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: 2) by turgid on Friday May 26 2017, @02:53PM (38 children)
I really must get around to inventing it. And business bagpipes.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by Geezer on Friday May 26 2017, @02:57PM (32 children)
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)
All the more haggis for me :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday May 26 2017, @03:57PM (30 children)
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)
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
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
Barney? Is that you?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday May 26 2017, @04:21PM (23 children)
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
I think you are overinterpreting a bit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:55PM
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)
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
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)
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.
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.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @07:41PM (7 children)
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)
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.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @09:34PM (1 child)
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
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.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @11:34PM (2 children)
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)
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
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
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
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
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.
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)
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.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by c0lo on Friday May 26 2017, @11:59PM
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
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
Poe's Law
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:44PM
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)
Haven't you seen the Forth Bridge [wikipedia.org]? This one wasn't invented by Chuck Moore [wikipedia.org].
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday May 26 2017, @07:58PM
Yeah, the Firth does have it's engineering contender to Brummel's neck-cloth. I'll gi' ye that.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @03:57PM (1 child)
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
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
Well they already have UtiliKilts [utilikilts.com] in the Seattle area.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @05:59PM
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
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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Friday May 26 2017, @02:54PM (16 children)
Why workers now dress so casually? Cause they won't do a better job if forced to wear a suit and tie. So they might as well wear what they find comfortable, down to some kind of minimum standard, hence Business Casual.
If you work from home what you wear won't even matter. You could work in the nude if you worked from home and nobody would know (or it could turn into a lucrative side business ...) . Think about that next time there is a meeting and someone presents the powerpoint slides they made at home last night, they become a lot more interesting then.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Friday May 26 2017, @03:32PM (15 children)
Actually yes. As a developer my job requires very very intense focus at times. I realized awhile ago that to get the most done I have to ensure all of my body's basic needs are satisfied, and that there is nothing distracting me, such as even mild discomfort. I think that is the underlying reason why lot of developers devolve into neck-beards. I will always shave, but sometimes if I get razor burn and it is discomforting, it interferes with work. Hunger, even mild one, can also interfere. So I can see some developers happily stuffing their faces with snacks all day.
When you body feels no physical exertion, it is hard to ignore even the mildest of irritations.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday May 26 2017, @04:02PM (14 children)
I completely understand that attitude, though here's where I disagree: dress clothes (particularly men's dress clothes) don't ALWAYS have to be uncomfortable. I actually find them more comfortable in many situations unless I'm doing something physically strenuous. (Obviously when it's hot, that's also a problem if you're wearing a suit jacket or whatever, but that shouldn't generally be an issue in a climate-controlled office.) For example: denim is a harsh material, but people like to wear jeans as "casual" clothing all the time. But its benefit historically was its durability, which made it the choice of farmers, laborers, etc. Give me a nice pair of wool trousers, which "breathe" better and feel much nicer on the skin -- why would I want jeans?
I could be completely wrong here, but I think one reason men say formal clothing is so uncomfortable is because it's ill-fitting. Few people go to tailors anymore (even just to have something bought off the rack fixed a bit). And for men who avoid "dressing up" regularly, putting on the dress shirt with tie is frequently an exercise in noticing how much your neck grew as you put on a few pounds from when you bought the shirt 5 years ago. Same thing with suit jackets or pants or whatever. If your collar is "choking" you or you can barely button your pants or your jacket is constraining you from crossing your arms properly, maybe it's not that the clothing style is uncomfortable -- you just need to buy clothes that fit you.
Or you just go with the baggy jeans or cargo pants and the baggy shirt, and problem is solved.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday May 26 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
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.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday May 26 2017, @04:30PM
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.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday May 26 2017, @04:28PM (6 children)
I hear this crap about "buying clothes that fit you" and getting your clothes custom-tailored every time these discussions about suits arise. There's a couple of problems with this:
1) I'm not a billionaire, so I don't have money to hire someone to make custom-fit clothes for me. If I can't buy it off the rack and wear it as-is, then I'm not going to get it, it's as simple as that. If you want me to try custom-tailored clothing, you're welcome to send me a big wad of cash for that. This is just like telling someone who thinks car seats are uncomfortable that they just need to buy a Rolls-Royce.
