Unlike an engineer, for example, or a craftsman, who know the cost and difficulty involved in finding, obtaining and maintaining the tools of their trade ‘just so’: a place for everything and everything in its place, and then seem to translate that care for tools to their personal appearance, wizards, sorcerers and artists in general seem to create their own environments. Have you ever been in a painter’s or sculptor’s studio? Ever seen the artist at work? Rather messy.
We don’t tend to think of wizards and sorcerers at the opera, or at formal dinner parties or discos. (Or art gallery openings, for that matter.) We tend to think of them at work. And let’s face it, a powerful wizard would be “at work” nearly all of the time. They don’t have very scintillating off-work lives. Like gardeners, mechanics, cowboys and artists, wizards and sorcerers can get pretty messy at work. I suspect that they clean up well, though. If you see a wizard at a disco you might not even suspect that he’s in the wizarding trade.