Why did clothing become boring?
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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 had more specific purposes. For men that mean different weights of woollen suits for spring and autumn versus winter, and linen suits for summer.
Houses weren’t so well insulated or heated so you dressed to stay warm. With cars less common, you dressed for the outdoors. Hats weren’t fashion statements: they were to help keep you dry and warm.
Go back 100+ years and roads were much worse, people travelled by horse.
Capes, gloves, boots: things like this were all a defence against mud and rain and weather. If you were riding a horse you needed something like a cape with a high collar to stop your back and face getting splattered with mud thrown up by the horse’s hooves.
But more importantly, at the wealthy end of society, dressing was an indication of status and leisure. The clothes in the first picture are clearly somewhat impractical, but that doesn’t matter if your only task for the day is to sit and talk or stroll gently. If you have a team of people to dress you and look after your clothing you can wear impractical layers of clothing that seem ridiculous today. Those layers were still designed to serve a purpose - largely keeping warm - but the application and design of that purpose became exaggerated as purpose took a subsidiary role to status.
Many countries also had “sumptuary laws” which forbid lower classes of people from using certain fabrics or colours or dressing in particular ways. This meant that clothing for the higher classes was an articulation of power and status: in the 17th century you could tell instantly from someone’s style of dress whether they were a peasant, farmer, merchant, or aristocrat. That articulation of status - for the highest classes - meant that clothing was designed to show off the elements of dress that were reserved to that class of people.
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.
- 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 different outwardly recognizable subcultures in my school class (Metalhead, Punk, Hiphop, Emo, Raver, Goth) and that was more or less normal within my generation.
My small brother and nieces were teenagers during the mid 2010s and in their class all people looked the same. Not only did they look the same, they felt the pressure to all look the same and get similar brands and so on. It just appears that it is a more conforming generation, maybe due tonthe role social media started to play for them. When I grew up social media existed but in a class of 25 maybe half would use it (maximum). And all social media algorithms were strictly chronological.
EDIT: Looks like goths are still a thing? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zjg1P_2IPOQ
Like how music went through this phase where "not mainstream" music started getting really cool but now all of those sounds are just what everything sounds like now, you can't rebel against mainstream music right now.
A new subculture either grows or dies, if it grows people start making money off of it and it gets diluted by the popularity into something more beige and palatable. It isn't about capitalism it's just when you add more people, they take it less seriously and hardcore becomes bland.
What changed is there is no new "underground" culture to take the place of what had become popular and mainstream.
Witch house in 2009 or so I think was the last gasp of the underground before shortly running out of air.
Now young people just doomscroll tiktok instead.
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQxq_-dWYsc (in the fine tradition of pastiches combining video with unrelated audio)
Metalheads? Huh? I like metal, but metal fans are some of the most boring dressers I've ever seen. Go to any metal show and you'll just see a bunch of guys wearing jeans and black T-shirts from their favorite bands' prior concert tours. Some of the musicians used to dress pretty flamboyantly back in the hair-metal days of the 1980s, but those days are long past; the musicians these days are in their 60s and dress rather casually and plainly.
In a world dominated by animal-powered transport, especially in cities, boots weren't optional, and they were high to keep the muck from soiling your trousers / dress hems. (As I'd recently commented in another thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42326115>.)
(Women if at all possible didn't walk streets, though of course that was a privilege largely restricted to the wealthy.)
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:
It's typically in the kitchen in a British household, unless you have a house with a utility room or an old outdoor toilet (growing up, my house had an external downstairs toilet but it was just used for storage and the washing machine).
When I moved abroad though it wasn't unusual to see the washer/dryer in the bathroom.
> 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.
This still holds up today. Can't speak for anywhere else but in the UK people will go out in 30ºC weather in an anorak or puffer jacket with a hoodie and tee underneath. The exact opposite of us northern British types who go out in winter wearing just one light layer at 5ºC (tee + jeans, top + skirt).
However, any of these could probably be worked around.
So in a more traditional suit there is the outer wool, an inner canvas structural lining, and then the slippery inner lining to hide all the seams and make it look finished.