2) I don't seem to have this ill-fitting problem with casual clothes, and I don't have to resort to baggy fitting stuff either. My shirts (both collared polo shirts for work and uncollared shirts for more casual wear) fit me just fine, and my jeans fit me just fine too. With jeans, there's a huge array of sizes available, which does make it a little challenging to find the right size in a store, but online ordering is a lot easier once you've found the size that fits you well. They're not a perfect fit of course, especially in the waist, but that's what belts are for, and tailored pants require a belt too.
I think the bottom line is that men's formal clothes are archaic hold-overs from the 1800s, and have been superseded technologically and stylistically by more modern clothing. They're made of poor-performing materials that require far too much maintenance and are not durable at all, unlike newer materials, so there's just no good reason to wear them unless you're doing a historical re-enactment or period dress festival or something like that. And the style decisions make no sense: you mention collars "choking" people, but that's a real thing. Why would you design a shirt so that the collar fastens over your throat at all? It's stupid. There's no reason for it at all, except pure stupidity. The throat is a sensitive place on most peoples' bodies, and many people can't stand any pressure on it at all, so why on earth would you design a shirt that intentionally places pressure--even the slightest amount--on that spot? My polo shirts have collars and they manage to stay well clear of my throat. And what's with those stupid buttons on the sleeves anyway? Idiotic adornments for no real purpose.
And back to materials and maintenance: those stupid suits all need to be dry-cleaned. WhyTF would I buy something that's so expensive to just have cleaned, and requires such extraordinary measures, when I can just wear a cotton shirt and maybe a polyester jacket if it's cold, and toss them in the washing machine like everything else? If you want to go to extraordinary lengths with your everyday clothing because you like it so much, go right ahead, but asking other people to jump through all these hoops is asinine.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday May 26 2017, @04:44PM (1 child)
Did I ask anyone to jump through any hoops? I have no problem with anyone wearing whatever they want. And I completely agree with you about the convenience aspects. I was speaking only to the discomfort expressed in the prior post.
As for myself, I personally don't wear shirt collars that "press" on my throat even when buttoned. The older style detached collar shirts actually didn't press AT all, because the shirts themselves typically had a sort of "crew neck" and the stiff collars would be clasped around them, often leaving a bit of a gap between neck and collar. Attached collared shirts just need to be chosen with the right neck size. As for fit, one doesn't have to have custom tailored clothing to make it comfortable. One can just buy baggier dress clothing. It may not look quite as nice, but you don't have to pay a mint for it. My point was mostly that people who don't "dress up" often frequently have closets full of stuff that doesn't really fit them anymore.
Buttons on sleeves date from a time when "stretchy" materials didn't exist (well, the ones that did wouldn't hold their shape), so if you wanted a sleeve that fit more closely to your arm, you needed a clasp. For cotton or linen shirts or whatever today, they're still helpful, not an "idiotic adornment for no real purpose." (Oh if you're talking about buttons on suit jackets -- I agree with you. They date from a time when jackets too used to sometimes be buttoned at the end of a sleeve, but now they're generally useless and ornamental.)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 26 2017, @05:16PM
Yeah, I was talking about the buttons on suit jackets there. But the buttons on long sleeve formal shirts suck too; we invented this stuff called "elastic" a long time ago that should have made those obsolete. My long-sleeve cotton casual shirts don't need buttons; I can easily push up the sleeves any time I want without fumbling with buttons.
