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posted by martyb on Friday May 26 2017, @02:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the optional-nerd-glasses dept.

Americans began the 20th century in bustles and bowler hats and ended it in velour sweatsuits and flannel shirts—the most radical shift in dress standards in human history. At the center of this sartorial revolution was business casual, a genre of dress that broke the last bastion of formality—office attire—to redefine the American wardrobe.

Born in Silicon Valley in the early 1980s, business casual consists of khaki pants, sensible shoes, and button-down collared shirts. By the time it was mainstream, in the 1990s, it flummoxed HR managers and employees alike. “Welcome to the confusing world of business casual,” declared a fashion writer for the Chicago Tribune in 1995. With time and some coaching, people caught on. Today, though, the term “business casual” is nearly obsolete for describing the clothing of a workforce that includes many who work from home in yoga pants, put on a clean T-shirt for a Skype meeting, and don’t always go into the office.

The life and impending death of business casual demonstrates broader shifts in American culture and business: Life is less formal; the concept of “going to the office” has fundamentally changed; American companies are now more results-oriented than process-oriented. The way this particular style of fashion originated and faded demonstrates that cultural change results from a tangle of seemingly disparate and ever-evolving sources: technology, consumerism, labor, geography, demographics. Better yet, cultural change can start almost anywhere and by almost anyone—scruffy computer programmers included.

The answer, apparently, is Nerds! NERDS!!


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  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Friday May 26 2017, @02:53PM (38 children)

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 26 2017, @02:53PM (#515976) Journal

    I really must get around to inventing it. And business bagpipes.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Geezer on Friday May 26 2017, @02:57PM (32 children)

    by Geezer (511) on Friday May 26 2017, @02:57PM (#515979)

    As long as they come with business whisky, I'm all for it.

    Introduce business haggis, and you'll be lunching alone. For. Ever.

    • (Score: 2) by turgid on Friday May 26 2017, @03:17PM (31 children)

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 26 2017, @03:17PM (#515989) Journal

      All the more haggis for me :-)

      • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday May 26 2017, @03:57PM (30 children)

        by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday May 26 2017, @03:57PM (#516002) Journal

        There is no more beautiful object in human creation, than the well-tailored suit.

        --
        You're betting on the pantomime horse...
        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:00PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:00PM (#516006)

          Too bad the business suit was invented by aliens called the Silence.

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:45PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:45PM (#516046)

            The Silence? What kind of a paranoid loony are you? That's just an old wives tale.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:12PM (#516010)

          Barney? Is that you?

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday May 26 2017, @04:21PM (23 children)

          by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday May 26 2017, @04:21PM (#516011) Journal

          There's ugliness in the irony which asserts that the pinnacle of personal autonomy is by contradiction, accompanied by assuming the lowest common denominator in dress.

          What you wear, how you present yourself, demonstrates the regard you hold for others, both their dignity and your own.

          To be casual about such matters is a decline in the sensibility that makes up the redeeming fabric of a society. A decline in this sensibility, related to one's own comfort and convenience is a turn towards selfish preference, with no concession to fellows. It is anti-social.

          I don't advocate slavish codes, divorced from inclusion and enforced by prejudice. However, the primacy of one's own personal, self and self-satisfaction in habits and attire indicate failure in a culture - one that no longer values mutuality. Worse than this, it is culturally normal to regard contempt for one another, as less distressing than minor, personal irritations. This is an ethic resembling the mode of the cancer cell, living to it's own ends in the greater organism. it is a suitable metaphor with which to describe our contemporary state, as an anxious and diseased social animal.

          --
          You're betting on the pantomime horse...
          • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 26 2017, @05:41PM

            by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday May 26 2017, @05:41PM (#516043)

            I think you are overinterpreting a bit?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:55PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:55PM (#516048)

            If I am reading this correctly, you are personally offended when someone isn't dressed in a suit?

            Really?

