It is only when the mind and character slumber that the dress can be seen.

Presentation becomes conspicuous in the absence of anything else. When someone is genuinely engaged, you notice what they are saying and how they are being, and the surface recedes; when nothing is happening underneath, the surface is all there is to look at. The same holds for how you are perceived, and for what you notice in others.

If you are worrying about how you come across in a room, the cure is usually not more attention to the surface. It is having something you actually care about to attend to while you are there. Bring a real question and the self-consciousness tends to go quiet on its own.