7 ms·

This. I see two things happening here: (1) American spending less on clothing and (2) Americans having less self-pride in their attire and presentation. I've

This. I see two things happening here: (1) American spending less on clothing and (2) Americans having less self-pride in their attire and presentation. I've spent a fair amount of time in Latin American countries, and a real sure-fire way to identify tourists is to look for people poorly-dressed or those who look like they just don't care about how they look. E.g., despite much of Mexico being quite hot, you will almost never see a local Mexican wearing shorts, even on beaches. Tee-shirts maybe but almost always a freshly-washed button-up shirt. (Or a swimsuit if they're swimming obviously.) This is true of other Latin countries too in my travels. It's really humbling to see.

dopeboy 9y ago
I was in Mexico last week near Cancun and observed exactly that. I always saw the locals with jeans and a nice shirt. There's no way I could do that in 85F weather.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  On more recent trips I've been trying to adopt more local customs including not wearing shorts. It's actually not that bad - if you choose lighter fabrics and don't lay around in the sun on the beach you may not mind pants. Added benefit of sun protection too. Then there are locals who wear heavy black-cotton pants and poly-blend long-sleeve button-up shirts while walking around the asphalt streets on hot-humid days. They make me want to pass out :) I think most of ^^ are actually corporate dress-codes (plus perhaps lack of resources to buy non-work clothes) but I've not had reason to strike up a conversation about that.
  - bobochan 9y ago
    I think you are exactly right, that are really adaptations the we make both learn and make over time in different climates. I lived in central Africa for four years after growing up in New England. Adjusting to the climate was partly just a matter of time there, but also learning the unwritten rules. For example, if I met a friend on the street, we would not even think of starting to chat in direct sunlight, we would always look for some shade first. I also learned to walk much more slowly and really minimize the heat that my body was generating. Vice versa, I have now lived in Vermont for twenty years and every year I am amazed how I start looking in my closet for a jacket the first evening that it hits 40 degrees, and yet the same temperature in February means my kids are wearing shorts and t-shirts to school that day and I am grilling steaks in flip-flops.
- watwut 9y ago
  Oftentimes when you buy local cloth you find out that they are comfortable for the weather. Long light jeans looking pants can protect you from sun and it is not more hot in them then in shorts. I have jeans for winter and jeans for summer and while they look very similar, their warmth is much different.
  - twostoned 9y ago
    Yup yup I learned this in Australia. Bloody hot but I found keeping the sun off your skin actually kept me cooler despite wearing more layers. That and the added benefit of reduced UV or whatever else smashes you in the sunshine (I love the outdoors but tend to burn quickly in direct sunlight).
mbrameld 9y ago
Is a vertical row of buttons the dividing line between caring about appearance and not caring about appearance? Or can we say that as a society we decide what is acceptable to wear in public? If it's socially acceptable to wear shorts and a t shirt, and I wear nice, clean shorts and a t shirt, your conclusion is that I don't care about how I look? That's some serious mental gymnastics. You could reasonably say that I look like I have different clothing preferences.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  Downvoting because I think you took my comment in poor-faith. I didn't say wearing shorts means you don't care how you look - imho shorts look fine when it's customary. I said that wearing pants despite shorts being a possibility does show how much you care.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    So, as you said, shorts are customary in the US but not in Mexico.... how does that translate into less self-pride in the US? That is just a different custom of dress. Are you arguing that 'self-pride' is measured by how uncomfortable you make yourself? I don't follow the logic.
    - ryanianian 9y ago
      I'm probably bringing my own US biases in, but I think objectively that more comfortable => less pride in appearance. Not less pride overall just pride in appearance. (You're not a bad person because you only wear cargo shorts! You just don't value your appearance as much as somebody who always wears suits.) I'd love to learn of (and maybe live in) a culture that thinks elastic-waist sweatpants show a sense of pride rather than somebody who (for the moment) is choosing comfort over appearance.
      - xeromal 9y ago
        People are almost avoiding your point on purpose. Are they really that obtuse? Haha.
maerF0x0 9y ago
It's not "self pride" its a bucking of the trend of what "looks good" . It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits. Add in the marginal cost difference and I'd rather wear a tshirt. It's the market punishing the inefficiency of requiring your workers (or date) to dress in a certain manner when it adds no true value.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  > It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits. I think you prove my point (and it's not a bad thing!) Sociology is interesting. A suit is traditionally a sign of "I invest in my clothes and therefore I have self-pride." (It's also a sign that you don't have to do hard/dirty labor.) It seems culturally America has decided that this is out-dated and are choosing to focus less on clothes as a sign of pride. This doesn't the pride isn't there, just that the ways of showing and seeing it have changed for some or most. Some people will always think a tee-shirt or shorts look worse than a button-up and pants. It's a personal sentiment for sure.
  - potta_coffee 9y ago
    My view of suits has always been, "I work in a profession that requires me to wear this symbolic clothing." I've avoided these kinds of careers because I want to be graded on my skill, not my ability to dress well. And suits are uncomfortable, and I like to be comfortable.
    - beokop 9y ago
      Yeah but when you think about it, you’re probably still working in an industry that frowns upon pajamas in the workplace. Just because it’s OK to not wear a suit doesn’t mean that people aren’t judging you.
    - saul_pako 9y ago
      As a native of Scandinavia I too have experienced the trend of people claiming their right to be judged on skill rather than background or appearance. Here however, it is often argued that the right to be judged on skill and compatibility, and therefor being able to dress to ones own preferences is earned only when you have proven to be a) greatly over-qualified and b) of a high enough age and/or c) with an ethnicity, gender or other background factors that conform with the existing idea of what a professional in the specific field looks and acts like.
tomc1985 9y ago
ITT: Silly foreigners that need to spend more time traveling. None of this should be revelatory. People are different, and 'dress well' is subjective. Personally I want to punch most of these supposedly 'well dressed' people. They all look the same to me.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  It's all subjective for sure. What I find interesting is that some cultures show a preference for clothes that are (imho) somewhat objectively less comfortable. Pants in humid climates. Suits at all. The history behind why things became the norm is interesting. This article shows how America is changing. This isn't a bad or good thing - it's just an interesting thing.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    Some counters to the comfortable / looking good tradeoff - it's not that simple: - higher quality, tailored suits are much more comfortable than simple ones, (or even jeans really) and look slightly better - good kilts look great and are more comfortable to wear than any trousers - humid climates are usually sunny - it's sometimes easier to wear a really light long sleeve / trousers to keep the sun away from skin - very humid climates, like Singapore are so warm people just try to stay inside and almost every place has AC set to ~19°C, so either you're well dressed, or you're cold - look at some pictures of people in Melbourne - casual style there can look way better than suits
eitally 9y ago
This definitely isn't true in Brazil. Brazil is at least as casual as the US.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  That's interesting. Maybe even more-so (at least for me) since Brazil is a latin-american country but one with Portuguese roots as opposed to Spanish. I don't know if the different types of colonialism hundreds of years ago can really account for pants-vs-shorts but it's fun to play with the idea.

