You are what you wear

Or as that old saying goes: clothes maketh the man (and the woman)

We've all heard that old chestnut: clothes make the man. The proverb was first recorded in English in the 15th century (though there is an earlier saying in Greece that roughly translates as 'the man is his clothing'.). The idea duly turned up in William Shakespeare's writings (as things tend to do) with Polonius declaiming, "For the apparel oft proclaims the man" in Hamlet. And more recently, Mark Twain proclaimed, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

Well, that may well be the case. But certainly there is no denying that our clothes say a lot about us: who were are, what we believe in, where we come from, and sometimes, even what we do.

There is the obvious stuff of course. The hijab, for instance, which is now as much a religious injunction as it is a political statement. There are women in certain parts of the globe who are fighting for their right to throw it off because they see it as symbol of female subjugation. And then there are those in other regions of the globe who are fighting for the right to keep it on to assert their adherence to the Islamic faith. But whether you are in Teheran or Paris, whichever side of the divide you are on, the hijab is always a highly visible marker of identity.

In India, we now have a chief minister, Yogi Adityanath of Uttar Pradesh, who wears saffron, traditionally the colour of renunciation in the Hindu faith (yes, the irony is not lost on me either), as he goes about the task of running his state. And even though he makes all the right noises about not discriminating against any faith, his clothes proclaim quite proudly where his heart lies.

So, while clothes may not necessarily make the man or woman, they nonetheless tell us a lot about them. And that applies not just to overtly religious markers but also to more, shall we say, 'secular' choices.

Take a walk through your neighbourhood market or mall. Or just sit in a cafe or restaurant and do some people watching. You can tell a lot about those passing just by looking at what they are wearing, because even though we often don't realise it, all of us inadvertently send out signals about who we are by the way we dress.

There are the yummy mummies having a quick bite while their kids are at school. They sport oversized diamonds on their fingers and in their ears, each one carefully calibrated to show off the size of their husband's annual bonuses. Their designer bags are either 'this season' or old enough to qualify as 'vintage'. Their hair is all high-maintenance highlights and super-sleek blow-dries. And their pastel clothes and high heels a sign that they never ever need to take public transport as they go about their 'ladies who lunch' lifestyle.

Their husbands, meanwhile, only do business lunches. They wear beautifully-tailored, made-to-measure shirts but leave off the ties to indicate that they are not middle management. Their accessory of note is an oversized designer watch, that they glance at ever so often to indicate just how important their time is. If they are meeting with bureaucrats, it is easy to tell the government servants apart. They are the ones with the cheaper looking suits and expressions of grave condescension.

And that's just the five-star hotels. If you go a little downmarket -- or even mid-market -- you can play the 'tell the journo apart from the NGO wallah' game. It's a little bit tricky because both sets prize themselves on being slightly scruffy. But while the media guys pair their faded jeans with shirts and T-shirts, the NGO brigade sticks to Fabindia kurtas and cloth jholas. But it is easy to get this wrong because some journos pride themselves on their 'ethnic chic' too (think tie-dyed saris, handloom kurtis or even, Ikat shirts).

The ones who are dead easy to pick out are the start-up guys and girls. They are the ones looking self-important as they sit in the corner of a cafe they have colonised to hold meetings, tapping away distractedly on their laptops or tablets, dressed in their uniform of designer jeans and T-shirts that are always one size too tight and accessorised with lots of facial hair and black-rimmed glasses to add gravitas to their look.

Politicians are equally easy to identify, with their penchant for white kurta pyjamas, paired with a waistcoat or a tricolour scarf. Off duty, they try to blend in with the rest of us by wearing 'civilian' clothing. But more often than not their air of entitlement -- not to mention the bristling security guards -- give them away.

You can tell fashion designers (or even fashion journalists, for that matter) by their self-consciously trendy, even eccentric, mode of dressing. They will be the ones wearing dhoti trousers with a singlet, tweed skirts with lace camisoles, onesies with giant pink pigs embroidered all over them and so on (and so weird). Pearls and chiffon saris (especially with the head covered) is the patented look of feudals and erstwhile royals (most often spotted at the polo). While anyone who is wearing an old school tie is guaranteed to be a bit of a saloon bar bore (I exaggerate, of course, but only a little).