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:57PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:57PM (#516049)

            How does my clothing reflect on you?? If I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt, it has nothing to do with you or your "dignity." I don't even OWN any shirts other than t-shirts! Why would I want to wear some uncomfortable many-buttoned non-insulative flimsy shirt when I can wear a 5 dollar white tee and jeans that together cost less than that shirt and will give me 10X the use? Shirts=cheap plain t-shirts - 4-15$/p, jeans = Levi's or Girbaud 20-50$, shoes = anything that looks good and is full leather with quality construction and soles - 30 -150$. Fuck a suit, fuck a tie, fuck showing out for anyone else. If I'm gonna dress up, I'll dress how I want to, comfortably, in Robin's, True Religion, Coogi, wearing Nikes, with Cartier frames and a custom fitted hat, and guess what my outfit cost more than your suit, it's more comfortable and I feel good wearing it...

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @08:21PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @08:21PM (#516109)

              And you'll be just as ridiculous as a 70's disco pimp. Them Nikes got platforms, bro? Get down!

          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 26 2017, @06:24PM (9 children)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 26 2017, @06:24PM (#516067) Journal

            What you wear, how you present yourself, demonstrates the regard you hold for others, both their dignity and your own.

            What you wear, how you present yourself, can also demonstrate how you want to impress upon others how you are somehow better than they are. More important, etc.

            With enough examples I have learned to recognize that necktie screams I'M THE IDIOT!

            Where I started, in '82, it was suits and ties for software developers. (Called "programmers" at the time.) (That's nineteen eighty two) By '84 it was blue jeans and polo shirts. By '87 it was blue jeans and t-shirts. And everyone wore the same. Higher level people would wear a suit on days when they would meet with important people. But it was just fine for them to bring around people and introduce them to everyone else wearing jeans and t-shirts. It is like that to this day, but the important people, generally, don't wear jackets or neckties anymore.

            To be casual about such matters is a decline in the sensibility that makes up the redeeming fabric of a society. A decline in this sensibility, related to one's own comfort and convenience is a turn towards selfish preference, with no concession to fellows. It is anti-social.

            Welcome to where the nerds work. The people who actually make the things the rest of society seems to like to much.

            People that think this way are probably not the people who think about code or solving new types of problems.

            I don't optimize for appearance -- after all I don't have to look at myself.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @07:41PM (7 children)

              What you wear, how you present yourself, can also demonstrate how you want to impress upon others how you are somehow better than they are. More important, etc.

              I generally look at it from the opposite side. That dressing formally around you shows respect for *you*. If I think I'm better than you, why do I care what I wear around you? If I think I'm better than you, I don't care what you think. As such, dressing way down to be around you is a clear sign that I don't respect you.

              No offense meant, but someone being concerned about the quality of another person's dress as compared with your own strongly implies insecurity and a feeling of inferiority on the part of that person.

              I can imagine that some folks might dress more formally in an effort to make them feel better about themselves (whether at the expense of others or not), but that's also a signal of insecurity/feelings of inferiority to me. But it's your choice as to whether or not you're affected by that person's sartorial choices.

              --
              No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday May 26 2017, @08:19PM (2 children)

                by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 26 2017, @08:19PM (#516108) Journal

                We may just have a different POV on this. People who dress in a suit and tie, to me, signals that they are inferior and don't know it. It is a prejudice. A learned one. I don't feel inferior in the least. I am quite confident in the work I do and my ability to do it. I am also quite confident in the suit's inability to understand it. Fortunately, the people who once wore suits, generally don't.

                The suit says to me that this person lives in a whole different world and is out of touch with the world I live in.

                It may mean something different to you, but I think this POV is a small minority. Or, it is the suit's POV, from, as I said, a whole different world than the nerds live in.

                --
                People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
                • (Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @09:34PM (1 child)

                  It may mean something different to you, but I think this POV is a small minority. Or, it is the suit's POV, from, as I said, a whole different world than the nerds live in.

                  I'm not a "nerd" per se. I am a technologist and an engineer. I am a lover of science and technology and I (at least I do my best) modulate my beliefs views based on empirical evidence.

                  I don't subscribe to the idea that what you wear or what your job or hobbies may be defines you as a person. It certainly doesn't define me.

