Slumming It
I just got back from the beginning of holiday shopping with the family---my head is spinning, I feel dizzy and on the verge of collapse. I know I am supposed to enjoy shoppping for fashion items like other women , but I hate it. Perhaps I am just a hopeless closet geek who cares as much for shoes as I do for a trip to the dentist. I don't understand how Manolo the shoe blogger can have a whole blog on...shoes. Thank goodness there are others out there to support this blog (although he is quite funny and I love his writing style). I just watched tons of shoppers sifting through a shoe store at the mall where I was taking advantage of the empty seating. "What", I thought, "could they possibly see in a pair of shoes that would command such a hunt?" Did I not get the shopping gene? Are women really supposed to care about shopping and whether a particular bag cost $21000? Apparently, fashion is important to many people.
Ed Driscoll talks about the importance of clothing, and finds the following rules from Manolo's shoe blog to be salient:
5) The clothes they are important. They say important things about your identity, even if you pretend that they do not.
6) The fashion it is not the nuclear rocket brain surgery. One does not need the grounding in the theoretical sciences to know how to dress well.
Sorry guys, but I only care about how I look in relation to what others expect of me--left to my own devices, I would dress like I was auditioning for a part on Ambush Makeover and feel fine about it. Even when I was younger, dressing up meant little to me. I once went to the first meeting of a formal psychoanalytic externship in gym clothes (hey, I just got out of the gym and I took a shower). I walked in on a group of over 30 people all dressed in professional clothes glaring at me. Afterwards, the supervisor came up to me and said that I would need to wear more appropriate clothes to actually see patients and I played the part while I was there. I wore whatever nice skirt or outfit I could scape together but I never felt good because of it or felt that I had any of my identity tied to my clothes.
I think because my identity is tied up in being the observer and not the observed. To me, being the observer is more fun. I love watching people and have from a young age. If you do not not stand out in any way, people act more naturally around you and let you know more about them. I found this true in my work as a psychologist and I find it true in everyday life. People do not try to impress or connect too much to people who are "slumming" it the way I do most of the time out in public. At the office, it is different, I will dress to meet the needs of my job, of course. But in my regular life, you will probably not notice me for my fashion sense because I will be the one slouching in the corner with the too large purple sweat pants, ripped t-shirt and oversized down coat from the 1980's that belonged to my husband when he was in college.
Ed Driscoll talks about the importance of clothing, and finds the following rules from Manolo's shoe blog to be salient:
5) The clothes they are important. They say important things about your identity, even if you pretend that they do not.
6) The fashion it is not the nuclear rocket brain surgery. One does not need the grounding in the theoretical sciences to know how to dress well.
Sorry guys, but I only care about how I look in relation to what others expect of me--left to my own devices, I would dress like I was auditioning for a part on Ambush Makeover and feel fine about it. Even when I was younger, dressing up meant little to me. I once went to the first meeting of a formal psychoanalytic externship in gym clothes (hey, I just got out of the gym and I took a shower). I walked in on a group of over 30 people all dressed in professional clothes glaring at me. Afterwards, the supervisor came up to me and said that I would need to wear more appropriate clothes to actually see patients and I played the part while I was there. I wore whatever nice skirt or outfit I could scape together but I never felt good because of it or felt that I had any of my identity tied to my clothes.
I think because my identity is tied up in being the observer and not the observed. To me, being the observer is more fun. I love watching people and have from a young age. If you do not not stand out in any way, people act more naturally around you and let you know more about them. I found this true in my work as a psychologist and I find it true in everyday life. People do not try to impress or connect too much to people who are "slumming" it the way I do most of the time out in public. At the office, it is different, I will dress to meet the needs of my job, of course. But in my regular life, you will probably not notice me for my fashion sense because I will be the one slouching in the corner with the too large purple sweat pants, ripped t-shirt and oversized down coat from the 1980's that belonged to my husband when he was in college.
posted by Helen at 9:39 AM
31 Comments:
I can't stand mall shopping. The malls are full of people who stroll around with their minds on idle, leaking money as they go. The malls are largely designed for this. I enjoy a leisurely stroll as much as anyone else, but in the park, not at a mall. I am going to do as much holiday shopping as I possibly can on-line.