As for the collar thing, different people have different neck sizes, so that's why formal shirts have so many different sizes (it multiples the compatibility matrix). With something like a polo shirt, this isn't necessary because the collar doesn't fit near the throat, by design, because there's simply no reason to cover the throat. That's my whole point: why complicate things with an unnecessary requirement that serves no valid purpose? So with polo shirts, you just need sizes S, M, L, XL, and maybe XXL XXXL etc. for the obese people and maybe some special sizes at the big-n-tall store, but the vast majority of people are covered with 4 sizes, all because they don't worry about the neck size by simply having a collar that doesn't cover the throat.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday May 26 2017, @04:51PM
Also, I'll agree with you that the reasons a lot of stuff exists in formal clothing is now obsolete. For example, people used to button their collars partly because they were in Europe and it was COLD. The neck is a sensitive area, but it's also an area where a lot of body heat can escape. Before the era of effective central heating, buttoned collars thus had a purpose (also the reason for multilayered suits, etc.). I agree they don't really have one anymore. And I wouldn't claim they're more comfortable, but for me, if they fit well, I don't notice them at all when working.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday May 26 2017, @06:59PM
I've heard that the reason for those sleeve buttons is to keep the footmen from wiping their noses on their sleeves. I'm so glad to wear a vestige of paternalism directed at the lower classes.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:15AM
It's an art to dodge the fashion sadists. (or perhaps terrorists?)
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:36AM
The business suit is a badge of status. It says "I'm wearing an expensive, fragile outfit because I don't have to do any real work. Suck it."
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday May 26 2017, @05:09PM
Fair enough, but "comfortable" is a matter of taste. I find jeans very comfortable, for example, but it may just be that I am used to them.
Maintenance is also a factor. I can wear jeans for 2-3 days, assuming I didn't dump my lunch on them, and they look fine. With dress pants, which I had to wear for a previous job, I had to press them every day*, because otherwise they looked wrinkled.
And cost. If you shop intelligently, you can get a good pair of jeans for $30 (Lands' End sale price, or similar), and you can wash them yourself. A good pair of woolen dress pants costs more, and has to be professionally cleaned. The costs add up over time.
*Hint, for anyone who has to do this: buy a pants-press like hotels use, and just put your pants in overnight. It's worth it.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 26 2017, @06:23PM
I would concur with that. A few jobs back I had to wear suits to work every day. It was a hassle to change out of my bike clothes to the suit (though I did have an office to change in). Once changed, the suits were really comfortable. If you buy suits made with good fabric, they can be more comfortable to wear than jeans and cotton t-shirts. Cheap suits, on the other hand, are ill-fitting, don't breathe, and chafe because the quality of the fabric is low.
All things being equal I'd still rather dress casually because I don't have to worry so much about stains and damage, and because it's less hassle to throw them in the washer than to take them to the cleaners every week. But suits don't have to be the iron maidens many perceive them to be.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday May 26 2017, @10:30PM
That is a lot of the problem. It is a style that MUST be tailored if it is to be comfortable. Some people can get by with off the rack if they are close enough to average in all dimensions, but others will never be comfortable or even able to move freely with something off the rack.
More casual styles are far more forgiving and so work OK off the rack.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:27AM
Cotton denim breath as good as wool. Speaking personally, I don't mind the feel of jeans on the skin (particularly after I wear them into the 3rd-4th week - grin).
Why want jeans? Time/resources you need for maintenance - wool cloth is finicky in this regards.
Jeans - throw them in the washing machine in one load, all 5 of them (the 6th is the one you wear), get them on the cloth line to dry, no need to iron them - and that's that for another 2 months. Try that with wool trousers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 27 2017, @03:27PM
Let's not forget total cost of wearership... Blue jeans and T-shirts get tossed in the machines occasionally and are ready to wear. Wool slacks, pressed shirts, polished shoes all require significant maintenance to wear to work - this is time out of life, whether you subtract it from your "working" or "personal" hours, it is time out of life - more precious than whatever the monetary difference is.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Friday May 26 2017, @03:05PM (3 children)
And that's how it should be.
My ability to find thousands of defects in my employer's web sites has no correlation with what type of material I use to cover my skin, protecting myself from the insanely over-cooled offices.
Consider yourself damn lucky I wear anything at all.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @03:20PM
I used to work for a once mighty Californian company whose dress code was "You must wear clothes." Apparently some customers came in one day and were offended when they saw a bunch of engineers in the nude sitting in a hot tub in the office.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:19AM
There was one place were we had the saying. The longer the necktie, the less knowledge..
