The Essay to Read If You Even Think About Wearing Clothes | Hacker News Reader

The Essay to Read If You Even Think About Wearing Clothes

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76 pointstintinnabula57 comments

Fashion has fascinated me for 35 years. All that time has resulted in two observations -

The first is that nobody knows fashion like the Italians do, so get your advice there.

The second is a result of the first - some basic rules will get you an ageless but very fashionable look for very little money. And so positions you well for a future focused on wealth rather than status.

This applies everywhere. Buying a car? Look to the best car manufacturer. Don't buy new, never lease, always go for reliability.

I don't disagree with your view on Italians and fashion however I do often find myself amused by the compliant uniformity of fashion in Italy. I vist two or three times a year and as someone old enough to not obsess so much about my own fashion anymore, but not so old as to have given up entirely, I'm invariably impressed by dapper old men holding on to youthful exhibition.

However, the flipside is that 'whatever mode is in fashion that season' is draped off everyone - be it the particular type of puff jacket, or particular brand of trainer or hoodie or size and volume of scarf, there it is in consistent multiplicate, over everyone.

It becomes less, to my eye, individual expression than blinkered social compliance.

Not that I'm not entirely without some envy, especially where my father in law is concerned, he being very much more fash than I!

>It becomes less, to my eye, individual expression than blinkered social compliance.

There's no real "individual expression". The "relaxed" trainers/jeans/tshirt in the US is no less a "blinkered social compliance" than wearing a suit. It's just the norms of the country, and of a certain class. Heck, punks in the 70s dressed in safety pins and tons clothes all looking alike (and same for hippies in the 60s, which even made their "own clothes" still all looking alike).

That said, the Italians have a lot of ways to personalize their fashion (sprezzatura goes a long way).

In my opinion, that is doing fashion right. Fashion has the power to create separation and distance between 2 people, or to bring them close together. Some people want to create distance, but most people should want to be closer together. Having similar style makes that much easier, than having to constantly fight an uphill battle against bad first impressions.

There’s massive utility in a bit of effort, and these days that level of dress can be achieved without a huge cash outlay.

I am Italian (living in San Francisco though), and I pretty much agree with your observations - in general, and also specifically about Italy.

On a side note, I find the brand "Uniqlo", which sounds very much like the word "unique", to be the ultimate oxymoron.

You can see people wearing "unique" dresses dozens of times a day, everywhere in the US.

Amusingly, for me, my partner buys each of her folks a puffer jacket every few years from Uniqlo - apparently they're just about different enough to stand out from the crowd they work so hard to confine themselves to! :)

Personally, I see Uniqlo as offering fine base-elements for clothing. I long ago settled into having my own uniform - just so that I don't have to think about my daily clothing too much - so own a dozen or so exact-same long-sleeved navy blue t-shirt-things from them. No logo, no branding, no overt design - just simple, methodical soft cotton clothes that pair nicely with whatever else is in my wardrobe.

I never thought I'd write about my crap fashion on HN...

> Look to the best car manufacturer.

Given the subjectivity involved and the myriad or factors to consider, being able to decide which one is the best is not a foregone conclusion.

Fashion is even more fluid than that, with a lot more subjectivity involved.

And what are these 'basic rules' exactly? Asking for a friend...

There are tons of websites to get those:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKVxGbZpMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSw9ZdxQIiU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQGibb8iv-E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEKEdA-tjEw

P.S. Just don't go too deep, after a few videos, it's all just salespeople selling whatever BS sponsors them, even total crap like shirt garters for men (an item meant for military personnel on inspections and official parades, that they market to people who don't even have 2 suits in their wardrobe as some kind of essential item).

"Essential" is too strong, but if you think about how much time and irritation you save by not having to retuck your shirt all day or night, it's not far off.

As a shirt wearing guy, I'd call it the epitome of contrived solutions in search of a problem...

Yeah, I might retuck my shirt 2-3 times a day, in a procedure that takes like 10 seconds each. Still beats buying and wearing garters (and their own adjustments, which cancel out the tucking times).

I’ve used the same pair since high school when “shirt stays” were mandatory for JROTC. Luckily I’ve grown so the longest setting is the right setting. I think it’s the best $10 I’ve ever spent; it doesn’t just keep me from re-tucking shirts, it makes me look sharper by not letting my shirt ever sag as it loosens.

Re-tucking a shirt just seems indecent to me since I was raised that to do it properly without shirt stays requires unzipping your pants, reaching through, and pulling the shirt down to remove any lack of trim to the front of your shirt.