Greg,
Absolutely, I did all my shopping on-line last year and it was great--delivered right to my door and I just had to press and click.
I mainly blog about fashion because I know far more about men's clothes than any heterosexual man should (long story), and I find the whole recent "metrosexual" cliché to be more of an excuse for everyday guys to look like slobs.
I honestly don't expect men to all dress like Tom Wolfe or Adolph Menjou, but I also hate going to an expensive restaurant and seeing half the men dressed more shabbily than their gardener probably dresses for a night out--or worse, their dates. It's a curious phenomenon these days to see most women reasonably well dressed on a Saturday night, and guys with shirt tails out, backwards baseball caps (or baseball caps period), and the like.
It's also particularly strange in light something that Virginia Postrel noted in The Substance of Style, and I wrote about for The New Partisan last year: in some respects, especially in terms of design and architecture, American aesthetics have never been better. Yet paradoxically, as a culture, we're increasingly dressing more shabbily, especially men.
Clothing is a weird subject for most folks. Few of us like to dress up very much, yet when a person "dresses down" we draw conclusions from it.
Heck, where I used to teach, I would wear a jacket and tie on lecture days---usually with jeans and the like. The jacket and tie were not an affectation; I felt it showed how I respected the student-professor relationship.
Mind you, that was MY view, and I never applied it to others.
Yet the majority of the faculty in my department gave me grief because I wore a coat and tie to lecture (on the days I didn't lecture, I could out-casual any professor on campus).
The "outsider" comment Dr. Helen made really struck a chord with me. I have always felt like a anthropologist secretly studying what passes for a culture on our planet today. The "unwritten rules", seeingly senseless customs, and hypocrisy is everywhere, just as you would find in Papua New Guinea in the early days of contact.
People should dress as they like. But we must follow "kustom," it seems.
"Eric Blair"
To Mr. Driscoll,
I certainly see nothing wrong with discussing fashion or having an interest in others looking well-turned out. It has just never been my interest. I do think it important to try and please others at times because they do have to look at me and I try not to embarrass anyone too much. For example, the outfit you see pictured has been banned by my family and I know if I wear it, they will not go anywhere with me--I can't blame them.
It is just that I personally have no big need to dress up and do not get excited much by clothes, the way many people do. If clothes are part of a job I have to do such as appear on tv, give an interview, go to court etc., I approach shopping like a job--I find out how I should dress and dress accordingly. I guess what I don't have is the sense of fun and entertainment that some people get from clothes and fashion--from talking about it or shopping etc.
Different strokes for different folks I think sums it up for fashion. I myself adore fashion but I HATE shopping. Nothing is worse to me than wandering around trying to snag deals. But hey I was glad that both Ed and the Manolo decided to opine on the subject for me in my little project to discuss fashion, retail, and consumption though
Almost Girl
http://almostgirl.coffeespoons.org
I'm with you. I hate shopping although I like dressing nicely. I just want to wriggle my nose and have just the right outfit appear in my closet. I want to be tall, thin, blonde and neither old nor young, too, of course.
And as to being the observer or other or some such thing. Sometimes being very involved in fashion is the best way to do that. Deliberately hiding behind clothing allows you marvelous access at times. When I was a little blonde creature in sorority outfits I could go on the most marvelous sociological expeditions far away from my normal self. I actually think fashion allows you to experience otherness. It changes who you are in some sense because clothing signifies status, personal perception and a host of other ideas. Change the clothes, change the person.
I find it convenient to shop online and I have no problem dressing appropriately for work. Otherwise, I wear whatever's comfortable and handy.
Guess I'll fit in fine at this blog.
um, that outfit is certainly not designed to help you "blend in".
top ten ideas for countdown shows/
whose culture is this and does anybody know?
