Spectre, the point is that there is a dress code and it is even-handed for men and women. I prefer to wear pants at work because we often have to climb ladders to high shelves in our stock room. Women can and do wear sleeveless tops. What the women who were fired wore were extremely short shorts. They were first asked to go home and change. Second time they were just told to go home and come back when they were next on the schedule. Third time they were fired. It was serial firings, not six people all at once. All of the similar stores in the mall (not the clothing stores that cater to kids) have much more professional dress codes than we do. Our manager is quite young, often brings clothes to the store to change into before she goes out with friends.
Sauron, so far, no one at the store has investigated my underwear! Will keep you posted.
I really want to wear short shorts and mini-skirts. I’m slender, my legs are good, but I’m too damned old.
Sad to say, I have had the same basic fashion style since I was 5 years old–heavy on simple pieces. Of course, there have been a few minor adaptations along the way (courdory (sp?) jumpers are so second grade). I accept that wearing jeans or a miniskirt to a job interview isn’t likely to get me hired. Yet there’s another part of me that is kicking myself for not wearing skimpy clothes while I’m young, thin and childfree.
I think it’s very important, actually. Thinking about the comfort of those around us is one of the things which makes human society function smoothly. Simpler than that, it’s just plain rude to wear inappropriate clothing no matter how comfortable it makes you. The air conditioning in my office isn’t working right now, and I’d be much more cool and comfortable if I wore a bikini to work, but out of respect for my co-workers, I dressed appropriately today.
It’s the “Who cares? Screw 'em!” attitude that a lot of people have toward a host of rude behaviors, including inappropriate dress, that’s most grating to me. In my opinion, like it or not, life is about a certain level of conformity, and it seems like a lot of people have supreme difficulty in accepting that they’re not special, and that our culture’s worship of “individuality” is not an excuse for making those around you uncomfortable.
MY beef is with people who let their 10-year-old daughters wear low-rise tight jeans and skimpy halter tops with “bad grrrrl” written on them. There just seems to be something inherently WRONG with this. Am I the only one who has a problem with it? i’m seeing more and more of it lately, and stores like “LaSenza Girl” aren’t helping the situation. (Maybe that’s only in Canada, I’m not sure… LaSenza is sort of like Victoria Secret, if anyone doesn’t know) Styles are getting trashier and are being marketed to a younger and younger crowd. I think it’s sick. Why don’t the parents put a stop to it?
I hope I don’t have daughters… I’ll have to lock them up till they’re 20!
The only real problem I have with current fashions is that quite a lot of them are unflattering to 98% of the women in this country. Especially the ultra low-rise pants, which tend to make thin, fit, attractive women look like they have no waist and an ass the size of a footstool.
Why on earth people insist on spending hard-earned money on clothes that make them look far worse than they really are is beyond me. Personally, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna buy something that makes me look awful (except for brideslave dresses).
wow, i whole heartedly agree, and with the OP’s last little paragraph about that. as grown women, we have every right to dress as we wish, because we are GROWN WOMEN. (though there are many times i want to stop random people in the street and offer them a make over, does anyone else have this compulsion?). however, with young girls increasingly the victims of pedophilia, rape, etc, why would you send them out there like walking targets?
personally, i think for generations there have been distinctive differences in the way a child dresses vs. the way an adult dresses and that line has become more and more blurred. watch any trashy talk show and you’ll hear how someone’s 11 year old daughter is dressing too sexy. she’s 11, who’s $$ buys the clothes? buy her sweatpants instead of fishnets, einstein, and perhaps there won’t be a problem.
and yeah, i’m done with this low rise jeans thing. isn’t a pair of pants’ main function to cover your ass??
As you know, I work in a mall, and see it all. A lot of little girls (under 12), shopping with their mothers, wear those shirts with the sexy sayings. I have an adult daughter, and the idea of letting her wear something like that when she was a child makes my skin crawl. Recently one little girl had on low-rise jeans that said “hot stuff” on the butt!!! I see professional manicures, multiple piercings, fake tattoos, three-inch heels, streaked hair, etc. on little girls. Often as not, their mothers are wearing Disney sweatshirts with Winnie-the-Pooh!
