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Bright colors used to be a sign of quality, everything expensive had tons of colors. Industrial revolution changed that, now bright colors are associated with c

Bright colors used to be a sign of quality, everything expensive had tons of colors. Industrial revolution changed that, now bright colors are associated with cheap toys instead because they are used to cover deficiencies in the production process. So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.

BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
I wonder how much of it had to do with the rise in pollution due to coal dust and soot?
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Mid to late 1700s was well before widespread industrialization.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
    I had an off by one moment while reading the article. I read 18th century as the 1800’s.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    It's before widespread use of _steam power_ (that was around 1800), but the First Industrial Revolution started in the mid-18th century, and you'd already be seeing dramatic expansion of population, the economy, iron smelting, etc. The air in London or Paris would definitely have been getting noticeably worse at that point. (At some point, popular culture seems to have decided that the Industrial Revolution was personally invented by Queen Victoria or something, and it gets moved about 50 years later, but in reality by the late 18th century it was well underway).
MichaelZuo 3y ago
Long distance travel also became much more common for wealthy young men during this time period, so the shear impracticality of the style likely prevented a large portion of them from wearing it, even if they preferred the style, for long stretches of time. This was well before the invention of rip-proof or stain-proof fabrics. Also the royal courts of Europe started becoming much less active, as the professional bureaucracy started forming which took care of routine decision making. So the young noble man just back from his travels would have had far less opportunity to show off in formal settings to boot.
kixiQu 3y ago
This is a kind of theory that would apply equally to social signaling for both men and women. The linked article is talking about how there was an interesting phenomenon shifting men's clothing, but not women's.
- Jensson 3y ago
  All you need is that men didn't change, men had the same things in mind when choosing clothes hundreds of years ago as today. We see toady most men chooses clothes based on quality and utility. Why do you think men didn't do it back then? The main thing that changed was that back then high quality clothes were gaudy and colored, now they aren't.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    > quality and utility Quality, perhaps. Utility ? I don't know. Has a dress shirt more utility than a t-shirt, or a business suit more utility than a knitted cardigan ? I think men still primarily aiming at looks and there's a lot of thoughts in the details, but not in the flamboyant and ultra expressive direction. I'd argue a lot of attention is paid to express restrain and non gay (in both the traditional and modern meaning) in so many ways, even at the cost of utility and comfort.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Men seems to care about uniforms, I think that is the primary way men care about looks. The name "uniform" explains why all suits looks the same, its because they are a uniform. Women doesn't seem to want uniforms, they want to look different from each other, so you see a wide range of dress styles for women.
      - rsynnott 3y ago
        > Men seems to care about uniforms, I think that is the primary way men care about looks. The name "uniform" explains why all suits looks the same, its because they are a uniform. But most men don't wear suits anymore, or any sort of uniform. You seem to be trying to read this as something _innate_, but it is clearly fashion.
dehrmann 3y ago
It's probably not cheap toys as much as the rise of synthetic dyes generally meant color was no longer a mark of cost. The denim community still likes indigo because it fades, but that could just be signifier that it's authentic. It could also just be that color attracts attention. With birds, it's often the male that's more colorful. See peafowl.
ulizzle 3y ago
No, It’s not about that. This was a cultural reaction to the excesses and cruelty of the French ruling classes. And both men and women changed their styles, Im not sure why they don’t mention that. No one wanted to be mistaken by a jacobin and have a bomb thrown at your lap. Women stopped imitating Marie Antoinette way before she was beheaded in the pangs of birth of the reign of terror The obvious historical parallels are obvious because what generally happens is that chaos can only build up so much until the people rebel and kill everyone in power. That’s why the Egyptians mentioned “maat” (order) all the time, but there are some very good movies on this time period even on netflix
- Jensson 3y ago
  Then this would be isolated to France and you would expect things to normalize as people forgot about the revolution. But things never "normalized", men still prefer to not wear bright colored clothes. > And both men and women changed their styles Maybe in France right after the revolution, but if I look at dresses today I see all that gaudiness in female dresses but not in male.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    Not really, at that time cultural norms and trends amongst western society spread from it's cultural center which was France - as it's today with USA. Whole world wears jeans.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ulizzle 3y ago
    It depends on the context. For example, fashion for men and women was all pretty wild in post-war America (imo, specifically during the 80s), but stayed pretty colorful throughout the 2000s, until this decade. Since the ruling classes have been hammering the message that men are useless it's a normal cultural reaction for men to become more manly. Women instead have been told that sex sells and it does, so that's their cultural reaction to the problems of today. At least for now; but as disorder keeps mounting, inflation rises, and so on, patience for the regimes falls, and more conservative fashions come back, which means the times for the ruling classes are frail and volatile.
nequo 3y ago
> So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things. Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.
- Aaargh20318 3y ago
  Isn’t women’s clothing notoriously low-quality due to the whole ‘fast fashion’ phenomenon?
  - jjeaff 3y ago
    I've never heard of fast fashion being attributed to just women's clothing. There are plenty of men's clothing options at stores like Zara and Uniqlo
    - KptMarchewa 3y ago
      And I wouldn't call Uniqlo "notoriously low-quality".
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      To chime on sister comment, Uniqlo has a sub-brand ("GU") for cheaper clothing. Fast fashion isn't women exclusive, but the fashion cycle is so much shorter for women that the very notion of fashion being "fast" almost only makes sense for them *. I actually wonder what fashion style a woman could get away with wearing for 10 years. It would probably need to be almost monotone, covering, and with little to no affordance. A white long straight skirt with a black or cream T shaped top ? * There will be a non negligeable number of men also caring about fashion and follow a shorter cycle, but that's far from the norm.
    - kbelder 3y ago
      Sure, but you're talking about a fraction of woman, and a tiny fraction of men. The effect size is not equivalent.
  - nequo 3y ago

BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago

I wonder how much of it had to do with the rise in pollution due to coal dust and soot?