To drj,
Yes, you will fit in fine here if you are into comfortable clothes.
To almost girl,
I get it--I understand that clothes can signify status, personal perception etc. and I understand that I need to project this particular image at work but the rest of the time, I don't want to project that image--I do not care if others around me think I have status by the way I look--it is of little interest to me--but I realize that it is to others.
One of the things I love about the blogosphere is that no one knows much about how you look--it is a world where ideas are important--unlike the mediums of tv or film where the best-dressed are thought to be the most intelligent or the most successful. Appearances are important if you are on tv or trying to get service at Hermes (just ask Oprah) but I feel happiest when I am just kicking around in old clothes (clean ones, of course).
To anonymous 7:41:
My husband says the same thing about that sad outfit. It is hardly the thing to wear if you want to blend in--I just wore it because it was comfortable and like I said before, it has been banned from my house--in fact--the last time I wore it, my family threatened to call Ambush makeover.
At least you probably own more than one pair of shoes. The (female) faculty advisor for my computer science degree was wearing the same pair of penny loafers every time I saw her...for 3 years. That included the 4 classes that I took from her. But she knew more about data structures for parallel processing computers than was probably healthy for anybody to know.
My research methods psychology professor once commented that "Abnormal behavior is just normal behavior at the extremes of the probability distribution ." Face it, Helen, when it comes to interest in clothes, you have a z-score of about -3.
So, sometimes we dress for others, to impress or to blend in etc.,
and sometimes we dress for ourselves, to express and communicate more honestly.
It's a shame that professionalism is conventionally understood to require repression of individuality,
but when you're a successful individual professional then you can shed your professional disguise.
If you look at photos of Einstein, it seems that he was much more tidily dressed and coiffed when
he was a young patent examiner or whatever, and as a successful physicist he let his individuality
hang out.
I come from Boston and have been in Tokyo for over 20 years.
In Boston, most everyone seemed fairly casual, and I didn't think much of it
until visiting other parts of the country where people were a bit more formal, and in those places
some of the very casual people seemed to have more potential to be actual slobs or dangerous people.
In those places I was wary of people dressed in ways that I would have taken to be my
peer group in Boston.
The inability of poor people to live in expensive areas around Boston liberated everyone who did liver there from
any need to differentiate themselves and show they were well off.
In Japan, 20 years ago, people generally overdressed and over-make-upped, and there has been a
steady trend to casualness, particularly among the relatively educated and well-off financially.
I think it has to do with how wealthy the country's become, so that there's nothing for most to prove
sartorially. People who dare do business without a conservative suit are viewed suspiciously, but
nowadays its generally aknowledged that the suitless might actually be more professionally skilled.
It's all fascinating to consider fashion from Tom Wolf's perspective,
and I sometimes wonder why fashion discussions and fashion media reporting etc.
are so lacking in analysis of the socioeconomic meanings of various fashions.
There must be a good reason for that.
Two partial reasons are that
from the fashion industry's perspective, they take it as a given that we are all
striving to be a combination of rich/cosmopolitan/contemporary/classic....
But from many idealists perspectives, they will insist that they are not "dressing
for other people"....
Most people seem to fall into one or the other categories, even though
apparel analysis makes a much more interesting and personal
ice-breaker small-talk subject than the weather or sports.
I suppose its personalness and interestingness makes it too dangerous.
But speaking of Einstein's hair, your hair looks much better in its natural state in the
t-shirt advertisement, while your more-formal look in the top photo is
probably not as appealing to the people who would read your blog as being
a personal rather than professional blog... but you have both pics, and
maybe that's a happy compromise.
But by the time your professional position is consolidated, I hope that you
can garb yourself in the nice outfit shown on the floor and let the hair free
in the top photo
I just wish more young men my age would learn to dress appropriately for different settings. Most don't have a problem at the office (although I know people who showed up to job interviews in jeans), but when they go out they can't seem to figure things out at all. I'll wear a t-shirt and jeans around, but if I'm going out to dinner somewhere nice or something I'll put on some slacks, a nice shirt, do something with my hair. Fancy places? Tie.
