448. Dressed for Success - Christina Sinclair: Salty Sam's Fun Blog for Children

September 15th, 2023

Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children

Number 448

Dressed For Success

Hello Everyone

How old were you when you learned to tie your own shoe laces?

Did you learn to dress yourself even before that?

lt might surprise you to know that at one time adults needed help to get dressed. Well, the wealthy ones anyway.

ln Tudor Times parts of clothing were laced on. Sleeves were separate from bodices.

ln Victorian and Edwardian Times, ladies needed help with lacing up the back of their corsets.

You will notice that girls’ coats and boy’s coats do up a different way.

This is because when women needed a lot of help in dressing, it was easier for their maids to help them if the clothing did up differently from men’s clothing.

Lacing and buttons have been around for a long time. Buttons could be made from shell before plastic was invented.

Zips weren’t widely available to put in clothing until the 1950s.

Zips can also be used to close up bags and tents as well as clothing.

Do you have a school uniform that you love or hate?

What colour is it?

ls it blue, green, black or brown? They usually are quite dark colours because these are practical colours that don’t readily show that they might be getting a bit grubby.

Very often people will never wear the colour that their school uniform was when they become an adult. Have you noticed that?

Nevertheless, a lot of people think school uniforms are a very good idea.

Each school uniform shows everyone which school you go to. This is called having a corporate image. lt means that you will belong to one special group.

lf a child is playing truant and doing something naughty, anyone seeing them will know which school to tell about the incident.

School uniforms also hide wealth and poverty.

This gives children a feeling that they are all the same and they can work together as equals. (Some schools even let girls wear trousers if they want to; they don’t have to wear skirts.)

This may not work entirely because of course children might still brag about what they have to others, but at least they can’t show off in new outfits every week.

The children don’t have to worry about what to get dressed in. They can just concentrate on their school work.

When they get home, they can take their uniform off and change into other clothes – instantly you feel like you are in your free time.

Not all countries have school uniform of course.

Some don’t have them at all.

Some European countries don’t have school uniforms in most or any schools.

Some countries like the United States only have uniforms in private schools and in some countries like those in Asia have just one design of school uniform for every child in all the government-run schools.

Different scientific studies carried out on people at work have shown that people dressed smartly were better at solving problems and tackling tasks.

This is a very interesting thing to find out.

This is probably because they feel more empowered when they were wearing smart business clothing like a suit.

Smart clothes can make you feel more proud and happy apparently.

And other people perceive you to have more influence when you look smart.

You look like someone who is more important and then people will treat you with more respect. They are more likely to observe your abilities too because they are assuming you have some and are looking for them.

People who go for a job interview will really try to look extra smart to give a good impression. They look like they have tried to make an effort and show respect to the people interviewing them.

Wearing smart clothes even changes the type of language you use.

lf you are going to make any sort of presentation, when you are dressed well, your audience will have more faith in what you say!

You make a good or bad impression in the first few seconds that you meet somebody for the first time. Wearing nice clothes is an easy way to create instantly what you want to say about yourself. Human brains absorb information visually very easily and we make evaluations about what we see.

Of course, when you dress up like this you have to be clean and tidy and your clothes have to fit properly. Wearing a suit that looks like a shambles won’t give any sort of good impression at all.

There are even charities that give smart clothes to people who are not able to afford a new wardrobe of lovely clothes when they are starting work.

These new clothes help them feel better about themselves and help the people they are going to work with take them more seriously.

People who work in firms who have staff that usually dress in a very casual way have been found to be more likely to get promotion if they try to dress slightly smarter than everyone else.

At one time, well, up until the 1960s really, no smart outfit was complete without a hat. Hats have come into fashion and out again in the years since, but most people only wear hats now when they have to go out in really cold weather, to keep the sun off them or to protect their heads. They are still worn at weddings which are very formal occasions.

There was a saying, ‘to get ahead, you must get a hat’.

What makes a monarch look different when they are dressed up?

They are the only person in the room with a crown on!

Why do young men wear their trousers hanging off their hips?

They want to look like arrested criminals that are taken to gaol and have their belts taken away from them.

At one time, when children weren’t doing very well at school the teacher used to put a dunce’s cap on them – and gave them time out in the corner of the classroom.

A dunces’ hat was shaped like a huge cone similar to a witch’s hat. lt was supposed to create a ‘cone of power’ like a witch’s hat is supposed to and magically bring more energy and intelligence into the child’s head.

However, no child could have been happy to be singled out like this and labelled ‘in desperate need of help’!

Whatever you put on has a definite bearing on how you feel.

Clothes have superpowers and dressing yourself should be something you think carefully about.

That means don’t just put on what you tread on first when you get up!

Of course, some will say that you should dress for yourself and show other people what kind of a person you are by portraying your own style. They will say that you should not compromise yourself – that means just do what matches with someone else’s values.

But dressing in what you think will bring you your goals may well actually help you get you your goals.

So maybe it is a compromise worth making?

You can let your clothes as well as your words and efforts help get you what you want.

You can dress up in your future self!

lf you like my blog, please support it by telling all your friends and followers about it.

Thank you!

And see you again next Fun Friday!

Love and kisses

Salty Sam

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www.christina-sinclair.com

Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week

Bill: What is the definition of a well-dressed man?

Bob: He has a wife who is good at picking out clothes?

Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com

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Picture Gallery

In the 1920s headgear and hairstyles worked in harmony

1930s

1940s

In the 1950s and 1960s hats with suits were still fashionable

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desk THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK

This week, I have to tell you about what a wonderful success the sponsored DoSU was last weekend.

So many useful things were achieved and Rocky Bay looks a better place for it too!

It was amazing to see how many people turned up to help.

I was there with Captain Jack and Auntie Alice.

Miss Pringle made sure that Steve her boyfriend came to assist in her project and lots of parents came too because the children needed lots of help and weren’t allowed to go anywhere on their own.

Bill and Bob’s mum and dad went to do their weekly shop on Friday evening instead of Saturday morning so that they could be there too.

You will remember that we were trying to raise funds to buy equipment for schools abroad.

So the beach was cleaned up at Sandy Cove all the way along from the promenade to the golf course and lots of other jobs, big and small, were tackled too.

One lady had twisted her ankle and wanted all the windows in her bungalow cleaned because she couldn’t manage to do them. One elderly gentleman wanted lots of piles of newspapers to be taken to the neighbourhood recycling centre. They were quite heavy.

Three people wanted fruit and vegetables picked from their back gardens because there was so much to collect, it was hard to manage on their own.

Four people wanted their front garden weeded. Two people wanted their hedge trimmed and some spring bulbs planted. One person wanted their garden pond cleaned out and another wanted their garden bench re-varnished. Five people wanted their lawns mown.

Captain Jack and I have painted three front doors and I don’t know how many window sills.

About twelve cars were washed and vacuumed and several elderly people had lots of heavy shopping brought to them to stock their food cupboards up for the winter.

The Rocky Bay Public Library got some people to dust their storeroom and Reg and Ruby at the Rusty Anchor had their outside tables and benches scrubbed down and put into store for the winter.

Reg had pulled a muscle in his back and needed help. When the sea gets stormy in the winter it can splash waves up right over the harbour wall and Reg likes to have his furniture tucked away before that happens.

People paid their sponsorship money to the groups when they had finished their tasks and Miss Pringle and Auntie Alice collected it all together to count up on Sunday evening.

We think it is quite a lot!