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