                  I'm just a human, with my own quirks and peccadilloes. I think that making broad generalizations about the quality of a person based upon external attributes, while a popular pastime, is an inferior mechanism for assessing others.

                  I don't immediately reject as "other" someone wearing a suit, nor do I do so for people wearing their baggy jeans around their knees. Just as I don't make assumptions about the quality or intentions of others based upon their skin color, language or place of birth.

                  In my mind, each individual is worthy of simple human respect, regardless of external indicators, unless and until they prove themselves to be unworthy of such respect.

                  That said, this is what I think and believe. I do no demand or expect this from others. Each individual needs to decide for themselves how to deal with others.

                  --
                  No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 30 2017, @03:58PM

                    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 30 2017, @03:58PM (#517705) Journal

                    I think I said somewhere here that my view of suits is a bias, a prejudice. Just the reverse of people who think nerds should wear suits, or even dress up. I optimize for comfort. I have specific goals (business goals) to accomplish.

                    --
                    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @11:34PM (2 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @11:34PM (#516192)

                So in other words, people who dress formally show their respect towards me by dressing up in a way that I find intimidating and unnatural. Gee.. thanks, I guess?

                • (Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Saturday May 27 2017, @01:33AM (1 child)

                  So in other words, people who dress formally show their respect towards me by dressing up in a way that I find intimidating and unnatural. Gee.. thanks, I guess?

                  Perhaps that says more about you than it does about other people, regardless of their apparel?

                  --
                  No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @01:14PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @01:14PM (#517118)

                    Perhaps but perhaps I'm not alone there. Perhaps there's a reason why people started dressing casually at work.

              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 27 2017, @03:30AM

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday May 27 2017, @03:30AM (#516279)

                In my experience, it has mostly to do with tradition and background.

                "The suits" do it, because they always have. It's what their superiors did/do, and it's what their superiors expect them to do around them. The basic message is: if you want to move up the chain, dress like the people above you. And, like turtles all the way down, it used to be suits all the way up.

                There are exceptions everywhere, and I definitely have been in a room where "dressing down" was a power play by the man at the top - he didn't wear ties, and his staff made sure to tell even visitors to not go "suit" around him - in this way he put lots of people out of their comfort zone by wearing jeans and plain shirts.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @07:57PM

              Where I started, in '82, it was suits and ties for software developers. (Called "programmers" at the time.) (That's nineteen eighty two) By '84 it was blue jeans and polo shirts. By '87 it was blue jeans and t-shirts. And everyone wore the same. Higher level people would wear a suit on days when they would meet with important people. But it was just fine for them to bring around people and introduce them to everyone else wearing jeans and t-shirts. It is like that to this day, but the important people, generally, don't wear jackets or neckties anymore.

              Your thoughts remind me about going to a Windows vs. OS/2 "shoot out" in 1994 or so where IT folks from a bunch of large financial institutions were invited to see presentations from both IBM and Microsoft about their new (Windows NT and OS/2 Warp) offerings.

              I (and the colleagues who attended with me) were amused to see that while the Microsoft presentation team donned dark suits and strove to be serious (which is, presumably, how they imagined their audience), the IBM presentation team was in jeans, polos and t-shirts and tried to be "exciting" and dynamic during their presentation.

              At the time, we thought it interesting that both Microsoft and IBM were trying to turn perceptions about them (Microsoft as the young, "hip" upstart, and IBM as the staid, venerable "blue-chip" companies) on their heads, as in each case they thought it might improve their standing with the audience.

              We didn't care about any of that. We were interested in the technology. But it was quite amusing to watch.

              --
              No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 26 2017, @06:43PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 26 2017, @06:43PM (#516074) Journal

            There's ugliness in the irony which asserts that the pinnacle of personal autonomy is by contradiction, accompanied by assuming the lowest common denominator in dress.

            I guess that's another example where beauty is uglier than ugliness. And let us note the LCD in dress is pretty comfortable and convenient to prepare. That scores big points with me.

            To be casual about such matters is a decline in the sensibility that makes up the redeeming fabric of a society. A decline in this sensibility, related to one's own comfort and convenience is a turn towards selfish preference, with no concession to fellows. It is anti-social.