It might be suspected that it's because people that spend attention to clothes will by necessity spend less on other (technical) things. And it's usually the managerial or sales type of mind that are into surface without substance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:43AM
Is it just me? Long ago (before high school), I started to equate wearing a tie with putting a noose around my neck. Or in other words, getting myself all prepared to be hung, perhaps by an upperclass bully. Not a pleasant thought, and I've done my best to avoid ties since then (late 1960s).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dale on Friday May 26 2017, @03:58PM (1 child)
The dress code at my employer over the last 15 years has changed radically. We used to have to wear shirt & tie three days a week, business casual thursday, and jeans/polo on Friday. Now it is just jeans & business casual 5 days a week with only shorts and t-shirts not allowed. The driving factor on that was actually morale/economics. During the downturn our industry was hit extremely hard (construction related). No one was getting a raise or anything else, over half the company had gotten laid off, etc. Giving a better dress code was something that could make us feel better without costing anything.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday May 26 2017, @04:31PM
And since most guys, especially tech-minded guys, don't like to shop for their own clothes, it's a burden removed.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday May 26 2017, @05:15PM (2 children)
Effort. Upkeep. Cost. Status shifts.
(1) Cost. People used to invest a lot more of their budgets in clothing, even among lower classes. (Average family budget in 1900 spent ~15% on clothing, still around ~12% in 1950, now that's more like 4%.) Even middle-class folks a few generations ago would frequently consult tailors to get well-made clothes or to make alterations to stuff they bought off the rack. That all shifted radically with the flow of cheap imported mass-produced clothing, available in many styles and sizes "close enough" that people could buy a lot more for a lot less.
(2) Upkeep and effort. Cheap clothes had many radical effects. For prior generations, clothing was precious because it was expensive. Collars and cuffs on shirts were detachable not only because they were easier to clean, but also because they wear the fastest. Tailors used to "turn" collars or replace cuffs for extra life on a shirt, but once shirts became cheap enough, why not buy a new one? I have strong memories of my great-grandmother sitting around "darning socks." Why bother when a new pack is available for a couple bucks? Just throw the old stuff out.
So casual clothing was no longer thought of as requiring maintenance. Formal clothing thus becomes a strange outlier in upkeep -- the stuff you still need to iron, take to the cleaners, hang up so it maintains its shape, perhaps have retailored over time. In an era when most clothing becomes cheap, disposable, and able to be thrown in the automatic washing machine, formal clothing suddenly seems annoying to deal with.
And let's not forget the social shifts caused by women entering the workforce. TFA makes the point that the absence of women in "nerd" cultures may have allowed a greater informality. That may be true, but women in general were working in ever greater numbers during this shift. My grandmother used to iron my grandfather's shirts and pants for work almost daily, starching the collars, etc. -- even though (frankly) she typically avoided housework when she could. But she viewed it as a standard duty: and my grandfather was a machinist, not some office worker. But he wore a button-down collared shirt every day, and pressed trousers (never jeans or anything that casual).
Who has time to press shirts and pants, starch collars, etc.? It was a standard household activity, but women increasingly were occupied in their own jobs. New materials made it easier to avoid these treatments for most "casual" clothing, so why wouldn't people prefer it?
(3) Status. Lastly, there was a radical shift in status symbols over this time period. Having "proper clothes" that were well-maintained used to be viewed an essential element for social status. Fashion still obviously plays a role nowadays in status, but it's more about "individuality" even in middle and lower classes than having the standard boring formal clothes of yesteryear. I remember this scene from Balzac's novel Pere Goriot, where a student who is attempting to be a social "climber" struggles to afford to maintain his appearance with his clothes. He worries about whether he can afford to pay for a cab to get to a social engagement, because he's worried that his shoes and pants will become spattered on his walk. He can't pay, so he has to stop along the way to have his boots blackened and his trousers brushed. There's a huge amount of discussion devoted in that novel to the amount of attention people paid to dress in social situations, particularly on things like upkeep.
