it comes in pints?

You get 10 points just for knowing what "sartorial" means!

:-)

Dave,

speaking as a woman who enjoys looking at men, THANK YOU. Well-dressed men are a pleasure to look at. Overgrown boys - especially overgrown boys with an excess of facial/body hair are not (I don't have anything against mustaches or beards but I do if the beard looks like the one on the guy in photo of the linked article).

Also: if you're the plumpish sort, there are things you can wear that make you look ok rather than like the Great Pumpkin. Unfortunately an untucked polo shirt is not one of those things. Again: a suit will do a lot, even if the guy is heavier.

I also hate the coarseness of much of modern fashion.

I teach college and if I had a nickel for every time I inwardly groaned or winced over the "Big Johnson" or "Morning Wood Camp" or other wink-wink nudge-nudge double-entendre t-shirts my 20-something male students wear, I could retire.

(I will say I have a number of young men from more conservative backgrounds who dress like prosperous ranchers or cowboys. The cowboy look - and here I mean nice jeans, that have been pressed, boots, and a western shirt, is a good look on a guy. It looks like he took some effort, like he cared enough not to roll out of bed and head to class in what he was sleeping in).

FWIW: I usually wear a dress or nice skirt and top to teach in. I think it's worth the effort to look like a grown-up and look like I'm the one with a little authority. I guess people notice; I had a co-worker comment to me that he hoped I never "gave up" and started dressing like most people around my department. (And that meant something to me, especially coming from a guy.)

It never ceases to amaze me what people wear to jury duty. I've always thought that was kinda like a step down from church; you wear casual dress-up clothes. Like maybe nice slacks and a blouse for women, or khakis and a polo for men.

Ha.

The older jurors do dress like that somewhat, but the people my age and younger? Dress like they're going to garden. In the summer, we've even had jurors in shorts and t-shirts. !!!

I hate it.

While I agree for the most part, I have just one caveat regarding taking this outlook to the extreme:

I do my best to dress appropriately for the setting. However, when it's obvious I'm being judged based not on the level of formality of my clothes, but rather on their newness, cost, or fashion currency, my hackles are raised. Sorry if the fact that I'm not well-off enough to wear the latest from the finest, but I do my best.

Furthermore, Udolpho really put me off with the phrase "better than working class ". It smacked just a bit of elitism to me.

Fair enough on that point. And of course, as a very junior prosecutor I'm hardly "well-off enough to wear the latest from the finest" either, you know.

Understood, which is why I coined it in the passive voice, rather than accusing you of that attitude.

Ok. I admit I'm a t-shirt Queen. That said I wish hats would come back for both sexes.

We really looked good back then.

Call me June Cleaver with black hair.

Jack Abramoff set back the return of men's hats by at least 15 years.

It never ceases to amaze me what people wear to jury duty.

The one time I had to go in for jury duty, I saw a guy dressed in a T-shirt with a smiley face on it. The smiley had a bullet hole between its eyes, and blood dripping down its face.

I figured he was trying to get out of jury duty.

The author's snotty tone and insistence on psychoanalyzing strangers whose dress sense he happens to deplore put me off, but I wished I'd read the first footnote when I got to it:

If you do not know what Usenet is, it is a pathological corner of the Internet something like a giant, all-topic message board, popular before the web got really big.

Right, and radio was this thing they had to make do with before television. I'm sorry, a man this ignorant isn't worth listening to.

Let's just face it, people who like to get dressed up are trying to mask inner deficiencies with money. They are not unlike the aging women who, the author laments, slather on makeup and undergo surgery in a vain (in both senses) attempt to appear other than what they are. The only people they fool are their fellow fools.

There.

[Having said that, I recently saw some photos taken at the most recent Nebula awards, and was struck at how dressed down most of the recipients were. Yes, yes, I know -- you're writers, that fearless breed huddling in your studies, shunning all trappings of materialistic society (except for the odd trinket or two). But this is an occasion. You're being honored. You couldn't have put on a shirt with a collar? A tie? You don't have to wear it all the time, just when you get up to get your award. When you lose, you can take it off in disgust. Really, it'll be fun.]

Well, I certainly think that men and women alike look better in nicer clothes. But I also certianly side with Angie here, for the most part.

certainly dammit.

In the 1800s there was a movement for dress reform, to eliminate high stiff collars for men, wide skirts that swept the ground plus incredibly constricting corsets for women, and tight shoes for everyone. I wonder what those folks would think of today's very comfortable clothes.

Trouble, trouble, right here in River City!

As much as I appreciate well-dressed men and loathe the modern "prison chic" fashion so many of my contemporaries insist on, I have to agree with Angie.

Though, in my experience, for people who have the deep-seeded need to feel like they're better than everyone else, the best thing to do is give it to them. It's all they have. There are hippies in Berkeley that think they're better than everyone because the recycle and go to peace rallies. There are snobs who think they're better than everyone because they wear a tie every day. There are people that think they're better than everyone because they have been "saved" by Jesus. Whatever. Fine. You win the contest. All of you. You're better than me. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I've got a life to lead in a country where I'm blessed to be lucky enough to choose how I would like to do so and I hope you don't mind if I ignore you while I go about it.

Hmmm. The author of the Udolpho post annoyed me with his snotty attitude, so I responded in kind, psychoanalyzing exactly as he did. I expected to catch hell for it. I didn't really expect to be agreed with. Nobody wants to give me hell...? sniff

In the local paper they have an occasional feature they call "street fashion", in which they stop people off the street and take their pictures and ask them where they got their clothes and how much they paid for them. I wonder if the reporter gets punched much.

