TOEFL® essay samples: You can learn a lot about people by the clothes they wear

[Superman]

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
You can learn a lot about people by the clothes they wear.
Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.

Nowadays, people are more and more concerned about their appearances, especially fashion or clothes. Thus, many people think that clothes can indicate characteristics of a person. However, in my opinion, I disagree with the above idea for several reasons.

First of all, clothes are something outside the body so they can not show one’s personality exactly. In fact, clothes play as a decorative tool for people. They help people to look more beautiful as well as protect them. However, characteristics are different and hard to realize because they are hidden inside one’s mind. As an example, most of actors are very well dressed but they also have a lot of scandals and some are even famous for drugs and violence.

Furthermore, many people have the similar clothes but have little or nothing in common with each other. For instance, all officers are required to wear business suits in a company. Thus, the clothes they wear are likely not different much but those clothes can not express anything about the qualities or characteristics of the officers. Maybe some of them are very helpful and humorous while others are quite hard to deal with.

Finally, if we consider a person just by the clothes he wears, we may be cheated. A typical example is that some professional cheaters are often in good appearances. Since people tend to think a person with beautiful clothes is kind, they will be easier to count on that one. As a result, they may lose money or something which are more valuable.

To sum up, I think we can not learn a lot about people by the clothes they wear. Therefore, we should not consider clothes as the mean to evaluate a person. People only can know well about a person for a long time together.