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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it matters quite so much how many; the question is more about what everyone wanted to be. What their aspirations were.

The point would be that a mainstream man in 1750 wanted to be wearing colorful frilly things with high heels, even if he couldn't afford any of it because he was just a servant. Whereas starting in the 1800's, that stopped being an aspiration, whether you had money or not.

Also, while this clothing wasn't accessible to servants and laborers, some of it would have been to the growing middle class that consisted of merchants, professors, lawyers, and so forth. Just look at paintings depicting coffeeshop culture in the 1700's:

https://www.sylviaprincebooks.com/blog-list/2021/coffee-hous...

And coffeehouses were not reserved for the 0.1%, not at all.

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the transition from powdered wigs being the norm and now those damn kids going out without a wig on took over must have been an interesting time. this means at some point there was like 1 guy that held on to the fashion at the very end. not yielding to the new norm for the sake of morals and civility! his wig buried with him. and then no more wigs

Don't English lawyers still wear the wigs?

Not outside court, I imagine.

Only silk lawyers (King’s Counsel) wear a wig

Court dress isn't based on seniority—it is based on which court you're in. If you're working in criminal practice, it's pretty routine. If you're doing civil or commercial work, it's not quite as frequent.

Current court dress guidance from the BSB: https://www.barcouncilethics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/1...

Ha, you're right. I always thought the change from men's hats to no hats in the early 60's was strange enough. But from wigs to no wigs would have been way more extreme!

I mean, we've had a similar transition recently, with similar holdouts. See hats; they were basically essential wear in the west for men, from working class up, at the start of the 20th century; by the end, hats as male formal-wear were largely seen as pretty eccentric.

In the case of wigs, there were holdouts; barristers and judges in the former British empire have in many cases only really started abandoning them over the last two decades.

> The point would be that a mainstream man in 1750 wanted to be wearing colorful frilly things with high heels, even if he couldn't afford any of it because he was just a servant.

Though, if he was a _senior_ servant, he probably would be wearing some variant of it. There was a tendency for a while for high-ranking domestic servants in large houses to wear what was in effect a _previous version_ of what the upper class wore; AIUI this did indeed lead to a period where the upper class were wearing prototype modern suits while the butler was still wearing colours and frills.

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