We don't demand that anymore. A slightly wrinkled shirt is okay. Collars don't have to be starched. Trousers don't need a firm crease (if any at all). Shoes don't need a perennial gleaming shine. Some of those shifts were well underway before "business casual" became common.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by bob_super on Friday May 26 2017, @06:23PM
"How do you know he's the King?'
"He doesn't have shit all over him"
Since we now have a president who tapes his tie and shoves other heads of state out of his way to reach the front row, we can say that elegance and formality are on the decline.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:47AM
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday May 26 2017, @05:58PM (3 children)
Ironing is a pointless chore [soylentnews.org]
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Friday May 26 2017, @10:14PM (1 child)
Social conventions aren't "pointless". Whether or not you agree with them is irrelevant--there's still a point.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:01AM
Those so obsessed with pointless conventions that they can't let go of them needs to be made irrelevant.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:34AM
Not quite. Utilitarian point: disinfection - I'm hanging my cloths to dry on the line rather than tumble-dry them wasting energy as heat.
Which brings up the interesting aspect of one should iron ones underwear (if concerned of skin infections), but shouldn't care about the outer overlay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @06:53PM (6 children)
I'm old, and I joined the workforce when the *corporate* (read big companies) world still required formal dress of their employees.
For the first five years of my adult working life, I worked for small companies which preferred that you maintain a certain level of personal hygiene, but weren't so particular about your dress -- unless you were interacting with clients.
Once I entered the "corporate" world, things were quite different. It was expected that men wore suits and ties, and women wore (with greater variety) a feminine analogue. It wasn't really all that big a deal. One could wear a suit (assuming no staining or other discoloration) at least four or five times before cleaning. If one owned several suits, that gave you several weeks worth of clothing.
Well fitting shirts were important, but not all that expensive for the most part. Nor all that difficult to maintain, as those same people who would dry clean and press your suits were happy to launder, press and starch your shirts as well.
While I never went for the bespoke suits (buying stuff off the rack and having it altered to fit me was quite inexpensive compared to the cost of the suit -- which would last, with proper care, at least a decade), I did, for a time, spend an extra 10-20% on bespoke shirts. They fit better, looked better and were much more comfortable.
I recall significant consternation among some people when the large financial institution for which I worked announced a "casual Friday" policy. The primary concern of most people was that they had "work" clothes and "leisure" clothes. The "leisure" clothes didn't match with the "business casual" idea.
Starting in the late 1990s, more and more organizations (remember, we're talking *big* companies -- ala the Fortune 100) had a "business casual" standard rather than formal attire.
From that time and into the 2000s, I saw, as a consultant to many of those companies, business casual become the norm rather than the exception. As a consultant, however, it was important (at least then) to show respect for your clients. One way to do this was to dress formally when meeting them. As a general rule, after initial meetings, when one was working onsite along with the client, the consultant would adopt the dress code of the client.
From a personal perspective, I never really cared about it too much. It was all about what the situation required. I believe that people are most productive when they feel most comfortable. If that means more casual dress, music in their headphones or life-size, cardboard cut-outs of Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Donald Trump or Gertrude Stein in their work areas, I have no issue. Results and productivity are most important.
I read through so many comments from folks who disdain formal dress and even belittle those who think it reasonable. I suspect that many of those folks have never been in roles which required them to interface with customers/clients in soliciting business and/or providing the sense that the customer was *important* enough to don formal attire for them.
Why do fast-food outlets and retail stores require their employees to wear uniforms (or at least a certain level of formality)? Why do UPS and FedEx delivery people wear uniforms? The idea of formal dress isn't some throwback to meaner times, nor is it an evil plot to force the younger generation to adhere to some outdated standard.
The primary reasons (IMHO) for formal dress in the workplace were to give all employees a sense of the seriousness and respect for the company (and when companies were loyal to their employees as well, this made much more sense -- much less so now), to have a work environment where all members of an organization could relate on a similar footing (if everyone, from CEO to admin assistant are wearing comparable dress, the level of discourse is on a much more even keel), and to give clients/customers the sense that they are valued and respected.
I'm not saying it's always (or even mostly) appropriate, nor am I telling anyone what they should do or want to do. Culture changes. Usually slowly, but sometimes more quickly.
