Global Tamilian: Clothes maketh the man? Not here in the US

Walking down the streets in India, one can make a good guess on people’s education, profession, place of stay, standard of living and much more simply by observing their dressing style. But if you attempt the same technique on a westerner living in the US, you could end up embarrassing yourself.

Self-grooming and personal presentation are never connected to one’s profession. Nobody can judge you by the way you dress.

Luxury cars and branded shirts, coats, blazers, tie and expensive shoes are just the way anyone starts out. One could still choose to go subtle in dressing even when holding well-paying posts. But the dictum of professional attire does not leave too many options for men and women.

In a world driven by credit doctrines, where savings is not a criterion on receiving the pay check, spending extra money to look perfect, is every profession’s choice. This is quite in contrast to the common Indian way of life, where ‘dress and drive what your pay can afford’ are the philosophy in operation. How do immigrants reconcile to the new world so that they can blend in with the crowd in a foreign land?

Well, for women, the first choice is the removal of the ‘bindi’ from their forehead and clip their hair into styles that can be left loose easily or tied up. After that, it is hard to guess if you are from a remote village in Tamil Nadu, Orissa or hail from a metropolitan city. With a pair of high-heeled footwear and a western outfit, the transformation to blend with the outside world is completed.

For women, particularly from India, the diversity of dress codes makes it complicated. Usually, we think men all over the world have less to worry when it comes to outfits. that helps them to blend in. Pants and shirts are the norm everywhere. But, men too have their share of “fitting in” to take care of.

Initially, they may find it weird wear suits to work in New York and may just settle into wearing a formal shirt and trousers. But, when they step into the train, they’ll find a number of people, both men and women, wearing pantsuits to work. So impeccable is their style of dressing, that it is easy for people to mistakenly assume that they have entered a first-class coach meant for CEOs.

Here, it is essential for any immigrant to dress up to blend with the American world. This is fully justified particularly in areas where the Indian diaspora is not dense. There are possible uncomfortable exchanges that many fear at least in the initial days of their immigration into the foreign land. So, traditional Indian attires like sarees, salwars or dhothi—that usually helps the desi way of making an impression about a person—is not possible in common places.

“During my initial days in the US, I needed a plumber urgently for my bathroom. When he arrived all dressed up and in an expensive truck, I immediately went to my room to change just to welcome him,” recalls an immigrant.

But, justified it may feel to blend through the way we dress, most immigrants refrain from opting for extravagant brand choices. The common shopping mood is to go after the best available discounts and deals.

The most irreconcilable shock, however, comes when the second generation takes the lead. Having grown up in the system, expensive branded lifestyle and luxury cars are their straight choice for the first job they nail. Waiting for sale and offers is not an exciting option. Most immigrants begin to record high blood pressure when their children start living on their own. Children’s expense portfolio on what they wear seems extravagant in their estimate. Maybe this is similar to what our fathers had to go through years ago when they saw us settling into our independent lives. History finds its way to repeat and make a comeback. While their story was penned in rupees ours shall be made in dollars. Well in both the cases, the question is not of affordability, but of priority.

However luxurious a formal attire may sound, nothing can take away the richness of design, variety, and patterns of the Indian way of dressing that breaks the monotony and adds spice and more importantly, let out enough information to allow others to gauge the person’s background or financial status. It can be difficult to strike a conversation with a stranger if one cannot guess the person’s background.

The person sitting next to you could be a CEO or just an unemployed individual sipping a Starbucks coffee. Both could be dressed in a similar fashion, have an iPhone, a laptop and a remote-key operated Audi car. You cannot certainly guess by his dress as to what he could be doing for his living. Of course, your freedom ends where other’s nose begins, so in the US, dressing sense can never reveal the identity of a person’s profession. This is the land of opportunity for your talents and not your attire.