The lost art of dressing for the occasion

[reetpleat]

I was just on the phone with a friend of mine about 20 minutes ago. He was telling me about his wedding, which is coming up soon. He told me he's getting 'all dressed up' which consists of a black dress shirt and khaki pants. I was just kinda surprised that that's proper attire for a groom these days. I didn't say anything, because it's not my wedding. I would have been offended if people came to my wedding dressed like that.

Hate to say it, but the common etiquette seems to be do not dress better than the bride or the groom. So you might have to carefully consider just how well you want to dress, assuming you take that advice into account. Although I don't imagine you would be the only one in a tie at a wedding.

 

[sheeplady]

It reminds me of something my dad always says. Well, there's nothing you can do about it, so what can you do? Piss and moan.

lol So true.

As far as the wedding, that is one subject I try to stay away from. I had a very simple wedding, my husband got married in his best and only suit. We couldn't afford a rental tux or a new suit. We were starting our lives together. If he hadn't had a suit, it would have been his next best outfit. I wouldn't shame anyone for wanting to save money on their wedding but still have a ceremony. Weddings are incredibly expensive.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

That's why I asked him about the attire. I'm not wearing a tie, and am going with a very casual western cut jacket.

Hate to say it, but the common etiquette seems to be do not dress better than the bride or the groom. So you might have to carefully consider just how well you want to dress, assuming you take that advice into account. Although I don't imagine you would be the only one in a tie at a wedding.

 

[John in Covina]

I was just on the phone with a friend of mine about 20 minutes ago. He was telling me about his wedding, which is coming up soon. He told me he's getting 'all dressed up' which consists of a black dress shirt and khaki pants. I was just kinda surprised that that's proper attire for a groom these days. I didn't say anything, because it's not my wedding. I would have been offended if people came to my wedding dressed like that.

Out this way all of the tux shops only have tuxes that have open notched lapel jackets. I had learned some time ago that a true formal jacket should have a peak lapel and there usually is not one on display at any local tux shops. Some people think the style was derrived from those male Chippendale Dancers.

Perhaps for some like me the annoying part is the idea the vast public You (or You-all) get to change the rules mid-cgame and redefine things as you go. It seems that much that was good is disgarded or goes out like the baby with the bathwater.

 

[John in Covina]

That's why I asked him about the attire. I'm not wearing a tie, and am going with a very casual western cut jacket.

I do think a bolo tie might work in this instance.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I considered that. Western Wear is very popular in these parts, especially with the people in my life. I thought open collar would be more appropriate for the situation.

I do think a bolo tie might work in this instance.

See, I always think Tux when I think of dress for a groom. Even my father who dresses very casually. I've seen him in a collared shirt maybe 3 or 4 times in my life, wore a tuxedo when my folks got married. I'm not big on tuxedos, but there's a time and a place, and I will be wearing one if I ever wed.

Out this way all of the tux shops only have tuxes that have open notched lapel jackets. I had learned some time ago that a true formal jacket should have a peak lapel and there usually is not one on display at any local tux shops. Some people think the style was derrived from those male Chippendale Dancers.

Perhaps for some like me the annoying part is the idea the vast public You (or You-all) get to change the rules mid-cgame and redefine things as you go. It seems that much that was good is disgarded or goes out like the baby with the bathwater.

 

[reetpleat]

I always thought the whole rental tuxedo for wedding thing was weird. Back in the day, men got married in their best suit unless they were wealthy, in which case they were married in what was appropriate for a formal afternoon affair, their cut away coat. In the 50s, I think the trend was at some times, white dinner jackets, as they were day time affairs.

But now, not only is a black tie and tuxedo not appropriate for a day time event, but to dress a group in cheap, polyester suits seems the opposite of formal or well dressed. If anything, I would like to get married in a vintage white suit in the Hot climate style, (Phillipines, Mexico, etc.)

 

[Shangas]

I love this one! lol

Hi Feraud.

In case you're interested, this is the complete sign which I mentioned in my first post. This sign was posted outside the entrance of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (the "MCG" or just 'The G'), Melbourne's main sporting center at the beginning of April. But it is NOT an April Fools Joke:

 

[Pompidou]

Some of the upper-tier nightclubs in CT, and at least one that pretends to be, have dress codes - fairly extensive ones. None are coat and tie places, so the lists are long as its just a bunch of dont's, like no sneakers and such. Not too different than the photo above. I remember googling my shoes to make sure I'd be okay. I had leather shoes on, and there was a ban on patent leather, and I'd never bothered to google what that was prior. Ends up I was okay. The place wasn't worthy of a dress code, but that's another story.

