Dressing up Dressing down

[koolhistorian]

db post

[Trey]

NicolausN:

Good finding a fellow North Carolinian here. I live in Greensboro and hardly expected to find a fellow Tar Heel in the Lounge. Keep "getting dressed" as you deem appropriate. Sadly, dressing down (conservatively) here evokes comments from too many who compliment one for "dressing up." How times have changed.

Trey

[NicolausN]

The three piece charcoal suit is about as high as you can get on the scale of formality before proper (semi)formal dress, so no wonder people notice you're dressed up. A two piece mid-grey, navy or striped suit will probably look less formal and more business. It also depends on your line of work.
I think the message was to dress soberly for work (which you already do), but a black cutaway worn with a black waistcoat and striped trousers is sober, too. You would err on the point of adjusting the degree of formality of your dress to the given situation if you wore it to work, unless you are an embassador. That's also a form of undesirable "dressing up" for work - not with flashy clothes and accessories but with a too high degree of formality.

Exactly. I was trying to point out two things. First, that dressed up versus down is a function of not only the level of ornamentation, but also of formality. Second, that where I live wearing a jacket and tie is often too formal.

As for your leisure time, don't just let go of everything and wear jeans and T-shirt because everyone else does, find a point of balance with what you wear during the week and wear a blazer or a sports jacket with properly tailored trousers and well chosen accessories. Otherwise you will feel like an actor who plays the part of the elegant gentleman during the week but has his weekends off. Let your friends get used to your dress style - they will appreciate it as an expression of your personality, whereas people with whom you come into contact for work need to see the professional before the personality (unless your work is all about your personality). At least that is my understanding of the advice given and the way I feel it is sensible to behave.

It's all I can do to not have my thoughts absolutely consumed by how to properly dress outside of business. I have techniques and articles of clothing that work together, are not the standard, and that let me fit in as much as possible. However, I'm on a mission to be able to wear a jacket and some sort of neck wear in every circumstance that I may reasonably find myself and my current offerings have neither or just the jacket. If I add the tie, the staring starts. I also wear a hat. Nobody wears a hat anymore and I can't figure out why. Since I started wearing one I've discovered that it's one of the most useful items I own.

[Costi]

Nobody wears a hat anymore and I can't figure out why. Since I started wearing one I've discovered that it's one of the most useful items I own.

If I'm nobody, and you're nobody, our hats must be flying through the air along the boulevards...

I wear an ascot whenever it is not hot and I am not wearing a tie - I am not very fond of a bare neck, regardless of whether I am wearing a jacket or a pullover.

[koolhistorian]

Koolhistorian,

I do agree with you but I am not terribly sure that the urge or pressure to conform is any less intense in Europe. As the phenomenon is generally recurring we might imagine that it is simply part of human conditioning. For millions of years, whether huddling in caves or hanging from trees, humans had to conform to stay alive, to survive. The herd imprint on DNA is not likely to wash out in the space of a few hundred years.

Of course, the non-conformists, the flyers, were the ones who, with vision and taking risks, helped the herd advance. But it was always a pretty risky place to be. Remember when saying the earth was not flat and the sun, not the center of the universe, had dire consequences. In the big picture, these things happened nanoseconds ago. But how many creatures were pounced upon by their neighbors when they tried to rub a few stones together? That’s probably why it took millions of years for the first barbeque.

It still is risky to wander from the borders of conformity and most people will have to choose how and when to give their impulse free reign. You have to have the right stuff within to back it up and if you have that, you will undoubtedly also have access to many pleasures the grazers will envy. So tact, in the way of understatement, is a centuries old social diplomacy that makes perfect sense today.

Cheers

Michael

Michael,
Very far from my original idea was the fact that Europe does not have, or imposes, a certain degree of conformity. The only thing that I was suggesting was that the American society, for reasons that I will not discuss now, is more enforcing on the conformity than Europe. Thus being said, yes we are social animals, possibly the most social, and that is why we are so successful, and yes, it comes also with conformity, But there are other things which can create envy - social or intellectual skills, for example. You can wear what ever down dress you want, but if you are enviable, you will be envied. If I do not dress sloppy, is because I see it as a proof of esteem towards myself and towards the people that I interact with, saying that, yes I do not wear a 3 pieces suit every day, but I shine my shoes, and they are, hopefully in harmony with the rest of my outfit, I choose a tie that will be in tone with my shirt and jacket, and if that will make people envy me, I can live with that (in fact I think that is the least of the things that, from time to time, creates tensions between me and other members of the human society). For the chinese, one of the capital sins is the false modesty, as is hybris also.
But on the other hand, I do not think that wearing a pocket square is compared with the copernician revolution in science, is just an act that can be on the edge of vanity, but it also feel good when you look at yourself in the mirror when you leave your home!
Cheers,
Dan

[storeynicholas]

Maybe, also, dressing appropriately ( a little vague I know), is a compliment to the company one keeps. Moreover, now there is an idea of the origin of the first pit roast.
NJS

[kilted2000]

It's all I can do to not have my thoughts absolutely consumed by how to properly dress outside of business. I have techniques and articles of clothing that work together, are not the standard, and that let me fit in as much as possible. However, I'm on a mission to be able to wear a jacket and some sort of neck wear in every circumstance that I may reasonably find myself and my current offerings have neither or just the jacket. If I add the tie, the staring starts. I also wear a hat. Nobody wears a hat anymore and I can't figure out why. Since I started wearing one I've discovered that it's one of the most useful items I own.

I to must be a nobody who wears hats. I think the trick is to have your own definitions. For example, how casual are you willing to get? Then take those defintions and apply them to today's world.

[pbc]

The only thing that I was suggesting was that the American society, for reasons that I will not discuss now, is more enforcing on the conformity than Europe.

Quite interesting. To me it would appear the opposite. Perhaps it is only our perception of a conforming society that pressures us to conform. Then again, it is easy to group others who are different from ourselves, even though they differ in different ways. With that grouping comes an assumption that they are all being different from you together, on purpose, because they see each other doing it. This may true to some degree.

For casual (or any other) dress, I don't intentionally attempt to distance myself from the herd. I do occasionally stick out a bit to try to motivate the herd in a better direction. It may work or they me leave me just outside the circle. But just as dress standards slipped over time, they would need time to shift back. If we all work in our own neck of the woods, we can improve the world one neighbo(u)r at a time.

pbc

[Nameless_1]

But just as dress standards slipped over time, they would need time to shift back. If we all work in our own neck of the woods, we can improve the world one neighbo(u)r at a time.

pbc

Well said, exacly my philosophy.

J