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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: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday May 26 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday May 26 2017, @04:11PM (#516009) Journal

    I could be completely wrong here, but I think one reason men say formal clothing is so uncomfortable is because it's ill-fitting

    I think a lot of the difference is due to quality. A cheaply made t-shirt (even a poorly fitting one) is pretty comfortable. A decent shirt is more comfortable, but a poor-quality shirt is horrible to wear.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday May 26 2017, @04:30PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday May 26 2017, @04:30PM (#516015)

    This again just shows how men's formal clothes are utterly obsolete. Why bother with something where you have to spend a lot of money for something comfortable, when you can easily buy a cheaply made cotton t-shirt and it's very comfortable? Clearly, the materials and styles used in formal wear are simply obsolete and archaic, and have been surpassed by more modern alternatives.