When did Americans start wearing short pants? Outside of the gym or beach have you ever seen someone from the 1950’s wearing shorts? Was it hippies in the late 1960’s?
Well, according to this, Bermuda shorts became a fad in the 1950’s.
I began wearing shorts in '45 after returning from the “big deuce”.
Having been with the British colonial forces in the pacific----and having seen them worn by both the British and German srmies in north African combat-----they seemed as natural as having legs.
And as seasonal knock about wear they were/are great!--------Still wear them,in spite of my,now,spidery legs!
EZ
It’s probably a facet of the larger question “When did Americans start looking like slobs in public?”. In less loaded terms, at one time people “got dressed” to go out to the movies, go to even the most informal resturaunt, get on a plane or train, go shopping, etc. At some point, people started dressing more casually in public - it basically became OK to appear in public in whatever you were mooching around the house in, short of your birthday suit, underwear, pjs or a bathrobe. People probably wore shorts at home long before they would get caught dead in public in them.
I have heard that the practice of adults wearing shorts in public, outside of athletic competition, began at Dartmouth College in the twenties. However, I can’t find a cite on Google. I think I read it in my alumni magazine several years ago, and I’m sure it’s only one of many claims/theories.
Horse feathers!
Does what a person wears offend some people?
If so they should frequent more selective watering holes.
Folk who go " out to eat"do so to enjoy a meal and good company.
They do not,unless they’re sick, go out and spend money on food so that they can ‘impress’ the population.
As a million mile traveler I would not hesitate to stop on the road and eat wherever I choose-as long as my decency is maintained.
And if some eating habit of mine night offend the eye of someone who shouldn’t be watching me any way—so what?
Long live casual----- its great!
EZ
Hey, I wasn’t disapproving, I was merely commenting on a cultural trend. I dress as slobbily as everybody else, possibly more so. Many of us probably remember elderly relatives who wouldn’t go out in public unless somewhat nattily attired. They got into that habit in an earlier era where walking into a theatre in your shirtsleeves would generate raised eyebrows, unless you were a kid attending a matinee.
Only to a point. Completely symbolic displays of respect for where you are and your company have some value, in my opinion. I don’t think that an individual’s comfort and whims are supreme, as much as American society seems to disagree with me on that point. But I’d say wearing shorts in public isn’t slovenly either - though it depends a lot on where you’re going.
I think it began with the general relaxation of the old rules in the late '60’s and early '70’s. The so-called hippie era.
People wore shorts in the 50s during the summer, especially in hot areas, and places catering to tourists.
Going even further back, short pants were required year round for children around the turn of the century. Wearing long pants was a sign of growing up, and it couldn’t have ended too early – Dave Berg wrote a comment on it (showing kids envying adults wearing shorts) back in the 1960s, so it had to be common during his childhood.
Ummmm… Have you ever watched TV from the 1950s? On Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best and dozens of other shows, people did this all the time. Poor Beaver and Wally always had to get dressed up in a suit to go out to eat to anywhere but a burger stand. Even for in movie like Stand By Me, you see the kids wearing collared shirts most of the time.
Wasn’t James Dean at least partially responsible for teens wearing t-shirts (by themselves) in public? I seem to have read that somewhere a long time ago.
I also thought I’d mention that Puerto Ricans still do this. They wear shorts and t-shirts during the day, but when it comes time to go out to any semi-decent restaurant or a club or the movies, they dress far more formally than Americans do. Granted, they don’t look like “Ward Cleavers”, but a jacket is basically required at most clubs, even if you wear a light turtleneck underneath it.
In baseball stadium photos from the 1950s, nearly every man in the stands is wearing a suit, tie, and fedora. A few years ago, before my first trip to New York City, I started a thread about what to wear to a Broadway show. It’s quite casual, it turns out. In the actual theaters, there were a few suits. There were no t-shirts or shorts, but nice casual was the order of the day.
When the Death of the Necktie finally happens, most men will cheer. The ones who love their ties can still use them for sweat bands when they play tennis. 
Marlon Brando pioneered the jeans-and-t-shirt look in The Wild One. James Dean appropriated the look and helped popularize it. Cite. (So you are sort of right.)
Television has never,and will never,represent american living–even if a lot of europeans believe it does.
The representation of the 'typical 'american housewife doing house work in high heels,wearing a simple black and pearls is right our of fantasy land.
The image of the man- of- the -house going to a his dinner wearing a boiled shirt ,studs and cuff inks is right out of a Grant.Lombard movie.
To use the telly as a guideline to gracious living is extreme faNTASY.
To use Telly characters s models for graciousness[?] surpasses the ridiculous.
Granted,shirts and a tee would be gross at a wake a wedding ,a graduation or to a date at the junior prom------But Telly?
Let’s get real!
Can’t we find a better more honest model?
EZ
Sure. How about post #12? Look at old photographs of baseball games, or any other social activity.
Or how about my own personal experience, as a youth in the '60s…where I had to wear a tie to church every Sunday. Hang around the outside of a church today and count neckties.
(I’m no help on the OP…I grew up in a climate where it never got warm enough for shorts.)
I never said it did. But the shows I mentioned were also representative of American society in the particulars, even if not in general. Friends may not be an accurate depiction of reality, but the clothes they wear and the hairstyles they have are certainly accurate depictions of a certain segment of American culture.
What you are saying is that the fashions depicted in those 1950s shows never happened. Of course they did. If you were flipping through the dial and saw an episode of Friends where everyone wore bellbottoms, shirts with huge collars and had long, scruffy hair you’d think it was one of those “time warp” episodes where everyone was magically transported back to the 1970s. Why? Because they’re wearing clothes that are not of their time.
And I’ll be sure to tell the next Europeans I see that TV doesn’t represent our culture. :rolleyes:
Please do--------and while you’re at it also tell them that style was not the question to begin with------that’s a phenom which owes it’s existance to women in genera; and to the societal demands which force male adherence.
As to ‘Friends’—heard of it,--------never saw it
I guess that makes me Friends deprived- !
EZ has left the arena.
Ciao, one and all
A lot of people wore suits to baseball games was because they were all day games back then. The people had come straight from work and might be going back after it was over.
I am usually blithely unaware of fashion trends.
However I noticed suddenly over Christmas vacation the number of people wearing pajamas in public (this was upstate New York, in December naturally). I have seen a few women doing it before but now lots of women were, and some men as well.
I started in 1999. I decided that I would never wear long pants in southern California. For our purposes so Cal is any where south of the LA-Kern County line. The exceptions are weddings and funerals. I also made a one time exception for my grandfather’s 80th birthday party when we were having family pictures.