And thus it goes. So, what do your clothes say about you? Or would you rather not say?

Holding back the years?

It’s time to say it out loud: we’re middle-aged and proud

It was William Shakespeare who famously wrote about the seven ages of man. “All the world’s a stage,” he proclaimed, “And all the men and women merely players.” To paraphrase the Great Bard, we all start off as mewling infants, go on to become grubby schoolchildren, play lusty lovers, then become soldiers or men (and women) of business, until finally we descend into our second childhood “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”.

I know, depressing stuff, isn’t it? The thought that our best years will inevitably slip away from us, that life will eventually come full circle and we will end up as the mewling, helpless, dribbling creatures that we started off as (except that now instead of being petted and cosseted by our proud parents, we will be nursed by our resentful children and grandchildren).

Honestly, it doesn’t bear thinking about. And yet, that is the manifest destiny of each one of us, however much we try to hide away from it. All of us are pre-ordained to recreate the seven stages of man (unless we are unfortunate enough to be struck down in our prime).

We will have our chance to enjoy the carefree days of our childhood, where we don’t have to worry about anything other than the annual exams and a bit of schoolyard bullying. We will all have a crack at being teenagers, being ruled by our hormones and tormented by the occasional zit that will crop up at the worst possible time. We will have our youth, when we set out to conquer the world, with that fresh optimism and energy that only the very young possess. We will go on to marry, raise families, see them grow up, rejoice in their successes even as we mourn the loss of our own youth.

Ah, there’s the rub right there, isn’t it? The loss of our youth.

The only age that we seem to treasure these days is that time when our adult life is just unfurling in front of us, alive with possibilities and the promise of a better future. When our skin glows, our figures stay in shape with everything pointing in the right direction without any real effort on our part, and we have all our teeth. When we can read newspapers and menus without having to slip on a pair of glasses. When we can party late into the night and still make it to work early next day, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. When we have the belief that we can take on the world and win.

And such is our celebration of this period of our lives that we seem to have lost the ability to appreciate the other six stages as we focus all our attention on recapturing the one in which we were at our physical and mental prime.

Think about it. We were all blissfully happy as babies; oblivious to the cares of the world as children; our every need anticipated; our every need fulfilled. Would we like to be transported back to the safe, secure world in which we believed that our parents could keep us from all harm? Of course we would.

But does that make us revert back to pigtails and bloomers and run out into the playground, to see just how high we can make that swing really go? Of course not; we know that would make us seem ridiculous.

As rational adults we recognise that clinging on to our childhood is just not a feasible enterprise. So, how long do you think it’s going to be before we realise that trying to cling on to our youth is rendering us just as ridiculous?

Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath, if I were you.

Wherever I look around me, in my world of 30 and 40-somethings, I see a manic desire to slow down time, to hold back the years, to somehow freeze frame so that we always appear the way we want to: with the bloom of early youth just segueing into the wisdom and serenity of early middle age.

Of course, we don’t call it that. Middle age? Perish the thought. We are in what we like to call our late youth, where 40 is the new 30 and everyone shies away from the prospect of turning 50 (or at the very least, admitting to it).  

So, instead of embracing the changes that Nature bestows upon us as we move into another stage of our lives, we try and hold back its ravages with every weapon at our command. We colour our hair; we starve ourselves back into pre-pubescent shape; we exercise maniacally so that we have the toned bodies of the very young; we slather on the anti-ageing creams, the anti-cellulite potions and the under-eye serums; we Botox away the wrinkles that might give away just how far we have journeyed through life; we inject fillers to recreate the plump faces of our youth; and we dress as hip as we can possibly can.

And yet, you know what? We don’t really look young. We just look as if we are trying very hard (and oh yes, we are).

So, it is really worth it in the end? Should we keep up the savage resistance against the worst depredations of Nature? Or is it time to say it out loud: we are middle-aged and proud?