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Why did clothing become boring?
- littlestripes 2y ago> That’s because you, reader, are probably dressed much the same. Zara. Uniqlo. Nike. H&M. A cotton t-shirt from Amazon, a jacket drop-shipped from China that you found thanks to a targeted ad on Instagram. I sure don't dress like this and nor do any of my friends or family. I've only ever met one person I can recall with confidence who does. maybe I'm not the target audience, but I'm not really sure who is. Is this "style" really that common? Amongst whom? This article feels extremely reductive in its view of modern everyday fashion. Lots of people under the age of 25 are doing plenty of thoughtful, eclectic things with their wardrobes, that much I do know.
- nitwit005 2y ago> The nineteenth century was the century of interchangeable parts. And so it makes sense that clothing, too, became more interchangeable at this time. I don't think that follows. The weaving machines were advanced enough to print portraits: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/222531 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/222531 It would have been considerably more expensive to get something custom made, but it was still possible. They were certainly willing to pay considerable amounts for clothes prior to industrialism.
- makmanalp 2y agoYou might enjoy the excellent Articles of Interest podcast, an episode of which covers this exact phenomenon, but there are many other great episodes about similar subjects in clothing and fashion https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-interest-10/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-int...
- datadrivenangel 2y agoThe industrial revolution gave us clothing for cheaper, and much more importantly, gave us a lot of other more interesting things to spend our time and energy on!
- sph 2y agoSuch as more time in the office
- jdx9 2y agoWhich is a reasonable explanation in its own right. Before office-going was common, getting dressed up to display yourself in public was a special occasion. Even in the early days of offices people dressed in fairly elaborate dress. But when you're doing the same thing day in, day out, the novelty of putting yourself on display wears off.
- snowwrestler 2y agoLike creating or buying virtual outfits for our video game characters!
- quantadev 2y agoIn modern times clothing became boring precisely when Mark Zukerberg first revealed video of his walk-in closet having nothing but racks of identical gray T-shirts in it. Legend has it that from that day forward no striped or colored shirts have ever been seen in Silicon Valley. Then all socks went from white to black, oddly enough. The other clothing tragedy that happened around the same time-frame was that someone in Hollywood declared Fanny Packs to be out of style right when tight jeans came into being. This was a true tragedy for the hipsters, because fitting large phones into yoga-fit tight jeans would've been something even Harry Houdini would scoff at. I've worn Levis 501s and used a Fanny Pack forever, and I never plan to stop. Don't get me started on grown-azz men wearing bead or string bracelets. Nothing is more cringe than that, except for maybe flip-flops on men, but don't get me started.
- normie3000 2y ago> Nothing is more cringe than that, except for maybe flip-flops on men, but don't get me started. Are other sandals acceptable?
- saaaaaam 2y agoI think there are a couple of important things missing from this article. One is that until relatively recently clothing served a very different function to that of today. In Europe, in our grandparents’ or even parents’ childhoods - as late even as the 1970s - housing and transport was very different to how it is now. Clothing was largely purpose-specific; people had far fewer clothes than today but those clothes had more specific purposes. For men that mean different weights of woollen suits for spring and autumn versus winter, and linen suits for summer. Houses weren’t so well insulated or heated so you dressed to stay warm. With cars less common, you dressed for the outdoors. Hats weren’t fashion statements: they were to help keep you dry and warm. Go back 100+ years and roads were much worse, people travelled by horse. Capes, gloves, boots: things like this were all a defence against mud and rain and weather. If you were riding a horse you needed something like a cape with a high collar to stop your back and face getting splattered with mud thrown up by the horse’s hooves. But more importantly, at the wealthy end of society, dressing was an indication of status and leisure. The clothes in the first picture are clearly somewhat impractical, but that doesn’t matter if your only task for the day is to sit and talk or stroll gently. If you have a team of people to dress you and look after your clothing you can wear impractical layers of clothing that seem ridiculous today. Those layers were still designed to serve a purpose - largely keeping warm - but the application and design of that purpose became exaggerated as purpose took a subsidiary role to status. Many countries also had “sumptuary laws” which forbid lower classes of people from using certain fabrics or colours or dressing in particular ways. This meant that clothing for the higher classes was an articulation of power and status: in the 17th century you could tell instantly from someone’s style of dress whether they were a peasant, farmer, merchant, or aristocrat. That articulation of status - for the highest classes - meant that clothing was designed to show off the elements of dress that were reserved to that class of people.
- jszymborski 2y ago> Hats weren’t fashion statements: they were to help keep you dry and warm. And my understand I'd they also kept you safe. While a bowler hat may seem posh now, I believe it was a working class hat which was favored for its hard-hat like properties.
- dimitar 2y ago
- aaron695 2y agoOne story for me was the way the medical establishment and the Left attacked people wearing any kind of masks early in Covid as unscientific and conspiracy nuts. I wore one anyway and it was really hard to look different, to not conform, people treated you a little different. Which is funny because Asians were wearing masks locally and people accepted that. I'm happy to wear my 'chemtrail are death' t-shirt, so it wasn't the politics Any the title is wrong "Why did clothing become boring?" it's why isn't it more intricate in the West. A lot of women will spend time on make-up in the West, why not clothing?
- herbst 2y agoThe most boring is how black people tend to cloth, especially now where it gets cold black is the dominant colour on anyone. It's likely just me but my eyes don't render black clothes people very well.
- iammjm 2y agoWhy did clothes ever become NOT boring in the first place? Clothes are above all something that warms/protects/hides us from the world. Aesthetic contemplations are really just an afterthought. Also, "fashion" is one of the stupidest things ever, like oh hey, you should now replace your perfectly good clothes every season because someone says so??
