I belch and fart loudly wherever I go. I chew with my mouth open. I wear shirts with vulgar and controversial messages on them. I give the elderly the finger and tell little kids to go fuck their whore mothers. If you don’t like it, then that’s your problem. I’m just being me, and if you have such a stick up your ass about it, then too bad for you. I’m just doing what makes me happy.
“Business casual” looks about right for that place. I’d definately dress up a little (slacks, nice shoes, button-down shirt, possibly a coat) if I were invited there for dinner or drinks, but I wouldn’t feel out of place going in with jeans on. Shorts and a baseball cap - no. Mychael Symon is a casual kind of chef.
Yeah, that only works though if you accept the equivalence. I don’t. Do you expect people to change their hair length or color or facial hair or piercings or body ink based on where they’re going? That’s what dress is moving toward.
These social conventions are arbitrary constructs; there’s nothing innate about them. Do you wear tophat and tails when going to a nightclub? Shit changes. Attire is changing paradigm so that it’s becoming more a function of personal identity and expression of individual choice and preference, just like skin color or hair length.
But again, hair length or color or facial hair or piercings or tatoos are not things you can easily and quickly change. Clothing is. There’s nothing even slightly difficult about wearing shorts and sandals every day of your life, then putting on a suit one day for a special occasion.
The actual clothes you wear are always changing - the fact that people are expected to dress a certain way at certain times are not. There are plenty of nightclubs that won’t let you in wearing sneakers and shorts. And no, we don’t wear powdered wigs to attend on the sovereign, but I doubt you’ll find a picture of a reception with Queen Elizabeth where anyone is wearing shorts and sandals.
And look - I don’t really give a shit what you wear. But you comparing having times & places where more formal wear is expected to racism is both ridiculous and flat out insulting.
Years ago my wife and I took a “mystery weekend” flight, a package deal created by an airline - they didn’t tell you where you were going until you were at the airport (although they would give you a guide to the weather the day before). The deal always included stays at great hotels. On one trip we stayed at the Sheraton in Brisbane, when we went to book in we found we were in the “Towers” - glass of champagne while booking in, butler, free pre-dinner drinks and canapes every night, free afternoon tea. Very swish.
When we were sitting around at drinks the first evening I remarked to my wife that everyone there must be on a “mystery flight” because we were the best dressed people in the room. From overhearing bits of conversation and chatting to people there it became apparent that they were all very wealthy but obviously felt no need to show it by dressing the part. We could have been at a barbie anywhere in suburban Australia.
To the people that don’t understand why you looking like a slob at a nice restaurant affects the people that bother to look nice:
Your argument is pretty much the same thing as someone who talks loud or eats with their mouth open and chews loudly. Atmosphere involves a great many things, and in fact atmosphere is a large part of WHY you are paying extra for fine dining (I don’t consider 20-30 a plate “fine dining”, and I am a poor janitor at a community college…45+ is what I would consider more upscale. I don’t get to eat somewhere that nice very often).
It is almost as hard to “tune out” someone in shorts and sandals with socks (NOT A GOOD COMBO ANYWHERE) as it would be for me to try to tune out someone belching loudly and eating like a pig at the next table. The atmosphere is ruined.
People have been bitching about those damn kids today for just about all of recorded history. Here’s a chunk of Tacitus (c. 100 A.D.) where he takes some backhanded shots at those corrupt, decadent Romans of today. (emphasis mine)
Yup, I think the observation about attire “becoming more a function of personal identity” is an important one.
I don’t know whether it’s due to more TV watching (so we’ve got used to the default idea of the self as spectator rather than as participant), or marketing themes boosting “individualism”, or what, but most people seem far less interested nowadays in thinking about how their appearance harmonizes with their surroundings.
I think people used to be more inclined to see themselves as “part of a picture”: there was an overall visual effect created by a location and the people in it, and you saw yourself as part of that effect. So you felt embarrassed if you showed up in jeans and sneakers at an elegant casino in Monte Carlo or at a formal church wedding, or conversely if you showed up in pearls and heels at a backyard barbecue, partly because your appearance was a jarring element in the overall composition. The visual harmonies between people’s appearance and their surroundings were a more important part of our social interactions than they are today.
Nowadays, many people feel downright insulted to think that their appearance is being perceived as part of an overall visual effect. Again, I think this may have something to do with the influence of television, where the individual is primarily a spectator. You can look at the architecture or the “official actors” in a scene (such as the wedding party at a wedding, and the staff at an entertainment establishment) as part of a picture, but you don’t look at other “spectators” that way, and nobody should be looking at you that way.
As a result, we’re all sort of constantly entrenched behind our mental TV sets where what we wear is nobody else’s damn business. Its purpose is to reflect who we think we are and what we find comfortable or convenient, but it’s an impertinence in anybody else to judge it or evaluate it as part of the picture that they’re viewing.
However, this trend toward sartorial individualism may be a bit overstated, or at least operating only in one direction. ISTM that a lot of the people who claim not to care about what other people are wearing and reject judging people based on their attire are really only concerned with not judging people for being “too casual”, but not for being “too formal”.
Many people who boast about their own casual informality of style and not caring what other people think of their attire can be pretty critical or sarcastic if somebody else shows up to an event more formally dressed than they are. The “not judging others based on their choice of attire” meme isn’t so much in evidence then.
$20-30 a plate (which usually ends up being around $50/person with drinks, appetizer and/or dessert) is not fine dining in any sense in my area, but since local standards can differ, maybe there was a clash of expectations for our OP?
As for the whole debate about comfort vs. social expectations, I think restaurants are a special case in these fashion wars. With funerals and weddings, I tend to think of them as explicitly social events and so, the dress should fit the occasion. In that case, for some weddings, it might be jeans and jackets or black tie only depending on your social group. With restaurants though, much like airplanes, they’re providing a public service that does not necessarily have anything to do with social expectations of dress.
Restaurants are primarily in the service of feeding people in a public setting and some of them charge an extra amount for better atmosphere or better food, or in some case of the best fine dining restaurants, both great atmosphere and food. Some people go out to dinner for the atmosphere, some people go for the food. The clash comes when people who don’t care about the atmosphere go to the restaurant just for the food and pisses off the people who do care about the atmosphere. At this point, I think it’s the restaurant’s job to determine exactly how much slovenliness their atmosphere can withstand. It’s often a matter of degree. Would a young couple who wears expensive jeans and t-shirts give you pause? How about the surfer couple just from the beach in equally expensive halter tops and shorts?
Ultimately, it comes down to what is the most profitable to them and restaurants have decided that tacky dress is fine. If it offends you so much that you can’t enjoy your meal or feel that it’s ruined, you should probably find a restaurant that will cater to your atmospheric needs with a dress code policy just like people who long for the old days of airplane flying should probably fly first class (although that’s probably been infiltrated by boors too).
I appreciate the restaurants that do have a dress code in their policy since it lays it out all nice and simple for the going public. However, if they don’t have one, then the public does not bear the responsibility of dressing to a stranger’s personal dress code, even if they do charge an obscene amount for a plate of foie-gras. don’t ask’s anecdote does seem to ring true though. People who are used to going out to fine dining (amongst other things) seem to have a more relaxed view of ‘dressing the part’ than people (like me) who go out to a top restaurant for a once a year special event.
I feel your pain. No, I don’t want to have to dress to the nines everyday, but occasionally, it’s fun to dress up and have a special night.
Again, take issue with the restaurants you choose to go to that encourage such dress.