Yup, 100% on all points. Shirt stay adjustments are minimal. You set it up once and they're good for most shirts in my experience.

Everyone has their own acceptable style threshold though, but saying shirt stays don't solve a problem that needed solving is akin to all those C/C++ programmers claiming garbage collection doesn't solve a real problem because you can handle memory manually and debug it using valgrind. Sure, you go ahead and have fun with that, I'll be over here wasting less time and looking more stylish while doing it. ;-)

Agreed. Since the advent of SaaS and mobile apps the software industry has become more like fashion industry.

That's why I stubbornly try to stick to FOSS in order to avoid all the nonsense of the commercial software.

>This applies everywhere. Buying a car? Look to the best car manufacturer. Don't buy new, never lease, always go for reliability.

People with tons of wealth often buy new, often lease, and not always go for reliability (but instead for looks, beauty, vintage, etc.), so not sure what this middle class idea of what wealthy people do is supposed to convey...

I believe he's talking about acquiring wealth, not about how to act once you already have it.

Well, do you think that people who go acquiring wealth don't "buy new" or "don't lease"?

Nobody ever acquired wealth by thrift (or very few cases, and with a low cap on that wealth, like those cases occasionally finding out that some guy sleeping on a slum and working as a clerk had saved all his life and had 10 million dollars in the bank when they died and were found half-eaten by their cats).

Saving to become rich is both reasonable and practical for the HENRY[0] and FIRE[1] camps.

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/high-earners-not-yet-ri...

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-independence-...

One aquires wealth by not losing it.

That's just a basic precondition, not enough to acquire wealth.

You could "not lose wealth" all your life, spend the least you can, save money in the bank whenever you can, work your ass off until your 70s, and still be pretty poor.

Wealth is created by creating new businesses and spending wisely to invest in opportunities, not by being frugal.

People I have known who "worked their ass off" all their life and ended up poor, if they weren't handicapped, it was because they could not give up running a struggling business or change it to make more money.

It's my impression that because of the sense of pride and ownership, people will end up worse off sometimes when they have their own business than if they were an employee being exploited by someone else. That kind of seems like the foundation of the system of franchising, now that I think of it.

Yeah, if your income is little. If your income is tons, you can still buy new and acquire wealth. It's much easier to acquire wealth by making tons more than by saving alone.

Is it just the Italians? My observation is that it's most Western Europeans. Be they British, Spanish, French, Swedish, what have you, nearly everyone is just markedly more buttoned up than your typical American (btw I'm American). Especially older men, say mid-50's and over.

On the axis of best=reliable, the most reliable cars are usually second (or greater) year models of new Hondas or Toyotas.

Well, that's what everybody believes, which is why late model used Hondas and Toyotas are overpriced. Sometimes I've seen them advertised for more than brand-new.

In theory, you should be able to save money by buying a car from an unreliable, unloved brand, because by the time it's a few years old, any fundamental design flaws should be well known and you can avoid them.

For instance, Ford has a bad reputation because of certain cars that were flawed from the beginning, but that doesn't mean you can't find one that isn't, and it might be half the price.

I find Hondas and Toyotas more attractive usually, since I like cars and I don't economize more than I have to. But I know people that have had good luck with domestic brands that have terrible reputations in general. If they sell to rental agencies and taxis, then they can't objectively be that bad as appliances.

I recommend it's a small, medium and outsize world, by John Taylor which is probably out of print, but is a fantastic history of fashion written in 1966. Its wry, satirical but informing. Eric Newby also wrote about his family fashion business pre and post war in something wholesale

I'm not sure I understood this article at all. Part of it may be because I don't understand fashion, but it was written in an overly-grandiose prose which is a bit misplaced in an article such as this. I don't want to have to give an artcile the same kind of thought I give Dickens.

With that said, can any one fkll me in on exactly what this is supposed to mean?

And after that you can watch The True Cost.

Available free online: http://thoughtmaybe.com/the-true-cost

Highly recommended if you even think about wearing clothes.

There is an essay of Ortega y Gasset's from the 1920s or 1930s, in which he wrote that British men were the worst dressed in Europe, because they had real things to think about. I was pretty slovenly when I read this, and took some comfort in the notion. (I have long since married a woman whose eye for clothing is as sharp as mine is dim, and am usually presentably dressed.)

