outfit was "me." And not just me, but also witchy and powerful.
So back to you, my readers - what is your character? What do you wear that is just "you?" And where can you wear it - or are you lucky enough that you can dress as yourself all the time?