Sartorial Objections

[pigeon toe]

The only thing that bothers me are people who constantly wear flip flops but have disgusting feet! At least wash your feet before you show them to the public!

I'm with Miss N though, I'm not big on judgement. Lately I've been hanging out with two new friends who's favorite pastime is saying horrible things about random people just walking about. It's gotten so ridiculous that I've called them out on it (I'm very non-confrontational!). It's just one of those things that really makes me think less of a person.

PS. Not saying I think any less of YOU guys. Everyone has the right to vent! It's just that when people talk trash every second of their lives it becomes obnoxious.

 

[Twitch]

Look dress is all relative to the venue and the date in time. Who puts on the Ritz to go to a crappy Cine-16 with cracker box "theaters" these days? Seeing Phantom at the vintage Pantages Theater in Hollywood brings out people dressed appropriately. Going to the matinee at the Budget-Cinema 12 to see Cars does not.

Frankly I quit seeing people in slick dress at the movies by the late 50s at single theater venues in even regal old buildings.

Should we dress up to dragass around the mall? Before malls in the 50s folks did still dress to go downtown for shopping and movies before urban flight and the decay of the central city. The mall has one climate with many retailers under on roof. Before you had to wear clothing for the weather to go from one store to the next downtown.

Sports events are another area where people once wore "business" clothes to. Why though? Probably because they were normally attired as such during their normal daily activities. Most people are not required to dress as such in most work envuironments today.

Does it truly make sense to wear what was the accepted business attire sitting in an office with no public contact? While certain business types do still require it most don't. Should an accountant sit in a nameless cubicle in a suit and tie running his numbers? Why?

With the visual media we see how the rest of the country is dressing and their activities. It doesn't make sense to throw on good clothes to bop down to the laundramat and then hit the grocery store. No one does this.

All that said, there are still restaurants, business functions, theaterical events and social gatherings that have an unwritten code of dress. Of course we'll see jamokes dressed like slobs even at these venues. When I was taking care to put together decent outfits I'd see someone and think, "gee that brown suit again! Is that all he has?"

I always took the benefit of the doubt and even overdressed for some things thinking I won't look out of place dressed too well but would if I didn't. But save for a few established things it doesn't go anymore. In fact the masses didn't begin dressing except in the past couple hundred years when manufacturing of clothing in the industrial age brought decent clothing down to a reasonable and obtainable level. Only the wealthy and heads of state once sat in splendor in their fine duds as their subject wore rags.

Who was well dressed during the Dark and Middle Ages? While we see noblemen and chaps like Sir Walter Raleigh or Colombus in his finery how did their seamen dress? Did even they dress comfy during the long bleak voyages when out to sea for months on end or were they in their portrait attire 24/7? Looking at painting of the royal families is no indication of how the masses of previous cultures dressed everyday.

Until the rise of industrial urban centers we existed as an agrarian society worldwide where only the upper echelon dressed well. Sure rural folks has "Sunday go to meeting" clothes but wore them seldom- church, weddings, formal dances or other organized events. They didn't throw on the fine duds to drive the wagon to town for supplies. They would for a town meeting but not just to hit the general store.

I've seen some just plain butt-ugly manufactured casual clothing too. Where does that come from? Look at the crapola on skinnyass runway models and tell me anyone would wear most of that whimisical junk in public. We have a media-driven concept of what fashion should be in 2007 that is chock full of the bizarre. For me it's not the casual aspect of much of it but the simple ugliness.

We once went to tailors to get clothes fitted- at least the rich did. Now we have mass-produced garbage from every tin horn, backwater country of the world competing for positions on retailers' shelves. Most of the sizing labels are bad jokes. You ain't sure till you try it on. Hell, one Large T-shirt fits differently than another brand! And quality ranges from thick and substantial to cheezy thing. It's no wonder that some as many of us feel that there should be something better.

I'll wear a suit to a play or a business meeting with a buyer of a company I visited but not to the movies or the mall. The pendulum has a way of swinging widely and since the trailer trash redneck look is in it will change again for those wishing greater confority of desirable dress.

 

[Fletch]

The only thing that bothers me are people who constantly wear flip flops but have disgusting feet! At least wash your feet before you show them to the public!

I notice you did...

 

[Miss Sis]

Haven't read through all the posts so don't know if anyone has already mentioned it, but:

People who walk around with their trousers falling down, showing off vast expanse of underwear, or worse, their butts - known in the UK as Builder's Bum. That is just plain horrible!

 

[Fletch]

Over here we just call it Crack, as in the popular saying Just Say No To Crack.

