51–60 of 142 posts
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I just hate shoes. I'd go barefoot if somebody hadn't filled all the walking environments with broken glass, so flip-flops and huaraches it is. I love my 5-fingers, but they are too hot for general wear. Don't get me started on the harm "normal" shoes do to your feet.
There are excellent non-5F barefoot shoes that work well in hot environments.
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Just how young are you? Your 501s are an echo of Steve Job's wardrobe, "black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by Issey Miyake, Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers", quoting his Wikipedia entry. Elizabeth Holmes was one follower of that style. I can assure you that tight jeans came into being many years before cell phones, even if you date from the first demonstration version in 1973. Fanny packs wer…
I was in High School in the late 1980s, so yeah we had some pretty narrow ankle pants for sure, but what's funny about today is the comical pairing of super tight up top too, along with a massive phone jammed into a front pocket that looks like you'd need crow bar to get it out. The obvious solution is a fanny pack, but the kids are trapped by circumstance because fanny packs are out. lol. Perfect Storm of fashion co…
How amazingly influential this mysterious someone was, to influence things some 35 years later!
Certainly more then how the beatnik and hipster styles of the 1950s influenced your generation of HS students.
Since purses are another obvious solution, I place no faith in your interpretation.
I think there are a couple of important things missing from this article. One is that until relatively recently clothing served a very different function to that of today. In Europe, in our grandparents’ or even parents’ childhoods - as late even as the 1970s - housing and transport was very different to how it is now. Clothing was largely purpose-specific; people had far fewer clothes than today but those clothes ha…
I think there are a couple of important things missing from this article. One is that until relatively recently clothing served a very different function to that of today. In Europe, in our grandparents’ or even parents’ childhoods - as late even as the 1970s - housing and transport was very different to how it is now. Clothing was largely purpose-specific; people had far fewer clothes than today but those clothes ha…
Yes and no.
Something that people often take for granted is doing laundry. The invention of the automatic clothes washer and dryer changed things dramatically.
Before automation, laundry day for a household of 4 was a huge, laborious, and often multi-day task.
Not only did garments need to be washed by hand, but there was a lot of attention to how to clean certain types of garments and fabrics effectively. A woman's summer dress with grass stains on the bottom hems, for example, needed different treatment than a man's 3 piece grey suit (which, by the way, were constructed very differently than they are today).
Since you needed your stove-top to heat water, most laundry was done in the kitchen which meant that you also needed to plan in advance what your family was going to eat that day and have things prepared.
I own a recreation Edwardian era 3 piece suit. It has no zippers and it is unlined (I recently wore this to a funeral here in Canada and it was COLD despite the layers that I was wearing).
The reason that the suit is unlined is because, as you say, it was common at the time to wear layers. So the thing is shockingly breathable and light compared to a modern, lined formal suit (which is also made out of different suiting wool so the texture is different too, an Edwardian suit "feels" less formal than a modern suit).
But the reason people wore those layers was not always necessarily to stay warm. In fact, the layers were worn in the summer in hot climates as well as during winter in cold climates.
Today people often assume that full body undergarments were born out of a prudish sense of modesty (a la "magic Mormon underwear"). This is a myth. The reality is that they:
a) kept the outer garment clean for longer by avoiding direct contact with the skin (and thus sweat etc.) and
b) they gave everyone in the family roughly the same general style of undergarment (in terms of colour and fabric) so that you could batch-wash what needs to be washed most often all together in a single pot on the stove
Here's a good YouTube video that really puts into perspective why laundry was so different pre-automation, and it was one major factor (though not the only one) that informed how people dressed:
This is incorrect. Even within the US there are differences between cities, people in Miami dress differently than people in Seattle.
People in Tokyo dress different than in LA, and people in London dress differently than in Mexico City.
Is there a rich tapestry of local clothes? Well, no, but people also don't dress the same by any means.
There is a lot of homogenization for sure, but people who travel a lot and pay even a little bit of attention can easily spot the differences between cities.
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So do many other bags. It feels weird to hear someone talk about the death of fashion, and in the same post, attack people's fashion. If you want to wear your beaded fanny pack with sandals, more power to you.
I think you're missing the main point of vanity versus utility, in my light-hearted semi-humorous post.
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Well you can make the case that people don't have to dress a certain way because we are much better insulated (metaphorically and literally) from the environment. And there are of course no sumptuary laws. So clothing can be more fun, if people want to of course - look at how music subcultures have incredibly varied ways of expression through clothing - metalheads, hiphopheads, punks etc.
I think you hit gold there, todays lack of interesting clothes is in my eyes related to two things: - market logic made work clothes boring (think about guild clothing, the only interesting thing I see from time to time is the chimney sweeper) - less people are inclined to feel part of a subculture and/or express that in their fashion choices As someone who was a teenager in the 2000s, back then I had at least 6 diff…
EDIT: Looks like goths are still a thing? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zjg1P_2IPOQ