            A decline which you'd be wise to embrace as you feel comfortable doing. As to the ridiculous claim of good clothes being "anti-social", let us look at an actual suit [wikipedia.org]. This has its own anti-social aspects. They look pretty, but they are useless for so many communal business activities like, for example, manual labor. Those useless flapping bits will catch on machinery and sharps. The tie in particular is a strangling hazard. The suit is way too stuffy for hot working environments. And you're one slip or spill from hundreds of dollars in cleaning bills even in the best of environments, much less the world most of us live in. In a business environment, it is a billboard stating that you don't do grungy work. That's pretty anti-social right there.

            I get that they have a useful social role as customer-facing uniform. Most parties expect to see sales people or executives in uniform (and sometimes dressing above expectations in such situations can be advantageous). It expedites business activities to have people dressed to expectation in a business suit, just like it does a fast food worker in their uniform.

            Another problem is that such clothes are relatively uncomfortable. A properly tailored suit can be good enough to be mostly unnoticeable, but it's never going to beat a decent open collar shirt and loose pants.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Friday May 26 2017, @06:55PM (4 children)

            by meustrus (4961) on Friday May 26 2017, @06:55PM (#516082)

            While the result seems to be what you say - a decline in the value of mutuality - I don't think that was the driving goal behind business casual. It's not that people didn't like conforming to the office. It's that people didn't like confirming to the same boring, elitist style as everyone else, undemocratically.

            There is a new (informal) dress code in some workplaces. It's the hipster look. And while I'm sure not everybody pressured to dress like a hipster really wants to, it's closer to the desires of the people in those particular workplaces. It expresses a part of themselves. More importantly, it expresses the part of themselves that they share with the company vision.

            So what about that old suit? To me it means old white men, especially in non-technical jobs like accounting, sales, or management. This of course leaves out most of the people that have moved to "business casual": engineers and the socially progressive. It's not that they don't want mutuality within their own group. It's that they don't want mutuality with a fundamentally different sort of person than themselves, with only the individual and not the collective making sacrifices.

            --
            If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
            • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @08:05PM (1 child)

              While the result seems to be what you say - a decline in the value of mutuality - I don't think that was the driving goal behind business casual. It's not that people didn't like conforming to the office. It's that people didn't like confirming to the same boring, elitist style as everyone else, undemocratically.

              There is a new (informal) dress code in some workplaces. It's the hipster look. And while I'm sure not everybody pressured to dress like a hipster really wants to, it's closer to the desires of the people in those particular workplaces. It expresses a part of themselves. More importantly, it expresses the part of themselves that they share with the company vision.

              So what about that old suit? To me it means old white men, especially in non-technical jobs like accounting, sales, or management. This of course leaves out most of the people that have moved to "business casual": engineers and the socially progressive. It's not that they don't want mutuality within their own group. It's that they don't want mutuality with a fundamentally different sort of person than themselves, with only the individual and not the collective making sacrifices.

              Not everything has political and generational animosities at their heart. Culture is culture. I never felt that wearing a suit or jeans made a political or social statement. It was just what was appropriate for the situation.

              I attended a memorial service for my mother's husband last year and I wore a suit. Does that make me a tool of "old white men"? I think not. It was an expression of respect for the deceased and my mother.

              Another family member is getting married this summer. I will be wearing a suit for that as well. Does that make me bigoted or insensitive to others? I love my niece and I will do whatever I can to show her that love, and my desire for her continued happiness and a good life in whatever ways I can. Including dressing formally for an important event in her life.

              If that leads you to conclude that I am bigoted or am "the man trying to keep you down." or some other such thing, more power to you. But your "argument," such as it is, is unpersuasive to me.

              --
              No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
              • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday May 30 2017, @05:26PM

                by meustrus (4961) on Tuesday May 30 2017, @05:26PM (#517778)

                I never meant to say that wearing a suit makes you an old white bigot. I don't associate it with intolerance either - the "socially progressive" comment is about being inviting to people that don't want to wear a suit and nothing more.