[EDIT: I am sure we all get the idea without the image. ]

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I honestly don't care much about what others wear because I hold the phrase "to each his own" in serious regards. I get judged and laughed at daily by these people who wear PJ bottoms with slippers and baggy jeans that are belted around the knees. I'm proud that I'm not on their levels! If my husband and I happen to catch one of them we usually make eye contact, smile, and wave. That's when they begin to avoid us! Works every time.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I especially love too long, frayed trouser cuffs wore with flip-flops. Yeh!...now that is stylin'! Add a tatoo and a piercing and you are 'A' list fashion plate! [bad]

-dixon cannon

 

[Dapper Dan]

People keep saying stuff like, "I don't judge people by what they wear." I don't think anyone is doing this. Has anyone here mentioned making spurious judgment calls about someone based on his or her clothing? I don't think so, unless I really missed something. I didn't start this topic as a way to bash a bunch of strangers because of what they're wearing. Like I said, most of my friends dress hyper-casual. What I think we're doing here is just commenting on what we think is irritating about today's fashion climate.

 

[Amelie]

to me there is a difference betwen saying "I don't like that style of that piece of clothing" and "damn! that person must be really stupid to wear something like that!"

I mean... I don't like radish, and I don't judge people who like them lol

 

[Hemingway Jones]

.

No one is being judged. It is a hypothetical discussion about imaginary people based on things we have seen out in the world. Absolutely fair game.

 

[Haversack]

Twitch wrote: "Who was well dressed during the Dark and Middle Ages? While we see noblemen and chaps like Sir Walter Raleigh or Colombus in his finery how did their seamen dress?"

While I don't have anything right at hand regarding 16th C. seamen's clothes, here is a pretty decent depiction of what the hard-working peasant wore while threshing and winnowing in Northern France about 1250.

http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/maciejowski/leaf18/otm18rc&d.gif

Pretty much all the clothes would have been of either linen or wool. This illustration is from a famous illuminated version of the Old Testament done in Paris about 1250 which depicts great detail about its own time.

Haversack.

 

[Dapper Dan]

From "What the Well-Dressed Serf is Wearing."

 

[Jazzman64]

A few of the things I don't particularly like are actually considered fairly fashionalble: on men, can't stand the square toe dress shoes with a nice suit; on women, the pony tail through the back of a baseball cap is way overdone.

Don't mean to offend anyone

JD

 

[griffer]

Aw, c'mon.

If it weren't for the list presented above, we wouldn't look so good.

You guys are criticisizing the ruler by which we measure ourselves.

I got a random compliment tonight- "Griffer, you look very dapper."

I demured, "But then you always do everytime I see you," she said.

Keep in mind this is a co-worker who works in another state. Not a regular.

So, at least I am consistent. [huh]

 

[Jovan]

with the hems showing off all the ankle

This was considered pretty stylish just prior to the Golden Era...

I always get my suit trousers with no break now and I prefer my summer chinos to just barely touch the vamp of my shoe. I think it's practical and cool looking, personally, but of course I'm a decade or two removed from most of the mindset here.

 

[Twitch]

Well there is a difference in dressing casual for any era and dressing like a clown.lol I have no problem with very casual dress unless it disrespects the venue like a fine restraunt, playhouse etc. It's the shake-your-head attire that looks like a retarded 3 year old dressed in the dark from the closet of his uncle Boffo the Clown.:eusa_doh:

 

[jamespowers]

Well there is a difference in dressing casual for any era and dressing like a clown.lol I have no problem with very casual dress unless it disrespects the venue like a fine restraunt, playhouse etc. It's the shake-your-head attire that looks like a retarded 3 year old dressed in the dark from the closet of his uncle Boffo the Clown.:eusa_doh:

You're killing me. lol lol lol lol lol Boffo the clown! lol lol lol

 

[OldSkoolFrat]

AmJack:

Striped open collar shirt, untucked, acid washed jeans and square toed black shoes with some sort of plastic/rubber sole.

 

[Dapper Dan]

Interesting picture, Jovan. Personally, I can't stand trousers that don't cover up the shoe when you're standing. I wear some of mine a little on the short side, but for my dress trousers, I always make sure they have the propper break in them. For whatever reason, it bothers me when the trousers don't fit just that way. If I wear shorter trousers, I feel completely not at ease. But, to each his own. I notice you have Ewan McGregor wearing a Thom Browne suit as your avatar, so I'm guessing you're a big fan of shorter trousers. What about shorter jackets?

 

[Solid Citizen]

Solid's 2 Cents

IMO, the only people who care whether I'm well dressed are OTHER well dressed people.

SC