That is certainly true. You want to wear something that will fit the occasion that you are attending.

Clearly, turning up in an evening dress to a swim party, or turning up in lingerie to an evening charity event is inappropriate.

However, given a particular event, there are usually a range of dress types that you can go with.

A common, but important event is the dinner date –

To impress your date, should you dress flirty or dress conservative?

How to Dress for a Date

On the surface, it may seem like the seductive dress is the way to go.

After all, isn’t a racy dress what men prefer on their girlfriends? Wouldn’t showing your wonderful aspects make all the other men jealous, and make your date appreciate your significant physical assets?

If this is so, and you have the confidence for it, you would want to go with the maximal skin dress option. Only cover the areas that you absolutely need to in order to slip by nudity laws in public places.

However, dressing too provocatively can definitely backfire on you.

Why?

Isn't a racy dress what men prefer on their girlfriends?

Dressing Sexy – The Bad

Dressing Racy - The Bad.

1. Gives everything away for free, and leaves you with nothing to hold in reserve.

In many ways, dating is a transaction between two parties. You meet in neutral territory, and decide if the looks, personality, money, and whatever else that comes with your date is worth your own time and effort. The date is a success when both parties determine that what is offered is worth further time investment. If you reveal all your physical assets in the beginning of the evening, there will be nothing to fall back on for the rest of the date – except your personality.

Instead of showing your entire hand right off, it may be better to keep certain things a mystery. In this way, you can make the evening more interesting for everyone with light teasing and flirting.

In the movie Memoirs of a Geisha there was a scene where a more experienced geisha was coaching a younger geisha on the art of seduction. She was explaining the right way to pour tea for their gentleman escort. While pouring tea, let your kimono sleeve slide back ever so slightly to reveal the gentle slope of your wrist. Then have it slide forward again so that the instant of revelation is valued even more for its beauty and brevity.

It is human nature to want something more if we cannot have it. If you dress too provocatively, there will be no mysteries left for your date to want to explore.

The trick is to entice by showing some of what he is missing, without actually giving it to him all at once.

A racy dress gives everything away for free, and leaves you with nothing to hold in reserve.

An overly flirtatious dress may lower your general value.

Wearing an overly flirtatious dress may lower your dating score because it implies that you are willing to give away parts of yourself to everyone for free.

This has several bad effects. Most importantly, your date may feel that he has a higher intrinsic value than you do, and therefore you are not really worth his long-term attentions. While he may be interested in what you have to offer, it will be a short term affair because he will always judge himself to be superior to you.

If your dress is too racy, your date may also expect certain after-dinner activities. After all, if others can get an eye-full without even paying for a full dinner, he should be able to get much more after paying for a scrumptious meal, right?

3. May show off your less than desirable aspects.

Racy dresses may sometimes show off more than you want.

None of us are perfect. There are always physical aspects of ourselves that we may not find all that attractive. The art of dressing for a date is to emphasize our attractive aspects, and hide our less attractive characteristics.

In our quest to show skin, we may reveal parts of ourselves that detract rather than add to the whole package. We may reason that this is acceptable, because what it shows is much greater than what it detracts.

However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Your date may think differently.

Short Red Dress or Conservative Red Dress - Good and Bad.

Dressing Conservatively – The Bad

There are some risks to overly seductive dressing, but that does not mean we should go totally conservative either. Here are some reasons why –

There are some risks to overly seductive dressing, but that does not mean we should go totally conservative either.

Dressing conservatively may indicate that you are trying to hide yourself. Perhaps you are not wholly comfortable or happy with the way you look and therefore choose to show as little of yourself as possible.

Your date may see this as a symptom of low self esteem.

2. Dressing conservatively may indicate discomfort with your own body.

Dressing conservatively may also be a result of embarrassment or even shame over one’s body.

Judaeo-Christian religions tend to view the act of lovemaking only as a means to procreation. Indeed many believe that deriving any pleasure from bedroom intimacy is a sin. Given this type of morality, it is not uncommon for some to feel shameful of their nudity. A symptom of this shame is to cover themselves up as much as possible so that there is nothing revealing about their form.

If you dress too conservatively, your date may infer that you may not be skillful or indeed even very interested in being intimate.

3. Dressing conservatively may not catch the eye of your date.

Dressing conservatively may not show yourself in the best light, or may not make you stand out. This may ultimately result in fewer successful dates, and lower your chances of finding a good life partner.

Failed dates or indeed just fewer suitors may also lower your self esteem, which will in turn make it more difficult to have successful dates, and it may become a very unhealthy vicious cycle.

Dressing conservatively may not catch the eye of your date.

How to Dress for a Date

Personally, I feel it is better to err on the side of racy. That way, at the very least, you will stand out.

Get a second, third, fourth or even fifth opinion to make sure that you have not crossed the line from alluringly racy to cheap racy.

Finally make sure to do some homework on your date. Dressing makes a big difference, but being an enjoyable companion for the evening will also count for a lot.

Racy or Conservative - How Should You Dress for a Date?