Dressed to Communicate—Or Not
Intimation is illustrated with an extended example: how we dress. Full-on communication with clothes is rare. The reason is this: unless the audience is already primed for a communication, your clothes must startle if they are to make your communicative intention unmistakable. Most of the messages we send when we dress, fashionably or otherwise, we send as half-on intimations. The chapter concentrates on the intentions of the individual dresser, contenting itself with the metaphor of the cultural ‘brand’ to explain how an entire culture may communicate with its clothes. The point of intimating with clothes is to get something across to another. Since clothes are the face we present to the world, this will most likely be something about ourselves; we tend to use clothes to offer a sample of ourselves. The chapter resists the idea that our clothes are never more than a social disguise.