Self adornment

Dress is the most obvious status symbol, and to be dressed attractively and in fashion gives a sense of well-being and confidence. The human-being uses self adornment (dress, cosmetics, tattoos for example) to express physically his or her interior being and personality. The clothes a person wears and the way in which he or she wears them, the colours he or she chooses, express a fundamental and basic reality; and traditionally specific societal groupings have adopted particular forms of dress. The scriptures refer to the removal of earthly garments and being clad in heavenly garments; Christ refers to the guest being excluded from the wedding becomes he has not put on the appropriate clothing.

In present-day society, uniform is seen as having no links with individual personality, since it irons out all individual and social distinctions; the desire to express individuality is cited as one reason for the habit of ordained priests to wear lay clothes and of military men to prefer to wear civilian dress. On the other hand, uniform is a powerful symbol in that it demonstrates visibly the role an individual plays. Some "uniforms" are highly symbolic in content. For example, the habit of a Zen patriarch demonstrates, through its round hat a knowledge of the heavens, through its square shoes a knowledge of the earth, and through its bells an understanding of universal harmony. The wearing of white (for baptism, confirmation, and as a bride) are traditional demonstrations of inner purity. The Chinese nobleman demonstrated in his clothing: harmony (12 bands representing the 12 months of the year), rounded sleeves (graceful bearing), straight-cut back (rectitude), and the horizontal lower edging (a heart at peace). The muraqq'a or patched frock granted to a novice by his shaykh at the end of mystical training in the Sufi system may indicate: by its collar, patience or annihilation of intercourse with others; by its sleeves, fear and hope or observance and continence; by its two gussets, contraction and dilation or poverty and purity; by its belt, self-abnegation or persistence in contemplation; by its hem, soundness in faith or tranquillity in the presence of God; by its fringe, sincerity or settlement in the abode of union.

The tendency not to wear uniform or formal clothing therefore demonstrates a diminishing sense of symbolism and consecration and, in a way, a rejection of the society or grouping that the uniform represents. It may also represent rapid change and mingling of societies - clerical dress, once the sign of service, may come to signify male domination; or what indicated virginity in one culture (the wearing of white) may mean mourning in another.

As well as dress, other more permanent forms of adornment - tattoos, filing teeth, binding feet - also may have deep ritual significance and be used as demonstrating rites of passage. And the changing of personal appearance through plastic surgery has deep psychological effects.