MichaelZuo 3y ago
Mid to late 1700s was well before widespread industrialization.
- BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
  I had an off by one moment while reading the article. I read 18th century as the 1800’s.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  It's before widespread use of _steam power_ (that was around 1800), but the First Industrial Revolution started in the mid-18th century, and you'd already be seeing dramatic expansion of population, the economy, iron smelting, etc. The air in London or Paris would definitely have been getting noticeably worse at that point. (At some point, popular culture seems to have decided that the Industrial Revolution was personally invented by Queen Victoria or something, and it gets moved about 50 years later, but in reality by the late 18th century it was well underway).

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Long distance travel also became much more common for wealthy young men during this time period, so the shear impracticality of the style likely prevented a large portion of them from wearing it, even if they preferred the style, for long stretches of time. This was well before the invention of rip-proof or stain-proof fabrics. Also the royal courts of Europe started becoming much less active, as the professional bureaucracy started forming which took care of routine decision making. So the young noble man just back from his travels would have had far less opportunity to show off in formal settings to boot.

kixiQu 3y ago

This is a kind of theory that would apply equally to social signaling for both men and women. The linked article is talking about how there was an interesting phenomenon shifting men's clothing, but not women's.

Jensson 3y ago
All you need is that men didn't change, men had the same things in mind when choosing clothes hundreds of years ago as today. We see toady most men chooses clothes based on quality and utility. Why do you think men didn't do it back then? The main thing that changed was that back then high quality clothes were gaudy and colored, now they aren't.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  > quality and utility Quality, perhaps. Utility ? I don't know. Has a dress shirt more utility than a t-shirt, or a business suit more utility than a knitted cardigan ? I think men still primarily aiming at looks and there's a lot of thoughts in the details, but not in the flamboyant and ultra expressive direction. I'd argue a lot of attention is paid to express restrain and non gay (in both the traditional and modern meaning) in so many ways, even at the cost of utility and comfort.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Men seems to care about uniforms, I think that is the primary way men care about looks. The name "uniform" explains why all suits looks the same, its because they are a uniform. Women doesn't seem to want uniforms, they want to look different from each other, so you see a wide range of dress styles for women.
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      > Men seems to care about uniforms, I think that is the primary way men care about looks. The name "uniform" explains why all suits looks the same, its because they are a uniform. But most men don't wear suits anymore, or any sort of uniform. You seem to be trying to read this as something _innate_, but it is clearly fashion.

dehrmann 3y ago

It's probably not cheap toys as much as the rise of synthetic dyes generally meant color was no longer a mark of cost. The denim community still likes indigo because it fades, but that could just be signifier that it's authentic. It could also just be that color attracts attention. With birds, it's often the male that's more colorful. See peafowl.

ulizzle 3y ago

No, It’s not about that. This was a cultural reaction to the excesses and cruelty of the French ruling classes. And both men and women changed their styles, Im not sure why they don’t mention that. No one wanted to be mistaken by a jacobin and have a bomb thrown at your lap. Women stopped imitating Marie Antoinette way before she was beheaded in the pangs of birth of the reign of terror The obvious historical parallels are obvious because what generally happens is that chaos can only build up so much until the people rebel and kill everyone in power. That’s why the Egyptians mentioned “maat” (order) all the time, but there are some very good movies on this time period even on netflix

Jensson 3y ago
Then this would be isolated to France and you would expect things to normalize as people forgot about the revolution. But things never "normalized", men still prefer to not wear bright colored clothes. > And both men and women changed their styles Maybe in France right after the revolution, but if I look at dresses today I see all that gaudiness in female dresses but not in male.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  Not really, at that time cultural norms and trends amongst western society spread from it's cultural center which was France - as it's today with USA. Whole world wears jeans.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ulizzle 3y ago
  It depends on the context. For example, fashion for men and women was all pretty wild in post-war America (imo, specifically during the 80s), but stayed pretty colorful throughout the 2000s, until this decade. Since the ruling classes have been hammering the message that men are useless it's a normal cultural reaction for men to become more manly. Women instead have been told that sex sells and it does, so that's their cultural reaction to the problems of today. At least for now; but as disorder keeps mounting, inflation rises, and so on, patience for the regimes falls, and more conservative fashions come back, which means the times for the ruling classes are frail and volatile.

nequo 3y ago

> So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things. Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.

Aaargh20318 3y ago
Isn’t women’s clothing notoriously low-quality due to the whole ‘fast fashion’ phenomenon?
- jjeaff 3y ago
  I've never heard of fast fashion being attributed to just women's clothing. There are plenty of men's clothing options at stores like Zara and Uniqlo
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    And I wouldn't call Uniqlo "notoriously low-quality".
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    To chime on sister comment, Uniqlo has a sub-brand ("GU") for cheaper clothing. Fast fashion isn't women exclusive, but the fashion cycle is so much shorter for women that the very notion of fashion being "fast" almost only makes sense for them *. I actually wonder what fashion style a woman could get away with wearing for 10 years. It would probably need to be almost monotone, covering, and with little to no affordance. A white long straight skirt with a black or cream T shaped top ? * There will be a non negligeable number of men also caring about fashion and follow a shorter cycle, but that's far from the norm.
  - kbelder 3y ago
    Sure, but you're talking about a fraction of woman, and a tiny fraction of men. The effect size is not equivalent.
- nequo 3y ago