My impression is that it is social at its core. Appearance and style are social by nature because if you were a hermit and isolated it would not be relevant.
I disagree. I think it's legitimate to enjoy the process itself of creating an appearance & style for its own sake. I've worked out of the home & gone days & weeks without seeing anyone & I still felt better when I got dressed & groomed. Other times I'd find an excuse to go out for a reason to get dressed, not to interact with people. That is not to say I never give a thought to impressions or use appearance as communication (I noted that above), but it's not necessarily the main or sole drive for all people giving attention to their appearance.
As a child, I liked to play dress up, not to impress anyone, but because it was
fun to me. As an adult, it's similar, and sometimes I may be creating a character as much as "expressing myself". I think people who don't do that just have trouble grasping it. They always want to attach "social" to it because that's their own motive or experience of it.
If you were a hermit & isolated, would you stop creating anything?
How do you feel about people who are unattractive and without style? If you can focus on embracing and respecting people who are "nobody", then that can help us to embrace the same within ourselves.
I know this is directed at the OP, but I have & have had many unstylish, unattractive friends my whole life. I hung out with some awkward nerdy types or tomboys in school, and they had to overcome prejudice of ME for having an interest in fashion & aesthetics.
So there is another misconception here; that stylish people are stuck-up and judge people according to their own tastes. Yet, I increasingly find that people who are stylish & interested in aesthetics are judging the unstylish
far less than the unstylish are judging them for being supposedly shallow, snobby or vain.
Yeah, this. The more rigid conditions exist in a person's mind as to whether or not others deserve respect and compassion/empathy, the less a person will be able to feel unconditionally worth respect and compassion/empathy themselves.
This is not about empathy or respect. You may empathize with others & respect them easily & direct that at yourself, but still find yourself dull or uninteresting or even not likable. I notice the kind of esteem issues image types deal with are not ones of respect or empathy, but a kind of
less principled love. They want the kind of love (in the broad sense) that comes not from being human, but from being their specific individual self (an issue the 4 is most aware of but skews what their true self is). What you have is someone who may generously have a principled respect & empathy towards others & themselves, but not particularly feel likable. Because really, respect & empathy do not equal "likable". There's something more about taste & dynamic there than an inherent human worth. Image types tend to seek
special attachment from others, not basic human respect.
An example of this for myself is I've always balked at being loved/liked mainly for a role filled - things like "daughter", "sister", "wife", "student", "employee", etc. Even being a "good person". The wholeness of yourself is not represented in any of these. It may seem as if "love" is directed at the role, or given out of that principled obligation, not something stirred in response to your individual self outside of any role.