Chiuri (Dior) sure knows how to make a peplos look amazing. The best fabric, lighting, makeup, and photography in the world probably don't hurt. It could do without the typography though.

This book review of Bernard Rudofsky’s “Are Clothes Modern?” is about as close as something could get me to being interested to read a treatise on fashion.

After a certain level of cleanliness, the more effort someone puts into their appearance, the less respect I have for them. I have tried to look past this in some situations, but I cant help but think they're lying to me in some way.

Tech is a field where skill is self-evident and verifiable to a much greater extent than most traditional business. And while it's not a universal rule, I have found that people at the top of the top of their respective tech/nontech industries, tend to not put any effort into how they dress unless they have to impress a client etc.

I've adopted a heuristic of looking for the worst dressed guy to identify the decision maker when meeting new client groups in my line of work.

If the way one dresses, or the cost of one's watch, or the firmness of one's handshake is the best signal they have to communicate their stature to a group, it's because they don't have anything more tangible.

> If the way one dresses, or the cost of one's watch, or the firmness of one's handshake is the best signal they have to communicate their stature to a group, it's because they don't have anything more tangible.

What other ways are there to communicate stature to a group? For one-on-one interactions there are lots of ways, but when you walk into a room, appearance is about all you have.

Without getting into specifics which may be debatable, "trying too hard" always counters other means of communicating stature.

I can't help thinking of the recent news articles about Patagonia reacting to the popularity of its fleece vests:

https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-investors-lov...

"I think one reason for the popularity is: Patagonia represents quality without being pretentious"

...so all the rich people wear the same thing in order to not look like rich people, but now it's a stereotype.

I think most people who believe they don't care about fashion do. Cargo pants, t-shirts and hoodies might not be the typical image of fashion or putting effort in one's appearance, but me wearing them at work and free time is still a semi-conscious social marker.

I don't think I put much more or less effort in my appearance than someone who's everyday attire includes button up shirts and designer eyewear, but we will signal different interests with the way we dress. They say to dress for the job you want. It could be that you don't actually base your respect on the effort someone puts in their appearance, but rather the kind of appearance you value.

It's hard to put in less effort than swag t-shirts, jeans and flip-flops.

I don't feel the same as OP, but to say that people are putting in the same effort seems off.

Choosing not to put in effort is still a choice. And a more significant one than people realize. At some point I imagine that those who wear swag t-shirts daily had to come to the realization that it was acceptable to do so. In many realms (mine included) there is explicit signaling in choosing not to put in the effort, to the point where I see people vying for decision-making positions by dressing down.

Working at a place where nobody cared how you dressed, because nobody cared about anything, there was ironically a tendency for people to dress a little less casually (wear button down shirts, etc) after a certain point because it showed you did still care and weren't totally burned out. And nobody was a rock star, so there wasn't any point in dressing down to prove you were above other people.

I have a hard time getting out of my head that those people could be putting more time into furthering their expertise rather than participating in a fashion show. I've had similar experiences with people who pursue very intense fitness activities. You can't train for a marathon while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field for example. Sometimes, on a day off, I see people out in the road training for intense cycling or running activities and I can't help but think to myself "those people must be impossible to work with...why aren't they at work now?"

Then I also temper myself to realize that work isn't all of a person's life, and I also spend a great deal of time in non-productive pursuits that aren't help to me at work.

Working all the time at all costs isn't healthy. It reminds me to go out and take a walk, or a sculpture class or something.

> while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field

I think this association is believed to be true more than the evidence supports, helped in no small part by companies which profit from employees donating unpaid overtime to the bottom line. You need to put some time in but diminishing returns set in pretty quickly, and creative work often significantly benefits from a balanced lifestyle.

Personally, I've definitely noticed a large improvement in mood and burnout symptoms by reducing focus on work and moving focus to "useless" hobby pursuits (the further from my day-to-day work the better).

The same OCD tendencies that are conducive to technical expertise can also be aimed at other aspects of life. I go through occasional boughts of dressing smarter, just for the satisfaction. And the nice shoes. Life's too short for boring shoes.

> You can't train for a marathon while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field for example.

Why not?

I always try to tackle big challenges at work, switching teams / companies when finding challenges becomes the challenge. Hands-on learning 9-5 is enough to maintain my personal maximum sustainable career growth - any more would lead to burn out.

Commute jogging (10mi/day) and weights at the gym takes 2h/day.

That leaves another 6 hours/day for happy hour, cooking, movies, guitar... excluding all the free time of weekends.