dopeboy 9y ago

I was in Mexico last week near Cancun and observed exactly that. I always saw the locals with jeans and a nice shirt. There's no way I could do that in 85F weather.

ryanianian 9y ago
On more recent trips I've been trying to adopt more local customs including not wearing shorts. It's actually not that bad - if you choose lighter fabrics and don't lay around in the sun on the beach you may not mind pants. Added benefit of sun protection too. Then there are locals who wear heavy black-cotton pants and poly-blend long-sleeve button-up shirts while walking around the asphalt streets on hot-humid days. They make me want to pass out :) I think most of ^^ are actually corporate dress-codes (plus perhaps lack of resources to buy non-work clothes) but I've not had reason to strike up a conversation about that.
- bobochan 9y ago
  I think you are exactly right, that are really adaptations the we make both learn and make over time in different climates. I lived in central Africa for four years after growing up in New England. Adjusting to the climate was partly just a matter of time there, but also learning the unwritten rules. For example, if I met a friend on the street, we would not even think of starting to chat in direct sunlight, we would always look for some shade first. I also learned to walk much more slowly and really minimize the heat that my body was generating. Vice versa, I have now lived in Vermont for twenty years and every year I am amazed how I start looking in my closet for a jacket the first evening that it hits 40 degrees, and yet the same temperature in February means my kids are wearing shorts and t-shirts to school that day and I am grilling steaks in flip-flops.
watwut 9y ago
Oftentimes when you buy local cloth you find out that they are comfortable for the weather. Long light jeans looking pants can protect you from sun and it is not more hot in them then in shorts. I have jeans for winter and jeans for summer and while they look very similar, their warmth is much different.
- twostoned 9y ago
  Yup yup I learned this in Australia. Bloody hot but I found keeping the sun off your skin actually kept me cooler despite wearing more layers. That and the added benefit of reduced UV or whatever else smashes you in the sunshine (I love the outdoors but tend to burn quickly in direct sunlight).

