I have a hard time seeing formal clothing as anything other than an attempt to advertise an elevated social status. This seems to me to be at odds with the desire to create an egalitarian society.
The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
71–80 of 118 posts
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#72Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#73I find it amusing how people want beautiful architecture, good weather, nice greenery, and so on, but don't make the next step and want people (including themselves) to dress better. Clothes are just another facet of visual culture. That's how you get tourists with sweatpants and fanny packs outside the Florence Duomo.
Personally I suspect the disconnect centers around utility. Beautiful architecture can be beautifully functional too. Good weather is pretty, and also comfortable. Greenery is pretty, and cleans the air. Semi-formal and formal wear are practically the antithesis of functional and comfortable. Personally, I have been making an effort to dress up a step or two, but I have to balance this against carrying more changes o…
If your suit isn't comfortable, then you are wearing the wrong size and should get it tailored.
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. But I'm the good kind of lazy. I choose to spend my time working on solutions to big problems, rather than working on what shirt to wear tomorrow. I do use different brands with different cuts and styles. Mostly because I grab whatever is available at the store. I also only use name brands, because the last twice as long. It's also a sort of camouflage. I blend in very easily. I like that.
> I choose to spend my time working on solutions to big problems, rather than working on what shirt to wear tomorrow. It worries me that so many hackers use the delusion of "solving big problems" to justify their often self-destructive lifestyles.
Why is this self-destructive? Explain.
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#75I find it amusing how people want beautiful architecture, good weather, nice greenery, and so on, but don't make the next step and want people (including themselves) to dress better. Clothes are just another facet of visual culture. That's how you get tourists with sweatpants and fanny packs outside the Florence Duomo.
Personally I suspect the disconnect centers around utility. Beautiful architecture can be beautifully functional too. Good weather is pretty, and also comfortable. Greenery is pretty, and cleans the air. Semi-formal and formal wear are practically the antithesis of functional and comfortable. Personally, I have been making an effort to dress up a step or two, but I have to balance this against carrying more changes o…
As a style averse geek I hate myself for saying this, but it really depends. I've never been able to convince myself to go spend at the highest levels (bespoke from Saville row, for instance), but it's supposed to be more comfortable than casual clothing. When I have splurged a bit on nicer clothing, I have found that even a little more quality in clothing can make the difference between stiff and comfortable. It makes sense that better fit and higher quality would be more comfortable. There was a fairly good discussion about this on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4476397
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#76Many people pretend to not care about their clothes, or the way they look, so long as they look clean, and decent. The truth is a man who wears a nice shirt, pants, and shoes will simply not want to go back if he is confident about it. And for your information, you look much much better if you sport nice, fitted clothes.
The truth is a man who wears a nice shirt, pants, and shoes will simply not want to go back if he is confident about it.
The truth is I am having a difficult time fitting nice shirts, pants, and shoes into my lifestyle. Less because I am lazy, and more because boulders and bicycle cranks and dirt are hard on nice clothes.
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I suspect the disconnect centers around utility. Beautiful architecture can be beautifully functional too. Good weather is pretty, and also comfortable. Greenery is pretty, and cleans the air. Semi-formal and formal wear are practically the antithesis of functional and comfortable. Personally, I have been making an effort to dress up a step or two, but I have to balance this against carrying more changes o…
If your suit isn't comfortable, then you are wearing the wrong size and should get it tailored.
Cost of t-shirt: $15. Cost of perfectly-tailored suit: $x.
Solve for `x < 20`.
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I suspect the disconnect centers around utility. Beautiful architecture can be beautifully functional too. Good weather is pretty, and also comfortable. Greenery is pretty, and cleans the air. Semi-formal and formal wear are practically the antithesis of functional and comfortable. Personally, I have been making an effort to dress up a step or two, but I have to balance this against carrying more changes o…
If your suit isn't comfortable, then you are wearing the wrong size and should get it tailored.
I really doubt there's any full suit that isn't unbearably hot for me. I'm often wearing a t-shirt and shorts complaining about the heat while others are wearing sweaters and shivering. Casual attire gives you a range of options, whereas formal dress seems to always require layers.
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#79I find it amusing how people want beautiful architecture, good weather, nice greenery, and so on, but don't make the next step and want people (including themselves) to dress better. Clothes are just another facet of visual culture. That's how you get tourists with sweatpants and fanny packs outside the Florence Duomo.
Personally I suspect the disconnect centers around utility. Beautiful architecture can be beautifully functional too. Good weather is pretty, and also comfortable. Greenery is pretty, and cleans the air. Semi-formal and formal wear are practically the antithesis of functional and comfortable. Personally, I have been making an effort to dress up a step or two, but I have to balance this against carrying more changes o…
They may have used to be true, but nowadays with fine wool, it really isn't any more. And let's face it, the level of improvement many of us engineers need to take is not to suits, but even to wearing something nicer than a t-shirt and loose jeans.
Re: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)
#80> But I found that a higher level of formality improved my students' learning. My larger classes ran more smoothly. This is the crux of the article, and he provides no proof to back it up. The article says that this is an "experiment", but how did the professor log his activities? How did he measure the change in his student's perception? How did he isolate the variables of his own bias vs. the impact of new clothes…
Seriously, HN seems to get one or more of these comments every time someone dares to describe some personal adventure as an "experiment". The implication seems to be that if you don't have a statistically significant control group, you should just not say anything, I guess.
You are correct that his anecdote doesn't actually prove anything. I rather doubt this is news to anyone, including the author.