Clothes can suggest, persuade, connote, insinuate, or indeed lie, and apply subtle pressure while their wearer is speaking frankly and straightforwardly of other matters.
Anne HollanderPeople seem always actually to know, with a degree of pain that has required the comfort of fairy tales, that when you are dressed in any particular way at all, you are revealed rather than hidden.
Anne HollanderMany strange-looking people obviously dress according to deep convictions that are not shared by on-lookers - they clearly do not know how they actually look, but are satisfied with what their clothes make them feel and believe about their looks. These people may be the true originals, even though they are certainly not the best appreciated. The famous messages of dress, the well-known language of clothes, is very often not doing any communicating at all; a good deal of it is a form of private muttering.
Anne Hollander