Mothers say the only clothes available for little girls are the sexy styles, but they are lying. I buy clothes for my 5-year-old niece at Target, and there are lots of cute, appropriate outfits. Many mothers allow their little girls to shop in the junior department, where sexy styles prevail. I’ve seen them wearing those “I’m with the band” shirts, which come from stores that sell clothes intended for high school and college girls.
On the other hand, a flasher was arrested in the mall one night who had exposed himself to three little sisters whose mother dresses them in homemade long dresses, mary janes, etc. So who knows what goes on in the minds of pedophiles and flashers?
I don’t understand it. Why is the older generation so shocked by contemporary fashion?
I mean, this is the generation that invented the mini-skirt! They watched Daisy Duke in hot pants over dinner! But show them a midriff or a pair of jeans that sit on the hips rather than the waist and they begin to wail about “skimpy clothing” and exhibitionism.
Can one of you old folks tell me exactly what is so shocking about a navel that isn’t shocking about a skirt that prevents its owner from bending over whilst wearing it? If I had a time machine and a desire to live in a time with skimpy clothing as the norm, I wouldn’t choose the early 21st century as my destination.
oh, CrazyCatLady! Just read “brideslave”! That is so perfect. My daughter has a closetfull of brideslave dresses! She’s worn at least one of them as a Halloween costume.
My daughter is 7 and I went out one day to buy her a sweet little dress. I went to L.S. Ayres and they had nothing but trashy little animal prints, faux leather, low-rise pants, etc. It was terrible. There was not one dress that I would have even considered for her.
Target has some cute separates, but they also carry the miniature hoochie-wear. I still have trouble finding a sweet little dress. Boy, I dread school shopping this weekend.
I wear whatever I want as long as it’s appropriate for where I’m going. I’m not going to wear a tube top, shorts, and flip flops to my office job just like I wouldn’t wear a dress, pantyhose, and heels to the park.
As for little girls’ clothes, I buy most of my kids’ clothes at JC Penney’s, mainly because I get a 20% discount and because they have nice clothes. My 5 year old daughter has some low rise jeans and low rise capris but she doesn’t wear skimpy little belly tops with them. I sure as hell wouldn’t let my daughter walk around with “Hot Stuff” written on the ass of a miniskirt either!!
Trust me, there are worse double entendres on some of those t-shirts–if it gets any worse it will be like the super-tacky ones sold at the beach. And another thing…when I first started wearing junior sizes (about age 12), there were granny dresses, average-length(above the knee) and long skirts, and suits. Basically the kind of stuff to see me through 5 years of a private school dress code. I don’t see that anymore–it’s all casual. Do girls dressing up now shop in the girls’ department until 14 and then switch over to misses? (which are for women my age and older).
Speaking of which–size rant–why does my clothing size range from 2 to 8? Someone’s indulging in a little size foolery here.
Mine, too, Angel Heart. A friend says the more expensive clothes have smaller sizes on the label (it’s actually a 10, but the label will say it’s a 6) because that’s one of the things you pay high prices for! For what? Self-deception? Gee, I can get that for less than a dollar by pretending almond M&M’s are nourishing!
HAHAHA! I do the exact same thing. “Nuts have protein, so it’s almost like a meal!”
What I want to know is, where are the skimpy mens fashions? Seems like women’s clothes get smaller and smaller, and men’s get bigger and bigger! Let’s bring back the shorty-shorts in the NBA, and the supersnug painted-on pants in baseball! Let rappers show some skin for a change instead of wearing 25 layers of shirts, pants and giant jewelry! I want guys to have to go into stores and try to find something to cover their beer gut, or hide their floppy gramma-like triceps, or the way the flab on their thighs chafes until they’re red. I want every guy walking down the street to look like a member of the Village People because that’s all they could find in stores for 5 years running.