I googled my name yesterday. Yes, I know, what was I thinking? But I had a good excuse: I was looking for an article in a professional magazine for communicators where I talked about my job. Unfortunately, that story wasn’t available online, but I found something else instead: 10 best dressers from an event this summer, selected by an Estonian women’s magazine.

I’m not gonna lie – initially, it felt quite nice, mostly because I am a great admirer of the editor who put this together. And then I read the comments. Well… Sheeeesh. That was some unpleasant reading and made me quite sad for a while. But being analytical by nature has its advantages: the comments got me thinking and it’s difficult to be desolate when you’re analysing something. I wasn’t thinking so much about the usual stuff – why people feel the need to say horrible things about others online or the objectification of women or the things women themselves do to other women – but about why we wear the things we wear and what’s important to us when we dress.

Because you know what? Most of the things that were said about me were completely true, as you can witness yourself if you feel like it. The dress was definitely related, if not to a nightie, then certainly a negligee. I was clearly not wearing a bra. Were my nipples visible? You can bet they were, the only way to make my nipples completely invisible is to use underwear made of stainless steel. If one looked closely when I was standing still, the fit of the dress was not perfect. The photo itself was not flattering – this is true of almost all pictures taken of me in profile or when my face is in motion. That’s just a sad fact of life.*

The thing is, I don’t really care about that stuff. Not that I don’t care what people think of my appearance – obviously I do (see above). And I do care about good fit and unwrinkled clothing, in a vague way. I even prefer not to scare people with my nipples, if possible. But ultimately, I care much more about the mood and the idea and the statement of a look. If there’s something that fits my concept of what I want to wear (nineties ft Great Gatsby, in this case), but falls short of mainstream standards of polish, I will wear it anyway. No matter if I have a perfectly fitting, tastefully elegant ensemble in the cupboard I could wear instead – I would feel wrong in it. I have tried and looking presentable without a spark just isn’t for me. If the choice is between ridiculous and uninspiring (for myself), I know what I’ll choose every single time.

But back to the comments: they were a revelation to me (and to be fair, much gentler than many other threads out there). I wasn’t surprised at my taste being different from the average commentator’s: indeed, the dress I liked best was compared to a nightgown even more harshly than mine. Somewhat more unexpectedly, I just couldn’t relate to any of the values that (most of) the commentators held so dear – modesty, moderation, impeccability. Apparently, the clothes were not making women look nice and feminine. They were not tasteful. The pregnant women were flaunting their bellies in a vulgar way, looking disgusting. Pregnant women shouldn’t wear black! Babies, by the way, shouldn’t wear pure white. Not to bring up the abomination of the nipples and THE CROOKED SEAM! And on and on, in the same vein. Why were people getting so worked up by these things? Is this what they think about, when they get dressed? Do they ever consider the pleasure of wearing something, or is it always about not making mistakes, following rules, avoiding stains?

And I realised something else. Clothes on a photo are different from clothes worn. A photo is of course an entirely realistic representation of them: when I look at that picture online, I do recognise this as truth, but that’s not how I remember myself from that evening. Because an outfit isn’t just an image, it’s the movement of the satin, the dangle of the earrings, the sunshine on your bare shoulders, the slip of a strap, the scarf fluttering in the breeze. It’s not how you look, it’s how you feel.

PS The pictures here are of the same outfit I talk about in the post, taken on the same day.

*In fact, the only point I strongly disagree with was that I was standing there deliberately for the cameras. There are very few things I hate more than pictures taken of me when I have no control over either the process nor publication.