mbrameld 9y ago

Is a vertical row of buttons the dividing line between caring about appearance and not caring about appearance? Or can we say that as a society we decide what is acceptable to wear in public? If it's socially acceptable to wear shorts and a t shirt, and I wear nice, clean shorts and a t shirt, your conclusion is that I don't care about how I look? That's some serious mental gymnastics. You could reasonably say that I look like I have different clothing preferences.

ryanianian 9y ago
Downvoting because I think you took my comment in poor-faith. I didn't say wearing shorts means you don't care how you look - imho shorts look fine when it's customary. I said that wearing pants despite shorts being a possibility does show how much you care.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  So, as you said, shorts are customary in the US but not in Mexico.... how does that translate into less self-pride in the US? That is just a different custom of dress. Are you arguing that 'self-pride' is measured by how uncomfortable you make yourself? I don't follow the logic.
  - ryanianian 9y ago
    I'm probably bringing my own US biases in, but I think objectively that more comfortable => less pride in appearance. Not less pride overall just pride in appearance. (You're not a bad person because you only wear cargo shorts! You just don't value your appearance as much as somebody who always wears suits.) I'd love to learn of (and maybe live in) a culture that thinks elastic-waist sweatpants show a sense of pride rather than somebody who (for the moment) is choosing comfort over appearance.
    - xeromal 9y ago
      People are almost avoiding your point on purpose. Are they really that obtuse? Haha.

maerF0x0 9y ago

It's not "self pride" its a bucking of the trend of what "looks good" . It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits. Add in the marginal cost difference and I'd rather wear a tshirt. It's the market punishing the inefficiency of requiring your workers (or date) to dress in a certain manner when it adds no true value.

ryanianian 9y ago
> It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits. I think you prove my point (and it's not a bad thing!) Sociology is interesting. A suit is traditionally a sign of "I invest in my clothes and therefore I have self-pride." (It's also a sign that you don't have to do hard/dirty labor.) It seems culturally America has decided that this is out-dated and are choosing to focus less on clothes as a sign of pride. This doesn't the pride isn't there, just that the ways of showing and seeing it have changed for some or most. Some people will always think a tee-shirt or shorts look worse than a button-up and pants. It's a personal sentiment for sure.
- potta_coffee 9y ago
  My view of suits has always been, "I work in a profession that requires me to wear this symbolic clothing." I've avoided these kinds of careers because I want to be graded on my skill, not my ability to dress well. And suits are uncomfortable, and I like to be comfortable.
  - beokop 9y ago
    Yeah but when you think about it, you’re probably still working in an industry that frowns upon pajamas in the workplace. Just because it’s OK to not wear a suit doesn’t mean that people aren’t judging you.
  - saul_pako 9y ago
    As a native of Scandinavia I too have experienced the trend of people claiming their right to be judged on skill rather than background or appearance. Here however, it is often argued that the right to be judged on skill and compatibility, and therefor being able to dress to ones own preferences is earned only when you have proven to be a) greatly over-qualified and b) of a high enough age and/or c) with an ethnicity, gender or other background factors that conform with the existing idea of what a professional in the specific field looks and acts like.

tomc1985 9y ago

ITT: Silly foreigners that need to spend more time traveling. None of this should be revelatory. People are different, and 'dress well' is subjective. Personally I want to punch most of these supposedly 'well dressed' people. They all look the same to me.

ryanianian 9y ago
It's all subjective for sure. What I find interesting is that some cultures show a preference for clothes that are (imho) somewhat objectively less comfortable. Pants in humid climates. Suits at all. The history behind why things became the norm is interesting. This article shows how America is changing. This isn't a bad or good thing - it's just an interesting thing.
- viraptor 9y ago
  Some counters to the comfortable / looking good tradeoff - it's not that simple: - higher quality, tailored suits are much more comfortable than simple ones, (or even jeans really) and look slightly better - good kilts look great and are more comfortable to wear than any trousers - humid climates are usually sunny - it's sometimes easier to wear a really light long sleeve / trousers to keep the sun away from skin - very humid climates, like Singapore are so warm people just try to stay inside and almost every place has AC set to ~19°C, so either you're well dressed, or you're cold - look at some pictures of people in Melbourne - casual style there can look way better than suits

eitally 9y ago

This definitely isn't true in Brazil. Brazil is at least as casual as the US.

ryanianian 9y ago
That's interesting. Maybe even more-so (at least for me) since Brazil is a latin-american country but one with Portuguese roots as opposed to Spanish. I don't know if the different types of colonialism hundreds of years ago can really account for pants-vs-shorts but it's fun to play with the idea.