Monday, August 21, 2006

Shall I be impressive?

During the last few weeks, with the advent of my casual days - post-retirement, there has been a tendency to relax myself as well as my wearing style. However, I found that it's sometime not my preference to wear as I like when outing.

At one afternoon, I went to shop with my wife with the maintenance of my domesticated outfit; frayed collar T shirt, nap rised short and a pair of 2 dollars saddle. I felt the delight and casualness for being at such loose apparel at the shopping mall. I was enjoyingly perceiving my sight seeing while smiling to people who had had eyes-contacted with me.

Within a moment, I strangely felt like something was going wrong. I'd noticed that most of the people who be coming from the opposite direction be throwing a glance at me as if I was so special that day. I could not figure out the odd straightaway since my heart had been soak into a happy-go-lucky enjoyment.

So I asked my wife, "Yong, am I looked handsome today, if not why so many people were used to look at me?" "Of course lah! you're wearing like a boh-thuck-cair-eh-lang (illiterate person) and no wonder people may thing of you as a snatcher, a popular skeptical icon these days." She added, "if there were anything to be happened here, you are likely to be picked amongst the first batch for questioning via cctv."

Her word was later on proved to be literal when I was supposing to make a luggage purchase. That silly salesgirl who had been keeping her closed paces to me, was having her both eyes static at me all the time, as if I was not a genuine buyer! Alamak! what 'dog's eyes see people shorter' (dogmatic) manner it was!

This has proved that it can take only moments for people to pass judgement on you with these initial impressions largely based on visual image. What I'm thinking is clothe may not necessarily 'make' the man or woman. Men with proper tied on may not necessarily having money inside his pocket. But the reality is because image talks with this advanced society, and what our image communicates can dictate the quality of the response.

For the reassessment of my thought of whether should I be impressive, I've found an answer. As professional image consultant, Sharon Moore of Image & Moore Pty Ltd once said "There're only two types of people who don't have to worry about their appearance - the very rich, and the very silly. For the rest of us, it's about managing the impact we make on others."

I think I kinder find my old man style that would probably fit the range of what's appropriated for all occasions. And it's perhaps the Charles Bronson's!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I forgive you because you are not in marketing field. There is a concept in marketing called 'packaging'.

When you are packaged like salted fish, you should be merchandised in wet market, not supermart.

The way you package yourself, you project your image to peole around you, and you position your image into their mind.

If you do that again, the image you built for all these years may be tarnished within months.

We don't blame people 'dog eyes see people low 狗眼看人低'; because people are unable to differentiate the good from bad. Example, you don't choose a pack of cigarette with lousy packaging and awful brandname such as 'Cap Burung'.

So you choose the package with good brandname.

Well, if you try to be famous, why not wear your undergear and walk around. I shall see you in tomorrow's frontpage then.

Anonymous said...

aham! you looks 40+ and havn't wrecked yet. Enjoy you life!

Picatho (百可度) said...

allenext, yeh you're right!

anonymous, thank, thank!