 

[olive bleu]

For me, the question is not whether someone is wearing vintage or not..to each his own. nor is it about the quality of the clothes...some people have a lot of money to spend on clothes,some have next to none. It is simply a matter of understanding that there are some occasions that call for a bit of extra effort.It is not about making a show of yourself, but of saying to someone else,'This occasion is special and worth the extra time and energy".

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

Back to the basic title of the thread "The lost art of dressing for the occasion", I lived in Decatur Alabama and worked in Huntsville Alabama from January 1, 1990 until October 31, 1994. People in Northern Alabama did, at that time, dress for the occasion. When people were in public, they were either dressed up to go out, or were dressed for work. The only people running amok wearing a track suit were displaced Northerners. I haven't been back since 2000, so I don't know what's up not, but 20 years ago, ditch diggers wore jeans, work boots, and a chambray shirt, Lawyers wore a suit, Mechanics wore a jumpsuit, grocery store clerks wore black pants, a white shirt and an apron and so on down the line. If you weren't going to work, and you were out shopping, you wore a nice shirt and clean khaki or blue jean pants. No one wore track suits, flip flops, or torn shirts.

Later Y'all

 

[LizzieMaine]

The "torn clothing" aesthetic is something I've never understood -- I can understand the idea of sweatsuits , etc as a matter of comfort, and even if I don't care for the look of such wear outside of athletic activity, I can understand how people would rationalize it. But what's the point of a torn shirt or torn pants? How is a torn garment more comfortable or more practical than one that's not torn? Is the idea to look like a manual laborer, some sort of weird attempt to identify with the working class? (Even though actual working class people tended to be very careful about their work clothes.) What message is someone trying to send when they don pre-tattered designer rags? What message is the *designer* trying to send, other than "Ha ha suckers, I've got a hundred dollars of your money and you've got pants full of holes."

Like much of modern fashion it makes no sense to me, and if anyone can rationally explain it, please do.

Around here people still have a sense of occasion. When we have our Metropolitan Opera HD shows, many patrons dress for the occasion -- which is pretty impressive when you consider the shows are in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.

 

[scottyrocks]

We had a whole discussion about dress for my wedding last June. It was at a restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. It came up before the wedding that some of the men wanted to come in open collared dress shirts, and no jackets. I wanted everyone to wear a jacket and tie but I didn't make a big deal about it because I try not to make big deal about too much. It turned out that almost everyone wore a jacket and tie - maybe two guys didn't.

I don't appreciate the over-casualization of today but I don't make an issue of it. If it wasn't my wedding, I wouldn't have said a word to anyone, including my wife, about how anyone dresses.

 

[Shangas]

Hi Lizzie,

I too, don't understand this thing with torn clothes anymore. In fact, I never did. It looks shabby, terrible and just crap.

If a guy's wearing torn jeans, then he should've gotten those tears legitimately, through gruelling manual labour, after all, denim is SUPER TOUGH, it has to be, because jeans were designed as working-men's clothes - to put up with hard work. Rips on jeans should only come about after quarrying, felling trees, splitting logs, delving rocks, welding, riveting, working on cars, cleaning out steam-engines, shovelling coal or something like that.

Buying a pair of pre-shredded jeans in some pathetic "tryhard" show of masculinity is just sad.

 

[Pompidou]

Ripped clothes are all the pros of a person who works hard and doesn't worry about what he wears, with none of the cons like hard work and looking dirty. If people make snap judgements about clothes, as discussed in the yoga thread, it's only fair to take advantage of it, I suppose.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

The "torn clothing" aesthetic is something I've never understood -- I can understand the idea of sweatsuits , etc as a matter of comfort, and even if I don't care for the look of such wear outside of athletic activity, I can understand how people would rationalize it. But what's the point of a torn shirt or torn pants? How is a torn garment more comfortable or more practical than one that's not torn? Is the idea to look like a manual laborer, some sort of weird attempt to identify with the working class? (Even though actual working class people tended to be very careful about their work clothes.) What message is someone trying to send when they don pre-tattered designer rags? What message is the *designer* trying to send, other than "Ha ha suckers, I've got a hundred dollars of your money and you've got pants full of holes."

Like much of modern fashion it makes no sense to me, and if anyone can rationally explain it, please do.

