Clothes Make a Man
It is said that we can judge a man’s character from his dress; But it’s not always so. Dress can only help us to a certain extent in knowing the broad facts of a man’s character. A man who wears a costly dress is necessarily a man of lavish habits. On the other hand, a man who wears tattered clothes is not necessarily a man of miserly habits. He may be do so only due to his financial limitations. Yet it is true that in some cases dressserves as a useful index to the character of a man. Some common examples, from which we can get some idea of a man’s character from his dress, are given below.
We daily come across such persons as put on clothes of loud colours. We find them dressed in gaudy colours. They wear bushshirts printed withThe faces factors and actresses. So, is the case with their shoes. Shoes withdifferent designs on them are liked by them. We can easily know thecharacter of such people by looking at the way in which they dress. Suchpeople, if we carefully observe them, are very fond of show and ostentation. They lack the maturity of taste. They do not have sober habits. We can know this by their dress. Many people even if they are given costly and decent clothes, will maketheir appearance shabby and ineffective.
They will put on the shirt or thecoat, but will not button it up. The laces of their shoes will remain untied. If they use the tie they will not put the knot properly. They never botherwhether their clothes are pressed or not. As these people are with theirclothes, so they are with their habits. They behave carelessly in other matters also. They are slovenly in their dress, living, reading and other ways also. So in this way, dress reflects their character. Besides this, we find people wearing very simple dress. A white ‘kurta’,‘dhoti’, and a white cap on the head and simple ‘chappals’ are all that they dress themselves in.
But their clothes are always very neat and clean. Though they do not waste much of their valuable time in dressing, yet they do not use their dress carelessly. Such people show that they are thefollowers of the principle, “Simple living and high thinking”. They do notbelieve in ostentation. Mostly such people are intellectual. Broadly speaking, the dress of a man helps us to know his character. But atthe same time it may also be added that the dress should not be regarded as the sole index to the character of a man. Many saints and Sadhuscompletely neglect their dress.
But it does not mean that they are very low either in their mental or emotional standard. On the contrary, they raise themselves so high from the level of such worldly considerations that dress becomes quite meaningless to them. In the present age, Mahatma Gandhiused to wear only a loin cloth. But he was the man before whom the entire world bowed its head. So in judging the character of a man dress can kelp us only to a certain extent. It can never be the sole guide. We should alsotake other factors into consideration in judging a man.
