One thing I noticed while watching 12 Angry Men was that everyone wore a suit, or at least a sport coat. This reminded me of seeing films where people would ‘dress for dinner’. I’m not talking about people who put on a tuxedo or a dinner jacket, but who wear a shirt and tie to the family dinner table.
When I was a kid I remember a friend’s grandfather, who wore slacks and a dress shirt around the house. I remember that people would wear a suit or sport coat when they travelled by air. Only kids and hippies wore jeans when I was a kid. Most people who didn’t wear a coat dressed in nice trousers and at least a golf shirt tucked into them (ooh, that was casual!).
I hated ‘office attire’. What possible difference does it make to the computer if I wore a tie? When I worked at an automated gate company, I finally got to wear – pretty much had to wear – jeans every day. Guess what? I hated it! Today I wear jeans most of the time. I’m marginally unemployed, and it doesn’t make sense to dress up. When I’m shooting a wedding I’ll wear chinos and a dress shirt.
As I watch old films I think of how nice it would be to be in a position where I could go out in public wearing ‘respectable’ clothes like Cary Grant. Or ‘hip casual’ clothes like Dean Martin (who also wore a coat and tie). Of course I can do that now. Maybe I should buy a few costumes and pretend to be respectable.
Heh. Just the other day I was listening to an old Dragnet (radio) episode, and they were giving a description of the guy who had held up a supermarket or something like that, and he had been wearing a tie. And they talked as if it was normal and expected. We’ve come a long way since the days when even hold-up men habitually wore ties to work.
I think part of the reason that we don’t dress up anymore is that public interior spaces are generally too warm for one to be able to wear a coat and tie comfortably. I’ve always maintained that the fatal flaw of men’s formal business attire is that you need to keep the jacket on in order for it to be effective. Without the jacket, wearing a shirt and tie, you look like a store clerk. But a jacket does more than project an image…it also makes you warm, or too warm in many cases.
Meh, I think that was just the illusion of the movies and TV. I’ve seen a lot of my mom and dad’s pictures from when they were kids in the 50s and none of the adults are wearing ties or look particularly dressed up, except for things that were obviously special occasions.
Much of the time my dad would be in his uniform – black jacket with gold braid and a star at the cuffs, black trousers, white shirt, black tie, white hat with the gold Navy badge on the top. When he was casual he wore khaki trousers and a button-down shirt. I have some 8mm films he took in the '50s. In one a party was going on. The women wore cocktail dresses and the men wore slacks and shirts. (IIRC dad was wearing khaki trousers and a red button-down shirt.) This was a ‘raucious’ party. I remember parties at the house when I was a kid, and people dressed in a similar manner (late-1960s). One film shows dad in Hong Kong, showing off his new suit.
Oh – as implied above, I was raised by an ‘officer and a gentleman’. I don’t remember ‘dressing for dinner’ myself (dad wore his casual clothes, as described above), but we did say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ and ‘please’. And it was reciprocal. Dad called me ‘sir’. My sister and I didn’t just rise from the dinner table. It was, ‘May I please be excused from the table?’
Some would call that a repressive childhood, but I don’t. I was just taught good manners and etiquette. Maybe that’s why I dislike flying commercially. There’s a certain lack of decorum in removing one’s shoes. (And yes, I do try to make myself presentable when I fly commercially.)
Take a look at pictures of people at sporting events during the 30s and 40s. The men were wearing shirts and ties. Many were wearing sports coats. I grew up in the 50s and my father wore shirts and ties to work daily and he was not a high-up executive type.
That makes no sense whatsoever. Interior spaces are air-conditioned now so they are cooler. I am from the South and people tended to wear multi-layer, hot clothing before air-conditioing was invented. I used to work in a hotel/manison in New Orleans and had to wear a full tuxedo even during the summer (New Oleans during the summer is one of the hottest feeling places on this planet). I suffered from heat exhaustion twice by working too hard outside and in the kitchen. Yet, there were pictures of the original owners from the 1800’s all over that showed them choosing to wear clothing at least as hot. Check out the wool uniforms of Civil War soldiers some time.
There is a phenomena called the Flynn effect that shows that IQ’s have risen markedly over time. I can’t decide if idiotic clothing choices are a cause or effect of this.
I just got a new job on Thursday. They used their business casual dress code as a selling point and it worked. My last job had a shirt and tie requirement and it sucked. I had to wear two sets of clothes every day. When I went to stores after work, I got sick of people asking me where things were.
