in defense of fashion
...the term [realism] is useful in distinguishing between those forms which tend to efface their own textuality, their existence as discourse, and those which explicitly draw attention to it. Realism offers itself as transparent.
Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice

There is no natural way to dress, no neutral, opting-out way to decide what to wear.
Fashion is a discourse, composed of signs, just as language is, and it's one we all participate in, whether we embrace that fact and revel in it, or try to ignore it and claim not to care about fashion.

Those who claim not to care, to just put on any old thing - this is to make as much of a statement as the teenage goths that hang around the doors of the local shopping centre.

We understand and interpret people's appearances based on the semiotic system we are immersed in from our earliest days. A proclaimed 'disregard' for one's appearance is impossible. It is using the system while claiming to step outside of the system; it means electing to appear within it in a certain way, rather than to not appear in a it at all, as, unless you are invisible - transparent - you are observed, and you are playing a part in the game. You may claim that you are 'effacing' any regard for your appearance, but you are not.

And that's why, rather than being élitist, time-wasting, pointless or pretentious, people who recognise this, seize it with both hands and run riot with it have my full admiration. Carefully crafted, studied 'looks' are no more pretentious or dishonest - perhaps even less so - than people who say they just throw on any old thing.

To claim that what you're doing is neutral when it is in fact simply one of many possible stances within a system is not only naïve, but dangerous. There is no such thing as common sense, no such thing as opting out. Every stance is ideological; it might as well look good.