You explained it yourself in your post Lizzie. the fashion "designers" saw those people coming and produced pre-ruined clothing so that consumers could look cool and identify with the common man, and at a premium of course. Modern marketing run amok,...produce the basest garbage possible at the lowest possible cost in order to reap enormous profits at the expense of insecure consumers. Hopefully those consumers will grow out of the need to look cool and be trendy, just as previous generations have done. It seems most fashion trends through the years have always been directed at the younger set, designed to appeal to their desire to rebel and be different, but those consumers fail to realize that they are being gyped out of their hard earned cash by greedy corporations.
Maybe it has always been so?

 

[Pompidou]

You explained it yourself in your post Lizzie. the fashion "designers" saw those people coming and produced pre-ruined clothing so that consumers could look cool and identify with the common man, and at a premium of course. Modern marketing run amok,...produce the basest garbage possible at the lowest possible cost in order to reap enormous profits at the expense of insecure consumers. Hopefully those consumers will grow out of the need to look cool and be trendy, just as previous generations have done. It seems most fashion trends through the years have always been directed at the younger set, designed to appeal to their desire to rebel and be different, but those consumers fail to realize that they are being gyped out of their hard earned cash by greedy corporations.
Maybe it has always been so?

Do they really have a choice? I know Lizzie makes her own clothes, but even saying she's one in a million in that regard would be an understatement. Its about as common a skill as tanning ones own leather or raising ones own crops. Truly, a skill from decades we'll never see again. You want to wear clothes, you buy what's out there. You want to look good, you buy what people think looks good. People really don't have all that much freedom, when you think about it. It's really hard to be original.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I don't think this is an out-of-line request, personally.

I would ask that people at least wear a jacket, I understand that people don't like ties. They can 'strangle' people and cause discomfort, but everyone wears jackets now and then, so there should be little discomfort there.

We had a whole discussion about dress for my wedding last June. It was at a restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. It came up before the wedding that some of the men wanted to come in open collared dress shirts, and no jackets. I wanted everyone to wear a jacket and tie but I didn't make a big deal about it because I try not to make big deal about too much. It turned out that almost everyone wore a jacket and tie - maybe two guys didn't.

I don't appreciate the over-casualization of today but I don't make an issue of it. If it wasn't my wedding, I wouldn't have said a word to anyone, including my wife, about how anyone dresses.

I always hear when people are asked to dress nicely that there's nowhere to buy nice clothes for cheap. I always send them to the St. Vinnies or Goodwill in town. There's more slacks than blue jeans on the rack and never less than 50 suits or jackets to pick from. You can buy a nice suit there for 12 dollars. If you can't afford that, tell ya what, I'll buy it for you! lol

 

[LizzieMaine]

If a guy's wearing torn jeans, then he should've gotten those tears legitimately, through gruelling manual labour, after all, denim is SUPER TOUGH, it has to be, because jeans were designed as working-men's clothes - to put up with hard work. Rips on jeans should only come about after quarrying, felling trees, splitting logs, delving rocks, welding, riveting, working on cars, cleaning out steam-engines, shovelling coal or something like that.

Buying a pair of pre-shredded jeans in some pathetic "tryhard" show of masculinity is just sad.

The funny thing is that people who actually did that kind of work would have been appalled at the thought of walking the streets in tattered work clothing. My grandfather worked hard his whole life -- fixing engines, working on the docks -- and I never once saw him in tattered clothes. When his work clothes were damaged, they were carefully repaired. To his generation, the sight of tattered, raggedy clothes denoted one thing -- a tramp clown in the circus, or a comedy bum in a movie or vaudeville show. Even the actual hobos of the era at least made the effort to patch holes in their clothing.

As I say, it makes no sense to me except as a contrived attempt to look "authentic," with authenticity defined by the standards of the helplessly self-hating middle class.

 

[Shangas]

You make a good point, Lizzie. I feel that there was a lot more self-respect back then. Even the poorest working-class schlubb tried his or her best to make themselves look presentable, neat, respectable and well put-together.

Unlike now.

I agree. I think it's some lame, vain, tryhard attempt to "identify" with the "working man", under the false assumption that working men dress like trash...which terrifyingly, seems to be more and more the case these days.

It's like those people who do the whole 'sagger' 'fashion' or 'fad' or whatever the hell it was...to try and 'identify' with prisoners, 'cause prisoners weren't allowed belts (suicide risk or something), so their pants kept falling off their asses.

Why on earth someone would want to I.D. with prisoners is beyond me. Life in prison is hard as hell. It's lonely, it's depressing, it's boring, and above all, it's incredibly dangerous.

Who on earth ever got it into their heads that that was cool?