It’s just a fashion, like suits and ties were in their day. I’m certain people mourned the loss of the codpiece and the powdered wig, and longed for a time (not that far gone) when only grown men wore long pants and only young boys wore shorts. Articles of clothing, much like belief systems and styles of music, have their day in the sun, and are naturally succeeded, then supplemented, then supplanted by new inventions. It is no more logical than a summer storm, and no more stoppable.
Not true…in my air conditioned office I rarely wear a jacket. For a time I had a south-facing window, and it got very warm, air conditioning or not. And you can’t just have the AC cranked up, because then other people nearby get too cold.
lol…I used to notice that too. I recently posted that a fellow Blockbuster customer mistook me for an employee, and the only reason I can think of is that I was wearing my shirt tucked in. That’s another thing that’s changed…hardly anyone seems to tuck in their shirts anymore, apart from being consciously dressed up for work or some other occasion.
In my old office (a fashionista-filled magazine), I was looked on as dowdy because I wore my “uniform” of sweater & skirt, heels and pearls. In my new office (a photo archive), they think of me as one of Truman Capote’s Swans, because I wear the exact same uniform!
One of the reasons I love New York is because there is always a percentage of people who do take the trouble and pride in their appearance to dress well: damn, they look good, and brighten up my day and their surroundings!
A month ago, I was at a funeral. The deceased was very popular-- we had to wait in line for two hours to greet the family. Not one in five was dressed even semi-appropriately. The woman ahead of us was wearing tight white pants and a pink halter-top. The woman in front of her was wearing a lipstick-red dress. (I was always taught that you never wore red to a funeral unless you despised the deceased.) A couple women wore short skirts, and one looked like she was headed out clubbing afterwards.
Many of the men wore jeans and t-shirts in varying degrees of cleanliness. Had the funeral been earlier in the day, I might have excused it as people rushing home from work, but we were there at eight P.M.
I saw only one child out of the dozens there who was appropriately dressed. The vast majority wore casual clothes: jeans and T-shirts. Many were in day-glo colors. One boy wore a Bulls jersey and matching baggy shorts. Another wore a t-shirt which had a rock band’s logo with a picture of a skeleton rising from a coffin.
I was taught that when attending a funeral, you should wear nice, conservative clothes in sober colors as a sign of respect. I understand that some people’s busy lives mean they must rush from one thing to another, leaving no time to change before a funeral, but I simply cannot believe that 90% of the attendees ran into this problem.
I’ve seen women who wear white to weddings, and people at church ceremonies who look like they dropped in from an amusement park. We went on a cruise a year ago. People wore their bathing suits to dine in the resturant (despite large signs asking them not to do so).
Sadly it’s true. But there are some of us holdouts!
People miss so many opportunities to get decked out.
I see people at the theatre in jeans and sneakers. Graduations, yep funerals, birthday celebrations. I’ll hear people talk about a particular restaurant and how " Oh people go there dressed up and some are just casual, it’s all okay. "
Mhmm, right.
If it makes you feel any better, not long ago I wore a grey three button suit and a turtleneck to a Santa Monica restaurant, and my wife and I had drinks at the piano bar. How retro can one get?
I never understood nostalgia for formal wear. I wear a t-shirt and jean shorts. When the temperature drops below fifty or so, I will switch to jeans. G-d appeared to Moses and the other prophets while they were wearing sandals and bath robes, I figure my t-shirt (within certain limits) is fine for synagogue. The purpose of services is not to show off our clothing, jewelry and accessories. I do wear suits or other formal wear for weddings, funerals, etc. The uncomfortable and expensive clothing is a sign of respect. I strongly dislike the idea of eating in any restaurant with a dress code. So, they will not agree to take my money unless I’m in dress shoes? Plus, if I’m going to get bits of wine or sauce on clothing (a strong possibility), I prefer not to ruin clothing that cost more than the meal. In regards to air travel, the cramped seats are uncomfortable enough. I see no need to make myself considerably more uncomfortable by wearing slacks and a button down shirt. Further, the only time I fly is to visit relatives in Florida. As I have said, I am not cold while wearing shorts in fifty degree weather. I absolutely refuse to wear slacks and a button down shirt when flying to a place that is humid and in the seventies.
I love my daddy because he still dresses. Wool trousers, buttondown shirt (with collar stiffeners), tie, sportcoat, and polished shoes. He has cedar shoeforms. He has the sportcoats made to order.
I try to look nice, too, but it’s hard to do when the weather is warm. I almost always wear skirts. Cashmere sweaters in the winter. Real jewelry, not costume.