Perception is Driven to a Large Extent by Attire

In Personality and Social Psychology Review, Neil Hester and Eric Hehman argue that dress (including clothing, hairstyles, makeup, and accessories) is a fundamental part of how people perceive one another. Their review shows that people use dress to make assumptions about others’ thoughts and intentions, social status, and aesthetic preferences, although the meaning of those signals varies across people, cultures, and different situations.

In other words: What you wear is not ornamental — it is real information people use to evaluate you, before you can provide them with any other inputs and before you might even know that you are being evaluated.