One striking thing is how very very bad a lot of the people look. (I'm assuming this is not the point of the feature, to make fun of those pictured.) Some of them just look pretty ordinary, and it wouldn't be worth remarking on if they weren't in a feature called "street fasion".

But some of them look bad -- they're wearing clothes wildly inappropriate for their age, or figure, or wildly mismatched colors or styles. I haven't seen anyone up (or down) to the army-boots-with-granny-dresses standard that was popular for two or three minutes in the '80s, but it's been pretty close.

(Unless the reporter his just interviewing her friends, I think the deal is that she sees an interesting bit of jewelry or pair of shoes, and picks the person on the basis of that one thing.)

The other striking thing is how very much money people are willing to spend to look bad. It's not unusual to see someone admit to wearing a thousand dollars worth of stuff, and they're not wearing a suit or a nice dress. Sometimes the women have these big handbags, looking (as far as I can tell) just like any my mom used to have, and they'll have cost $500. The hell? Unless you've got another dimension in there, I don't see any reason to pay $500 for a purse.

Full disclosure: I work from home, and sit around all day in sweats, and grumble when I have to go somewhere and put on my jeans.

I appreciate Udolpho's point, actually. If one thinks of clothing as a matter of meeting some onerous standard of decorum, one will not usually dress very nicely; nor is it a stretch to think that someone who won't bother (NOT "can't" - for the moment we're talking about people with the means) to dress at least halfway-decent in public won't behave very well either. In that sense, clothes are simply an extension of one's manners, and thus gross underdress is akin to being rude.

It's like the fast-food slack-jaw clerk whose uniform is untucked and smells like sweat and grill perfume from two days ago - you are unlikely to get a cheerful smile, much less "please," "thank you," and "can I get you anything else today?" They've already checked out (if they were ever "in" to start with). They're doing the absolute minimum to keep their paychecks trickling in, and that much under duress.

From time to time you may meet the under-shaved, hastily-dressed person who nonetheless puts everything into the conversation, acts with courtesy, and leaves you with a good impression. Everyone has their days. But someone who refuses to dress the part? "Snob" can work both ways; there's the snob who substitutes good clothes for good manners, but there's also the snob who is proud of iconoclasm, who makes it a point of looking like the president of a hobo convention, who is almost daring you to "misjudge" him so that he can scold you or snub you - but other than the change of source, what's the difference? Boorish is boorish. (And thus your judgement proves to be right on the mark.)

What 'fly said.

I teach 5-year-olds in Sunday School. There's a little girl in my class, Katie, who wears the same dress every week. She is clean, her hair is brushed, the dress is clean. But it's the same dress. I think I can safely assume it's the only dress she owns.

Whenever I think of people who shun "dressing up," especially for church and churchy-type things like funerals and weddings, and say things like, "God oughta be happy I'm THERE! Who cares what I wear!" I think of Katie and her parents, who may not have much money, but still know the meaning the words "appropriateness" and "respect."

I'm not arguing against dressing up, merely the attitude that one is, universally, under ANY circumstances, superior because they do all the time, is ridiculously snobbish. I work in an office next to a warehouse. If I wore a business suit to work every day, I'd tear through $200 worth of clothes a week and certain aspects of my job would be very difficult. The company next door works with rock and roll bands. Professionally, their clients are typically suspicious of people who dress in suits and ties. We dress clean and neatly, but casual because of our work environment. According to Udolpho, he is better than us because we do not voluntarily submit to having our silks and Sunday best made filthy dirty every day in a dusty warehouse.

I do abhore how people have become too casual about dressing up on occassions where it is reasonably expected. When I was a kid, flying was a treat. You put on nice clothes and respected the fact that you are in a confined space with lots of other people. Nowadays, people get on planes in sweats and flip-flops. i do not. The last time I went to the Santa Fe Opera, I was surprised at the number of people mingling around in jeans and t-shirts. Hello, you are at the OPERA. I know customs became a little bit relaxed in an effort to woo the "kids" and have them see opera as "hip" and "cool," but a lot of this is coming at the expense of a long tradition of an event like that being a true spectacle worthy of putting on your best.

My point was hating snobbish attitudes no matter where they come from, not feeling personally offended by people who think one should dress for church properly. I'm sick of going into clothing stores and having some stuck-up bitch snarl at me because she thinks she's better because she has purple hair and a nose ring. I can't stand people staring me down when I am dressed in clean, pressed, neat, but casual clothes when I am in places where no more is required because they're dressed in $1000 worth of Prada. It's an ABSURD attitude.

No argument about that from here, Emily. I do a bit of pallet-hauling myself on my job, and have standing, informal permission to wear sneakers and polo shirts, for example - as long as we're not hosting an important meeting where I need to have a presentable outfit.

Emily,

You are very confused. I have written no such thing. You might profit from a course in reading comprehension.

Regards,

Udolpho,
You might benefit in a course of not being an asshole. Most of what I wrote wasn't even in response to what you did, speaking of reading comprehension.

Hey Udolpho: way to prove the point of everyone who's disagreed with you. Did you notice how we were all engaged in civil disagreement like, you, know reasonable adults, until you showed up to say something that shows you're not just a snob, but a schmuck? Manners, not clothes, make the man (or woman) and you have just demonstrated you have none. Did your parents teach you to insult your hosts, or did you just never pay attention as a child?

The point I was trying to make was not so far off from things others have said about being appropriate to each particular situation...but after that remark I'm tempted to show up for court on Wednesday in a bathrobe and flipflops.

[Do it, Dave!]

"but after that remark I'm tempted to show up for court on Wednesday in a bathrobe and flipflops."

Well, I showed up for court today in track pants and a "Race For The Cure" t-shirt. What's the big deal?

And I showed up for work today in long johns and a bikini top! That will show the Man!