All that said, before you denigrate those who have a different idea about anything (in this case, formal dress at work), perhaps it might be worthwhile to attempt to see other perspectives and consider that othe people may have different ideas or cultural experiences. Just a crazy thought.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @08:14PM (1 child)
Can't agree.
I wore multiple uniforms in my life, including military, and at times the full corporate monkey suit including a tie.
Maintenance-wise, the monkey suit is expensive. Comfort-wise it sucks any time you're not just sitting at a table chit-chatting, because woven fabrics have less flex than knit fabrics. Durability-wise it's just terrible.
Uniforms are about marketing, plain and simple. In the military, you're trying to beef up esprit de corps and look tough and serious. In FedEx, you're supposed to be identifiable as the guy bringing your next shipment of adult novelties. Hey! Use FedEx! They bring good stuff! ... like that.
In the days when clothing was still a major marker of status (this person has enough money for the nice shit) it made some sense to exude an aura of affluence, because in those days upper-class markers of status still correlated with aspirations. In the days of grunge and gangsta rap, the monkey suit made you a tool; visibly. Programmers became the high priests of a new religion, and the latitude that they were offered became something to which people would aspire, the same way that politicians ceremonially planting trees don hard hats and safety vests, regardless of how meaninglessly, because it shows them doing real work, dammit, like real people, instead of the stuffed shirts we all know they are.
In short, your ancient iconography has been subverted.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday May 26 2017, @10:15PM
I'm sorry. My heart goes out to you.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:14AM (3 children)
I'll suspect most of the complaints come from people that on days when they are very unlikely to ever see anyone not employed at the company or even anyone outside their working group. Still are forced to wear a high maintenance, expensive and most of all uncomfortable suit.
In sales situation it's more like a when blue collar workers use a dress because of a practical need like not getting the skin ripped etc. But sales-customer situation is about human interaction so it surely could benefit from dropping a dress that is clumsy. It's not far fetched to suspect it's there to signal that you can afford the money, time and uncomfort. And thus is a reliable partner.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:34AM (2 children)
Your point is a reasonable one. However, as several others have pointed out (and I can attest to it as well), wearing a suit needn't be uncomfortable at all. If it is altered to fit you well, a suit can be quite comfortable.
It is more expensive to own and maintain, yes. But again, that's really not a big issue these days anyway, since most workplaces don't require a suit any more.
Regardless, I don't really care what other folks do. I was merely pointing out that culture changes, and fashions with the culture.
I'd also point out that many of the complaints about "suits" related to the idea that someone wearing a suit was necessarily incompetent, pompous or trying to lord their status over others. This, as someone who almost never wears formal clothes anymore, seems to me either a great conceit, simple insecurity or a different cultural experience.
Regardless, as I mentioned elsewhere [soylentnews.org], wearing formal garb (or not doing so) doesn't imply anything about the value, intentions or personality of an individual. Their words and actions define them, not their clothing, IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:53AM (1 child)
I have however noticed this pattern at a slight distance. People without technical skills have a tendency to compensate with other attributes in a technical situation. Thus it becomes a warning sign. People with suits can be very skilled, it's not that. But rather that when skills are lacking the compensatory behavior shines through.
Try a thought experiment. If you had a billion dollars in fortune. Would you dress in any way you didn't like for people that weren't really important? or if your skill set were the best since sliced bread and you know it, and the people around you knew it? The focus would rather be on comfortable clothes and getting on with the job.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday May 27 2017, @03:40AM
I understand your point and even addressed in my initial post under this subject heading. But at the risk of repeating myself:
I don't need to do a thought experiment. Even if I'm not a bllionaire, I will dress as I feel is appropriate. Full stop.
As I mentioned in the initial post in this thread, I believe that people are most productive when they feel most comfortable.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by mechanicjay on Friday May 26 2017, @08:00PM
Subject is a bit of joke, but one of my casual interests is men's fashion over time. In the discussion of the general societal move (not just in the workplace) from formal -> casual dress, the Leisure Suit is actually a very interesting concept that ultimately dead-ended. I've worn regular suits, my regular dress is jeans, t-shirt and a flannel (open or buttoned depending on weather/circumstances), I also own a few vintage suits and a an honest-to-goodness 70's leisure suit.
