Dressed to Impress?

As I readied for an important meeting this afternoon, I called my friend to settle my nerves. She asked me what I was wearing, and if I was dressed to impress. I had to think about what she meant by “impress” before I could answer her honestly. Usually one would take that to mean, we are looking to make a favorable, successful, tasteful, or any one of thousands of positive adjectives to describe the impression we are hoping to make. But what impressions, in the vast realm of impressions we can make, do we dress to make? On a gloomy day, do we want to show the world we are sad? On a reckless day, do we want to show the world, well, I don’t even know what that would look like, but it must have a look to impress that. What if we are not aware or sure of how we feel? How do we dress to impress what we do not know about ourselves?

So, in answer to my friend’s question, I simply said, “I got dressed and I think everything matches.”