I suspect the Edwardian suit had a slippery inner lining (or maybe cotton inner lining) but no canvas structural lining in between.
I'm tempted to ask them, with all their customizing, if they'd be up to something more 'cosplay'/sci-fi-uniform style, but only slightly, not 'overdoing' it. While keeping their high quality standards regarding the textile materials and their craft.
Hmm. Former Saigon...never been there, sure there is much more to experience and see.
Tempting, Tempting, Tempting...
This varied like everything in the period. My Edwardian recreation is a single layer. There's no structural canvas.
I'm not entirely sure when structural interfacing became common in virtually all mens' suit jackets, but based on my personal experience wearing recreations and going down the rabbit hole of late Victorian & early Edwardian clothing... I tend to view structural interfacing as something typical of more formal wear as opposed something you would see in everyday wear. So it's kind of a more modern evolution of the mens' formal suit that we always see it. I.e: historically you probably would have seen interfacing in tuxedos and tails and would have been less likely to see it in every day business and work attire.
Historically structure is something that has been achieved just as much through different undergarments and pieces (think of a 18th century pennier for example), rather than "one size fits all, off the shelf" clothing that is so common today that is going to include everything in one piece.
Structure in general has been insanely common throughout history. Both mens' and womens' clothing often featured structural boning, for example. I also mentioned penniers above. Victorian women's wear then mostly dispensed with penniers and women started padding their rear-ends, because "baby got back" was all the rage then too.
So most of the Victorian woman's hourglass figure, that we assume was created through unhealthy tight lacing that tried to squish and conform the woman's waist into something that it wasn't, was actually more commonly created by padding out areas around the waist (the hips, rear-end, bust and shoulders - you can't have Victorian fashion without puff sleeves) to create a certain proportion. It was a magic trick. You have to remember that people wore corsets and stays as undergarments for hundreds of years as everyday wear. This stuff was way way way more comfortable than we imagine. In fact, I think we tend to project a lot of our modern clothing trends onto the past and assume that if WE'RE uncomfortable in what we see as "formal wear", that people of the time must have been as well. Tight lacing corsets and trying to strong-arm the human body into a particular shape is something that is actually more modern than we tend to assume.
Also what we consider to be "formal wear" today is different than formal wear of the past. So formal suits may have had structural interfacing, but men also wore corsets (yes mens' corsets were common, but also remember that corsets were undergarments and wearing them as outergarments is a very modern trend that would have made Victorians blush) and other forms of undergarments that could create an outer figure through padding and shaping.
So I'm inclined to suspect that my Edwardian suit, which was made to be a historic recreation, is likely the most common. It looks formal to our modern eye, but was intended to be worn as every day business attire and so there is no structural interfacing.
But if you come across something like a tuxedo with tails of the era, I would imagine that would be more likely to contain structural interfacing as well as stays (small bones intended to stiffen and provide structure to a particular part of the garment).
Go ahead and remove the lining, but look carefully how the construction is done - you may well want to put it back in.
(okay, I'll be careful not to let it take up so much time my wife notices, but it could get that far if I'm not careful)
My wife and I are part time performing magicians and what I like about magic is that it is kind of the ultimate "maker hobby." If you're performing a trick, it can be as simple as a card trick or it can be as complicated as involving prosthetic makeup and practical vfx. So you can bring in all kinds of skills from woodworking to costuming to welding to special vfx makeup and you can make the hobby as wide or narrow as you like. Being someone with a ton of hobbies mostly centred around making stuff ... it enables me to be a "renaissance man" and consolidate all of those into one focused endeavour.
So we do all of our own costuming. The 3 piece Edwardian suit I mentioned I purchased from Darcy Clothing LTD in the UK and had it fitted by a tailor and then I altered it myself to add a few sneaky features for magic reasons. And I'm currently fabricating for my wife's costume a longline underbust corset in a late Victorian / early Edwardian style to replace the mass-produced one she's been wearing that is falling apart. This is my most ambitious project yet, clothing wise, because it's the first piece of visible outer-wear that I am fabricating from scratch and to fit her. Gradually I want to be able to do all of our own tailoring and costuming from scratch (i.e: would love to be able to make my own bespoke 3-piece suit by hand) but it's a craft that takes a long time to get good at.
