social obligations are not prerequisites for feeling great about your appearance. you can dress up simply because looking good makes you happy. but more often than not, the situations where we put a lot of care into our outfits are big events with explicit dress codes. the best-case scenario is that we’re dressing for both reasons: because it boosts our self-esteem and because we want to look situationally appropriate. still, knowing what is appropriate can be a head-scratcher. the dress code might be implied, and even when it’s made explicit, the jargon can be difficult to decode. which is why we spelled it out for you here.