- space_oddity 2y agoIt’s wild to think about how something so simple - just a way to shield ourselves from the elements - has become this huge cultural phenomenon
- makeitdouble 2y agoYour argument could be read as beauty not mattering. For a different POV, countless animals will risk their life to look fabulous/make themselves stand from the pack to leave a legacy. Arguably fashion could be one of the most important thing to people. PS: on a side note, even in technical circles where we could expect more detachment from appearances in general, a lot of comment will revolve around "X looks dumb". As in "I'd look dumb taking a photo with an iPad" or "who would wear VR googles around people and look like an idiot". People are social animals, and they care about how they look.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoHowever, we should use our intelligence to find ways to curb the extent to which clothing has become an obsession, becaue the clothing industry is unsustainable and creates enormous amounts of waste and pollution. With our big brains, surely we can find ways to differetiate and display our styles without so much waste? Or perhaps we should just go back to trying to make AI think like us...
- snowwrestler 2y agoPicking clothes that make us look good, and frequently replacing our clothes, are really two quite different things. You don’t have to do the latter to achieve the former.
- space_oddity 2y agoFashion is more than just an aesthetic - it's tied to history, labor, economics, and identity
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- com2kid 2y ago> You get the idea. From São Paulo to Riga to Seoul, people in the 2020s pretty much dress the same way. This is incorrect. Even within the US there are differences between cities, people in Miami dress differently than people in Seattle. People in Tokyo dress different than in LA, and people in London dress differently than in Mexico City. Is there a rich tapestry of local clothes? Well, no, but people also don't dress the same by any means. There is a lot of homogenization for sure, but people who travel a lot and pay even a little bit of attention can easily spot the differences between cities.
- autoexec 2y agoWe can only expect so much from the children in sweatshops making our clothing. When you replace skilled craftsmen and guilds with children and slaves you should expect products to be less fancy.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Isamu 2y agoFirst off the historical record in clothing is dominated by the wealthy, and in particular the notable clothing of wealthy. You would need to compare this to haute couture of the present. Now examples are dominated by average people, wearing inexpensive fashion that is mass produced.
- dhosek 2y agoWhat I find interesting is that where traditional clothing has managed to maintain some sort of foothold, it’s almost invariably in women’s clothing. This is largely a superficial observation and is likely becoming increasingly false as time goes on and is based almost entirely on media representations, but I think someone more skilled and knowledgeable than me could find the boundaries of this observation against reality.
- ghaff 2y agoFormal-wear for men is a pretty rare thing (and usually rented) outside of certain limited circles. Ties/jackets/suits are more common although there's been a big transition over the past few decades from them being the norm at a lot of industry events or even day-to-day office wear in a lot of roles. I still remember when the IBM booth staff showed up at one of the big shows wearing IBM logo polos. Every one else was sort of welp, if IBM can dump the suits I guess we can too.
- dhosek 2y agoWhen I first started working, I wore a necktie to work Monday through Thursday and would never think of showing up to an interview not wearing a suit, and since then wearing a suit to an interview has become somewhat frowned upon and other than a brief flirtation with “necktie Tuesday,” I can’t remember the last time I wore a tie to work. It’s a pity because I look damn good in a suit.
- ghaff 2y agoWhen I first started working, ties in the office but not working on-(work)-site. After grad school, suits were pretty common in product management/marketing/etc. and ties at least pretty common in general. When I came in to talk to some people I mostly knew for my last job ~15 years ago, I did wear a tie and jacket and a couple people joked a bit but I knew them and they had been around long enough to know I just wasn't taking anything for granted.
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- shellfishgene 2y agoI find it weird that he shows those immigrant clothes at end the as an expression of individuality. If you were to go back to the origin towns of those immigrants, almost everyone would wear the same thing! It's the same with all traditional clothes, they are quite close to uniforms. They show the exact opposite of individuality, they show membership of a certain group. And taking too many liberties with that outfit would be frowned upon in the community.
- karaterobot 2y agoI bet you'd find a lot more variety in a random sample of 100 people today than you would in, say, the 17th century. I think the way he's framing this is weird. He's comparing drawings of aristocratic costumes that were notable enough to archive for posterity, as well as pictures of people's ceremonial garb (and best going-to-meeting clothes) with an unevidenced claim that people today all dress alike (do they?). To make an apples-to-apples comparison, compare those historical clothes with NY Fashion Week, or Cosplayers. Or, compare the surviving wool trousers and tunics of a medieval peasant with a picture of what people today are wearing in the average subway car or grocery store.
- bluGill 2y agoRandom sample of where? The world or a single random hamlet?
- teractiveodular 2y agoThis. Also, the "brother and sister in Sweden" appear to Sámi wearing ceremonial gákti, not everyday wear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A1kti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A1kti
- harimau777 2y agoI think that the difference might be that today's aristocratic costumes and ceremonial garb is largely boring. In both cases they are largely just suits or cocktail dresses. Even the more unique ceremonial garb that does exist (e.g. robes in high church congregations and academic robes) are worn very infrequently today.
- neom 2y agoThere is cool stuff out there, just not cheap. Few of my favs: https://craig-green.com/ https://craig-green.com/ https://couture.balenciaga.com/ https://couture.balenciaga.com/ https://isseymiyake.com https://isseymiyake.com https://www.jilsander.com/en-us/men/ready-to-wear/view-all-rtw https://www.jilsander.com/en-us/men/ready-to-wear/view-all-r... https://www.rickowens.eu/en/US/t/designers/drkshdw https://www.rickowens.eu/en/US/t/designers/drkshdw https://www.comme-des-garcons.com/junyawatanabe.html https://www.comme-des-garcons.com/junyawatanabe.html