For men that mean different weights of woollen suits for spring and autumn versus winter, and linen suits for summer.
And my understand I'd they also kept you safe. While a bowler hat may seem posh now, I believe it was a working class hat which was favored for its hard-hat like properties.
Arguably fashion could be one of the most important thing to people.
PS: on a side note, even in technical circles where we could expect more detachment from appearances in general, a lot of comment will revolve around "X looks dumb". As in "I'd look dumb taking a photo with an iPad" or "who would wear VR googles around people and look like an idiot". People are social animals, and they care about how they look.
I don't think we're obsessed over almonds and yet their production is wastingso much water in critical regions.
Right now it's cheaper to buy a new trouser than to have it repair by a local craftsman, and the fashion trends you are observing are also engineered and managed at an industry level, down to the color they'll want to push the next year.
TBH he answer could simply be regulation and bake the externalities in the price of the clothes. Some people will still change wardrobe every 3 months, but most won't have that luxury, and our views will adapt to that new reality.
that would explain the drop in extreme fashion's popularity also as people become educated.
Rational and animalistic are usually synonymous. Humans, on the other hand, tend to be far less rational.
Thus, the more rational we are, the more fashion matters to us. Or vice versa.
Is your type, dating wise, someone who is warm and dry?
My type is someone who has enough excess wealth to support my kids. Of course what this means is different for different animals, and in the case of humans different styles of raising kids, and different genders. In our modern world we don't think like this, but in 1700 a man could rape a woman and she would have no choice but to bare the child (if one happens), and then society would raise the child (in some cases she could drop the child off with the shakers or similar) - the important point is in this case the man only minimal cost to the child but there are a lot of costs on the woman. Thus women generally need signals that this man will stick around to feed her an can afford, that while the man needs to know the women's body will result in a baby being (as opposed to all too common dies at birth).
Warm and dry is the very minimum you can ask in a potential mate - anything else will die before the child is born and thus you don't pass those genes on. However if you can find someone who has enough free time to not only be warm and dry but also well decorated that implies they have plenty of excess time making warm and dry clothing for the child who then won't freeze to death. Of course different climates have different warmth and dry needs.
Aesthetic contemplations are never an afterthought.
I think it’s the exact opposite. Would seem like the transition our species had made to require clothes in the areas we live came after we had the clothes needed to migrate to those regions. The first humans to strap leaves to themselves likely did so for athestic reasons not for warmth, that would have come later.
Though I’m no historian so this is just speculation.
Not sure that follows. Most places have a climate that would allow us to get by without clothes if we so desired (at least for part of the year), but few do. On the other hand, farmers and their families used to use flour sacks to make clothing, and when the flour companies realized this they started making patterned sacks. Flour companies didn't do this for fun, it was a desirable feature that increased sales.
> Also, "fashion" is one of the stupidest things ever, like oh hey, you should now replace your perfectly good clothes every season because someone says so??
Agreed, but nothing stops us from keeping fashionable clothes around for a long time. "Sunday best," for instance.
For my case, for most of my life I hated thinking about clothes, hated anything other than big hoodies/jeans/jackets, saw it as purely utilitarian. Eventually after some soul searching and realizations/some new medication, I have discovered that I quite like using my clothing to express myself, my mood, what I'm doing, and so on.
Fast fashion is very dumb though in my opinion. No reason to be wasteful and throw things away, but there's a middle space that can be very rewarding to explore - the first time I put on a skirt was quite literally life changing.
Is that what you do?
If not, then that's a bold move setting up a strawman as you try to start a flamewar.
By having this opinion (and I assume dressing plainly) you are sending your own message to people about what's important to you.
Have you ever encountered the world of javascript frameworks?
And even in sub-cultures where one is just trying to communicate their distaste in fashion, there are usually unofficial dress codes. At nerdier conventions I typically see screen t-shirts riddled with pop culture references, or standard issue polos + khakis that communicate a sort of "I'm professional and I don't want to overthink my wardrobe". They're also the only place I see utility kilts, which definitely communicates something.
