- English translation
My, don't you look grand in someone else's clothes! Give it a moment and they'll be pulling them off your back.
- Literal wording
Oh, how lovely your stature looks in what is not yours; in a little while they will strip it off you.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying mocks a person who parades in borrowed clothing, or in anything else that belongs to someone else. Though it opens like praise for how well the item suits them, it is a taunt: the real owner will soon reclaim it, leaving the show-off exposed and empty-handed.
More broadly, it warns that pride built on borrowed or temporary goods has no footing. Status, wealth, or finery that one does not truly own can be withdrawn at any moment, so boasting about it invites ridicule once the loan ends.
- When it is used
Use it to deflate someone who struts or boasts about something they merely borrowed, rented, or hold only temporarily. It is a teasing or cutting remark rather than gentle advice. Its force depends on the listener recognizing the mock admiration in the opening line.
- Register
- Colloquial; sarcastic and mocking
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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