The Sartorial Scene

     Do you have a consistent mode of dress? I do, and I’d bet most Gentle Readers do as well. Moreover, I’d bet that your mode, as does mine, arises from the sort of life you lead: what you must do during your typical day. I’d bet further that you seldom “dress up” in conventional terms.

     Not everyone is happy about that:

     Have you noticed how the United States is starting to look like a bus station at 2 a.m.? It’s like we’re all just one missed Greyhound away from being found face down on a plastic bench with a bag of Funyuns as a pillow. People don’t care anymore—about how they look, about how they act, about basic hygiene. We’re all just one pajama-wearing Walmart trip away from complete societal collapse.
     Remember when people used to put in the effort to look good? You look at old photos of people in public from, like, the 1950s, and everyone’s dressed like they’re on their way to a job interview at NASA. The men are in suits, hats tilted just right, like they’re about to solve a mystery on a train. The women have their hair perfectly styled, lipstick on, clutching a purse like it contains the nation’s secrets. And that’s just to go grocery shopping!
     Now? Oh, now we’re out here looking like we’re in the middle of a hostage negotiation with our closet. People are showing up to the airport in Crocs and pajama pants, like they’re expecting a four-hour delay at the gate and maybe an emotional support hamster to get them through it. You see a guy at the DMV wearing a tank top that says “I paused my game to be here,” and you’re like, “Yeah, I bet you did, buddy. I bet you did.”

     Well? Does he have a point?

     I greatly enjoy the sight of a nicely dressed woman, especially if she’s also attractive in her own right. Such a sight draws my eye. I’ll bet – geez, I’m making a lot of bets here – that it draws yours as well, be you male, female, or confused. But that doesn’t imply that I think every woman should dress that way at all times.

     All of us, male or female, have lives to live. We have livings to earn and other things to do. Dressy clothing doesn’t fit our usual needs. Moreover, we don’t feel a need to dress up just because we’re leaving the house.

     Back in the days just after World War II, it was indeed de rigueur for men who worked in office environments to wear suits. That was the white-collar dress code at most businesses. There was a comparable standard for women, though women’s suits were less a part of it than were men’s. But that was then. Note that it was also typical for an office worker to undertake no physical labors during 9-to-5 stint at the office.

     There’s this as well: the shots from the Fifties and early Sixties the author of the above piece cites are from the streets of large cities. They’re predominantly shots of men going to or from work in white-collar office environments, plus some of the wives of such men. Think Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House and you’ve got a pretty good profile of the sort of people in those photos.

     That was never a representative sample of adult Americans. America was a majority blue-collar nation. Most adults worked in environments considerably less gentle toward one’s clothing than Jim Blandings’s advertising workplace.

     Yes, things have changed. Yes, there are fewer blue-collar employees and more white-collar workers today. But the office and its demands on us have also changed. I speak from experience.

     If you need to be able to move freely, or to undertake some dirty or dusty task, dressy clothing is an impediment. If you’re expected to put in a long workday – ten or twelve hours rather than the eight-hours-including-an-hour-lunch of the Blandings era – dressy clothing, which is usually confining clothing, will chafe and distract you. And of course, there’s the cost of dressy clothing, which limits how much of it you can own. Don’t forget the extra time, effort, and expenses for care and maintenance that dressy clothing imposes.

     An accurate perspective on these things can be difficult to attain. Most younger people have little to no involvement with us old farts. (Those that do don’t listen attentively to us anyway.) But we remember, and what we remember is a considerable distance from what those black-and-white photos of city streets thronged by men in suits and women in dresses and heels suggest.