My take is that it all comes down to comfort. The Leisure suit is actually ridiculously comfortable to wear. Soft flexible materials, which through the advent of (then) modern technology is formed into a neat presentable look. But you might as well be wearing a pair of sweatpants, they're so comfy. As the visual requirements bar lowered, we didn't need the kinda-formal looking comfy combination that was embodied by the leisure suit. We've just moved to wearing comfy stuff that happens to be casual looking as well.
In summary, modern materials and techniques make stuff more comfortable in the 60's. That is applied to the suit, but stops quickly as people stop caring about the formal look and move to a much more casual look quickly.
p.s. If any readers would like to clean our their closet of 70's men's fashions, let me know.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by http on Friday May 26 2017, @08:07PM (1 child)
I'm not buying the assertion that office casual is "the most radical shift in dress standards in human history". Especially when the article provides no citation, or even a suggestion of what could be in second place.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @08:17PM
I agree. What about Meiji-era Japan, and the modernisations?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 26 2017, @09:11PM (3 children)
... because I can't get any work done if I don't.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday May 26 2017, @10:46PM (2 children)
So, naked?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday May 27 2017, @01:19AM (1 child)
I've been in it despite never having worked there.
After some suits from AT&T were distressed, SCO issued a workplace rule that its employees could not be naked between 9 and 5.
This was the old SCO, that really wrote code, long before they started suing everyone that registered vital signs.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:34AM
It reminds me of this story of another design, though in hardware. But the managerial and sales thinking mindset is all over it. People in that category should be legally required to wear a warning sign.
Excerpt from IEEE spectrum [ieee.org]:
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday May 26 2017, @10:39PM
Stuffy ass DC paper acting like forced evolution due to practicality was the result of other stuffy ass companies Disrupting The Paradigm(TM)
Also I find it hilarious that they name Mad Men - the show where it's a strongly made point that drinking, smoking and ego were 89% of a workday - but still don't get it. There's simply not enough room for people who work in these occupations for such bullshit anymore. Partly because of those stuffy ass companies optimizing the work:hour ratio at a cultural level even at the cost of mental health.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Interesting) by damnbunni on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:31AM (1 child)
Keep in mind I work in a call center with a lot of college-age people. It's a 'job' place, not a 'career' place.
We used to have a 'business casual' dress code. No jeans, collared shirts, no sneakers. When the new owners bought us out, we got their dress code, which allows jeans, sweatpants, it's basically 'don't be naked' and 'no Tshirts with offensive language'. Oh, and 'no flip-flops' but that's never enforced.
And at pretty much the same time, the atmosphere at work nosedived. It just got much less professional overall. People not taking care of their workspace, cigarette butts all over the parking lot (till smoking was banned entirely), and general 'Not my problem, don't care' attitudes.
Having to put on 'work clothes' to go to work helps enforce a sense of 'this is work, not my house. Behavior that's OK at home is not gonna fly here.' It's why I still more or less adhere to the old dress code - I do wear jeans now and then, though.
Because it helps me separate 'home' from 'work'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @01:57AM
Look to the managers for what is wrong. Cloths typically are not the issue.
I have worked in 'no bunny slippers' to 'I cant see myself in your shoes'. Management always is where you look first to poor performance. Look to leads and you can see who follows...
(Score: 2) by snufu on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:12AM (1 child)
Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Unless you want to stay at that job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:58AM
I'm the owner/boss you insensitive clod. How can I possibly dress for the job I want when I already have it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @03:53AM
I'm offended that kids are allowed to run about in shorts and t-shirts yet supposedly mature, professional adults can't handle themselves if someone shows a little leg (male or female). The office worker world is sickening. If you can't walk into the office wearing a pair of shorts, you're in an immature environment no matter how everyone around you likes to play dress up and pretend they're important. The faster the younger generations can push out dress codes the better.