Einstein famously had several copies of the same outfit, because he didn't want to think about dressing, but he found one that worked for him. And I've seen several engineers copy this approach - communicating efficiency and I'd argue at least some desire to emulate an Einstein.
Clothes, as with many things in life, can be a form of artistic expression. What's so wrong with that?
More generally, fashion is a powerful form of self expression that allows someone to project to the world how one wants to be perceived. Eliminating fashion because it's impractical would be like eliminating art as impractical.
https://craig-green.com/ https://couture.balenciaga.com/ https://isseymiyake.com https://www.jilsander.com/en-us/men/ready-to-wear/view-all-r... https://www.rickowens.eu/en/US/t/designers/drkshdw https://www.comme-des-garcons.com/junyawatanabe.html
Now examples are dominated by average people, wearing inexpensive fashion that is mass produced.
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.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-int...
I don't think that follows. The weaving machines were advanced enough to print portraits: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/222531
It would have been considerably more expensive to get something custom made, but it was still possible. They were certainly willing to pay considerable amounts for clothes prior to industrialism.
I still remember when the IBM booth staff showed up at one of the big shows wearing IBM logo polos. Every one else was sort of welp, if IBM can dump the suits I guess we can too.
When I came in to talk to some people I mostly knew for my last job ~15 years ago, I did wear a tie and jacket and a couple people joked a bit but I knew them and they had been around long enough to know I just wasn't taking anything for granted.
Except I did have a job interview and I was so glad to be out of that workplace.
I sure don't dress like this and nor do any of my friends or family. I've only ever met one person I can recall with confidence who does. maybe I'm not the target audience, but I'm not really sure who is. Is this "style" really that common? Amongst whom? This article feels extremely reductive in its view of modern everyday fashion. Lots of people under the age of 25 are doing plenty of thoughtful, eclectic things with their wardrobes, that much I do know.
I wore one anyway and it was really hard to look different, to not conform, people treated you a little different.
Which is funny because Asians were wearing masks locally and people accepted that.
I'm happy to wear my 'chemtrail are death' t-shirt, so it wasn't the politics
Any the title is wrong "Why did clothing become boring?" it's why isn't it more intricate in the West. A lot of women will spend time on make-up in the West, why not clothing?
It's likely just me but my eyes don't render black clothes people very well.
Then all socks went from white to black, oddly enough.
The other clothing tragedy that happened around the same time-frame was that someone in Hollywood declared Fanny Packs to be out of style right when tight jeans came into being. This was a true tragedy for the hipsters, because fitting large phones into yoga-fit tight jeans would've been something even Harry Houdini would scoff at.
I've worn Levis 501s and used a Fanny Pack forever, and I never plan to stop.
Don't get me started on grown-azz men wearing bead or string bracelets. Nothing is more cringe than that, except for maybe flip-flops on men, but don't get me started.
Are other sandals acceptable?
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.
Beyond that, you're choosing a suboptimal and uncommon item for "utility" (a fanny pack) where other, better options would suffice. Why? I can't answer that, maybe to make a statement. In any case, this choice is "fashion".
Props to you for going out wearing what you like and not caring what other people think, be it flip flops or a fanny pack or a feather boa. Rock it!
Does it? Never heard that one before. I see a lot of people wearing fashion that isn't currently popular or trending, and a lot of utilitarian fashion (look up "techwear")
I suppose I probably won't convince you otherwise, it seems very important to your belief system that utilitarian fashion choices not be considered fashion choices because otherwise it would mean you engage in fashion, a prospect you seem to find unpalatable.
Deep irony here.
Unless it was made by their young daughter/granddaughter, it which case it is the mightiest of talismans.
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.
Adilettes (Adidas flip flops) und a fanny pack by Gucci are a legit clothing style in Germany. Maybe cringe for some, but state of the art for others.
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 were in dubious style when I was in college in the early 1990s.
"Today youths ... wear clothes which disconcert their elders, including tight jeans to emphasise a bulging crotch. They spend most of their time strumming on guitars or trendy-looking girls who look as though they’ve just crawled out from underneath a rolling stone. Secretly these girls will worry about tight jeans making a man impotent."
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.