FIU Style Nurture vs. Nature

Ashley Garner/Staff Writer

I have always been the type of person that was extremely interested in the “nurture vs. nature” concept. I have never much felt at home in my own environment whether that was in the depths of the foothills of North Carolina or the suburbs of Jacksonville, and as a result I see myself as the product of nurture over nature. When that concept is taken into consideration when I think about the way that I dress myself I have never given much thought to my location as much as I have thought about my mood–once again nurture over nature.

    However, after living in Miami for going on five years, I have begun singing a very different tune. If one does not consider the South Floridian environment when getting dressed in the morning it can become quite dangerous. For example, you wouldn’t want to wear a multi-layered ensemble in the middle of August because there is a good chance that within minutes you would become dehydrated and faint. Trust me, I would know based off of experience.

    Sophomore psychology major Tiffany Concepcion was very much in tune with nature last week when she was spotted wearing a summery polka-dot dress in the housing quad. “The weather is finally nice so I wanted to reciprocate that,” and reciprocate she did pairing her light-hearted dress with a heavy duty black fisher’s cap to protect her from the downside of nice weather: heat stroke.

    One thing that we all must consider when getting dressed based on the weather conditions is that during these recent months, hurricane season tends to have the days starting out gloomy with rain pouring down and ending with a cloudless sky. This can either leave you looking like an idiot with rain boots on when there’s not a cloud in sight or like sophomore international relations major Ariana Romero, who looked like a gleaming Venus figure in her whimsical full-length white lace dress. When I asked Romero what made her get dressed in that particular outfit she responded, “I thought it was the girliest, most fun spirited thing to wear for this gloomy day.” Although by the time I had run into Romero, it was far from gloomy.

    My last recent encounter that had me pondering nurture vs. nature was with junior fine arts major Pascale Theard who was seen sporting a gloriously hued, sunshine yellow skirt that was impossible to miss. She told me that she usually dresses within her mood and that day her mood was “light, flowy, fun and gypsy.” This was not a surprise considering that it was the first time the sun had been out in two days.

    So was her outfit a result of the  nurture vs. nature phenomenon? Would she have worn the same thing if it had been raining all day? We may never know but it is always an intriguing thing to consider. The psychology behind the way we dress is a complex and troubled one that is a mixture of nurture and nature; of genuine expression and false persona; of fantasy and reality. The way that we dress is not one or the other but all of the above. We are the result of nurture, nature and so much more.