I was once in a situation much like yours considering the same question.
Arguments I considered at the time (when considering if I should “dress up” more in search of a romantic partner):
Do I actually know how to dress better?
Would dressing up differently than normal make me feel like I was impersonating/deceiving, thereby feeling more insecure and countering any gains in dress with losses in confidence?
Would this contribute to acquiring the wrong type of romantic partner? In the sense that, my interests, priorities etc might be strongly correlated with my poor dress sense, and that therefore changing the dress alone might disproportionately help with partners that are a bad match.
My very small data sample is that, I didn’t change anything. Then, at a fancy dress party (where everyone was weirdly dressed and my costume had not been picked by me, but was part of a matching set with friends) I met someone and things went great. I don’t know what to take from this, maybe fancy dress parties (or other settings with “non normal clothes”, like a wedding) are good for people in your situation. At the very least, if your clothing choice is proving to be a barrier then events like this provide you with a good opportunity, to either solve the problem, or possibly help diagnose if you could benefit from different everyday clothes.
Of course, there is a strong chance the fancy dress aspect was coincidence.
I was once in a situation much like yours considering the same question.
Arguments I considered at the time (when considering if I should “dress up” more in search of a romantic partner):
Do I actually know how to dress better?
Would dressing up differently than normal make me feel like I was impersonating/deceiving, thereby feeling more insecure and countering any gains in dress with losses in confidence?
Would this contribute to acquiring the wrong type of romantic partner? In the sense that, my interests, priorities etc might be strongly correlated with my poor dress sense, and that therefore changing the dress alone might disproportionately help with partners that are a bad match.
My very small data sample is that, I didn’t change anything. Then, at a fancy dress party (where everyone was weirdly dressed and my costume had not been picked by me, but was part of a matching set with friends) I met someone and things went great. I don’t know what to take from this, maybe fancy dress parties (or other settings with “non normal clothes”, like a wedding) are good for people in your situation. At the very least, if your clothing choice is proving to be a barrier then events like this provide you with a good opportunity, to either solve the problem, or possibly help diagnose if you could benefit from different everyday clothes.
Of course, there is a strong chance the fancy dress aspect was coincidence.