What are you doing with all that time?

Not taking the time to read all of the original comment provides a nice compact example of the point. Perhaps you were too busy lifting? (I'm being sarcastic, please don't take offence!)

> What are you doing with all that time?

Working! Why are you spending all that time screwing around? You've just told me you have another 10 hours a week you can be working that you use exercising. And another 30 hours a week you spend watching movies and playing guitar! That's like a whole other full-time job you could be putting into work! (for the record I'm being very sarcastic)

In responding to dec0dedab0de's original comment, I agreed that I share his superficial feelings -- but I don't think those feeling are right. My point is that while for some people like myself, grinding as hard as possible as long as possible, is both natural and not healthy. For some people, work is not naturally the thing they spend all their time on, and they gravitate to other things as soon as the clock hits 8 hours for the day.

For people such as myself, my natural tendencies to overwork can, at times, unfairly extend to other people and I often have to resist the temptation to think that they should be doing the same as me -- and if they aren't that they aren't putting in 100%.

These are very unhealthy thought processes and one that I personally have to spend time, effort and discipline to temper. The problem is, for me, work is fun.

On the flip-side I've also really worked with people who become incredibly unreliable at work (during normal work hours) while they train for <sporting event> and it's absolutely intolerable. I also say this as somebody who intensely pursued a sporting activity very heavily in my younger years at about 20-25 hours a week. People really minimize the amount of time they spend doing these things.

And to dec0dedab0de's original point, I've also worked with people of impossibly limited technical capability who fly up the corporate ladder, often to disaster, because they have good looks and dress well.

This seems like the ideal balance and what I try to maintain as well. I like how you outlined 'maintain my personal maximum sustainable career growth', that's a good way to put it.

Generally related to this thread I got more into fashion once finishing school and having money come in. This comedy podcast served as an introduction to the world https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/barstool-sports/failing-upw...

I train for ultramarathons on ~4 hours of running a week (on average). Another ~3 hours a week of home gym strength conditioning. I have colleagues who waste more time than that in a single day at work.

But everyone likes beauty and aesthetics. This SF-cultural idea that everything clothing related should be drab, minimalistic and unremarkable clashes with sleek iPhones, beautiful Teslas and refined UI/UXs.

Fashion, expensive clothes, makeup, hairstyles: all of it feels like the last gasp of a historical precedent that is, ultimately, shallow and meaningless. In the same way that sports is meaningless. Mostly harmless, totally meaningless.

My larger critique of appearance-minding is how manifestly classist it is: certain (expensive) clothes and appearances must be worn in certain places and social circles to identify your belonging. Lots of people are screened out by this filter alone. And time and money is wasted on appearance.

It's also ironic that, among a certain set, whose profound knowledge and skills are so vast and impressive that they deserve massive compensation for their time (I'm looking over at the C-suite here), there is still plenty of time and energy available to focus on appearance: clothes, shoes, cars, hairstyles. All vapid things. Vaporware. Hmmm.

"all of it feels like the last gasp of a historical precedent that is, ultimately, shallow and meaningless"

Are you really saying this is specific to the last 50-100 years?

More like 50-10000 years.

You're free to hold such opinions. The rest of us thank you for making us look better in comparison.

Early in life, imho much of fashion is just necessary for attracting a desirable mate, much like plummage on a bird. Excess can be excused.

Once past that stage, fashion seems to fall into two categories - 1) the selfish need/desire to impress others of similar social class (or a class you wish to join) or 2) the genuine unselfish desire to look nice for your friends benefit in some social situation.

Basic Bayesian analysis.

https://loosethreads.com/podcast/2016/09/27/loose-threads-po...

podcast with the creator of outlier.nyc one of the more interesting workwear/techwear brands

'Stitches in Time: The Story of the Clothes We Wear' is also good read

The book in question from MOMA: https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_3159_300063439...

I'm going to be that guy and complain about the webpage's formatting.

When I opened the page, a modal dialog was covering everything asking me to sign up for some newsletter. I closed it to get to the article, and I ended up with this: https://i.imgur.com/sV9hfOA.png. The actual article makes up less than 4% of my screen. I've never seen a page this bad before. There's two different types of pop-ins from different directions I have to close before the article becomes readable. It's like playing whack-a-mole. Is anyone working on the site proud of that? Who looked at the site when it had just one of those pop-ins (and a modal) and made the decision that it needed another one? I don't want to be too ranty, I'm actually baffled.

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