Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

Cooley contrasts everyday dress with deliberate disguise or performance. “Clothes” are the routine signals we send—status, taste, conformity, rebellion—often read quickly as a social “statement.” “Costumes,” by contrast, imply intention and role: they are worn to inhabit a character, a profession, a ritual, or an identity, and therefore carry narrative weight. The aphorism points to how appearance functions as a language with different registers: the casual, declarative register of ordinary attire versus the plotted, symbolic register of costume. It also hints at the theatricality of social life—how people sometimes move from merely expressing themselves to actively staging a persona.