                But if it is your intent to show respect, it matters a lot to whom you are showing respect. Some people won't feel respected if you show up in a suit; they may feel patronized or intimidated, especially if they tend to dress casually and suits belong to outsiders.

                --
                If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday May 26 2017, @10:12PM (1 child)

              by sjames (2882) on Friday May 26 2017, @10:12PM (#516160) Journal

              A big part of it is simple practicality. Unless it is a quite expensive tailored suit, it will be restrictive, hot, and uncomfortable. You certainly won't want to do any physical labor in one, not even moving boxes around in an office. It has it's origins in a day when it was very defiantly meant to be a social signal that you have plenty of money and that you're too good for any sort of manual labor. The off the rack suit was simply a way to at least appear to dress above your station (at the cost of a great deal of discomfort). In a real sense, it's a deception made of cloth.

              Soon, it was used as a way to (probably wrongly) project trustworthiness as well. More or less "I have way too much money to bother with cheating you". Of course, that died with the shiny panted used car salesman.

              Basically, the business suit is no different than the concept of wearing a peacock feather in your hair or tying an onion to your belt.

              • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday May 26 2017, @11:52PM

                by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday May 26 2017, @11:52PM (#516200) Journal

                Same as my view of the suit. Unfit for physical labor of any sort. A lie made of cloth. They're tailored to make a person look more physically fit, which is a bit ironic. I mean, shoulder pads, really? The clean lines hide all kinds of uglinesses. They also happen to hide fitness, and I wonder if old men insist young men wear suits primarily for that reason. Then there's the necktie, which serves zero practical purpose.

                I find it amusing that one person who always, always wears a suit is the accused at a trial, and sad to say, it probably does sway the jury at least a little.

          • (Score: 2, Disagree) by c0lo on Friday May 26 2017, @11:59PM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 26 2017, @11:59PM (#516202) Journal

            What you wear, how you present yourself, demonstrates the regard you hold for others, both their dignity and your own.

            On the contrary, it doesn't.

            It only shows one more willing to spend time and money on appearance than on the actual/real problems one needs to deal.
            It shows a person probably inclined to vanity, a person who likes personal rewards, the like going into "business lunches/dinners"; the pinnacle of it: fast cars, fancy food, expensive drinks and an 18 holes golf course telling everybody "we can waste money and time and will still be successful. Match that, paisano".

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:21AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:21AM (#516212)

            The pinnacle of personal autonomy is rejecting conformism, yes. I fail to see the inherent individualism in making my choices in order to appeal to your subjective sensibilities. Methinks someone is throwing around buzzwords with no regards for the logical structure of their arguments. You'd make a great feminist.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:31AM

            by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:31AM (#516216) Journal

            Poe's Law

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:44PM (#516020)

          Which more and more americans can't afford to buy due to sinking wages (via inflation).

        • (Score: 2) by turgid on Friday May 26 2017, @06:40PM (1 child)

          by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 26 2017, @06:40PM (#516072) Journal

          There is no more beautiful object in human creation, than the well-tailored suit.

          Haven't you seen the Forth Bridge [wikipedia.org]? This one wasn't invented by Chuck Moore [wikipedia.org].

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @03:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @03:57PM (#516003)

    business bagpipes

    You're on to something here. What if bagpipes contain an array of sensors in the pipes to record where you are and what you're doing and what's happening around you. What if status updates are posted to multiple social media platforms every time you squeeze the bag.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 26 2017, @11:12PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday May 26 2017, @11:12PM (#516183) Journal

      Like twitter shoes? "just put down left feet", "just put down right feet", Think of the amazingly active twittictivity!

  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 26 2017, @04:34PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday May 26 2017, @04:34PM (#516017)

    Well they already have UtiliKilts [utilikilts.com] in the Seattle area.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:59PM (#516051)

    Business Shorts. If you wear them *that* short, you can only mean *business* !

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:47AM (#516221)

    There's a couple guys where I work (out of less than 300 people) who regularly wear kilts to work.

    That said, result oriented rather than process oriented? The authors of the piece must not be familiar with Scrum.