That's the other thing, young men, learn to tie a damn tie. It isn't that hard.
anonymous 9:37:
You know--I imagine that there is an inverse correlation to some degree with one's perceived status and their clothing in today's society. I used to know a millionaire at a clinic I worked at (no, he did not make money as a psychologist--that was a hobby for him) who looked like he just stepped out of the homeless shelter. Maybe people who have "succeeded" (at least in their mind) feel less pressure to dress up to impress.
rough beast:
That active listening thing is amazing...
I don't think that in order to be professional you have to blend in. There are plenty of designers who create beautiful work appropriate clothing with personality and flair. You just have to know where to look. But for people that don't care sometimes it is just easier to throw on a black suit, your professional armor and call it a day.
There isn't a great demand in fashion magazines for more intellectual or basic socioeconomic interpretations of fashion because most magazines believe it is their job to direct how people dress. They consider themselves stylists rather than journalists. I personally would prefer a much richer coverage of fashion. I think that is one reason fashion blogging is starting to take off, people are interested in different approaches to fashion because as it is right now most people are either irritated, bored or intimated by it. How can you be interested in something that is so patently superficial for the most part? I don't think it should be that way but then maybe that explains why I am struggling to find a job in the fashion biz when I graduate in a week.
Almost Girl
Hi almost girl,
It certainly sounds like you have what it takes to fill the "intellectual niche market." Perhaps you hit on it when you said that the magazines tell you how to dress--they are always giving dos and don't's like one is a big dork if you don't follow their rules. I am sure I never do, one reason being that the fashion they show would look really stupid on me--I usually look at the before fashion pictures and think the person looks better--or at least more comfortable in the clothes if it weren't for the hideous frown the photographer must tell them to put on for the before picture. Notice in the after pics, people are always smiling.
I hate shopping except online (love keywords) enjoy dressing up but am mostly anti-fashion. I was greatly infuenced at a very early age by Erving Goffman's The Presenation of Self in Everyday Life. A must-read for the non-dresser.
Dr. Helen, I've found it easier to think of roles as roles and clothes as costume. Ask "who am I portraying for the people I will be with today" and dress the part. More fun that way and you can apply your acute psychological insights to the semiotics of clothes on yourself and others.
Hi Gracie,
Thanks for the suggestion--I do dress according to whom I am with at times--I guess I never thought of it as fun--but maybe I should start.
Helen: Dressing down once one has succeeded is, I suppose, possible, but it doesn't really fit with folks I know. Young, slovenly folks my age go to good/nice restaurants here in town wearing t-shirts (admittedly this is a casual town, but still). The folks wearing something nice-ish (a shirt with a collar, say) are the middle-aged professionals who're obviously more successful than their baggy-pant-wearing progeny.
There's something about dressing up, especially for women, that is strongly related to desire and seduction. I frankly enjoy being around women who make an effort to look nice. (Ironically, my wife's fashion sense is much closer to Dr. Helen's!)
I also kind of envy previous generations who grew up with strong sartorial boundaries. Something about appropriate dress undergirds (no pun intended) appropriate behavior.
Of course, if we were all as naturally good-looking as Dr. Helen, we could go to work and to dinner in t-shirts and still look fabulous!
swlip,
Thanks for the compliment.
Dressing becomes fun when you wear really good clothes. They actively feels good on the body and in doing so, they influence and uplift ones overall mood.
There was a movie guy back when who paid for all his actresses' silk underwear because he knew how important it was for them to know they were wearing it.
Much dressing fun may be had by buying vintage undies on ebay - the glam stuff from the forties and fifties.
As The Manolo says, Save the Money, Buy only the Best.
i dont like shopping and I don't even like the act of dressing up or putting on makeup...but I like being dressed up. Unfortunately, to do the latter, one has to do all the former.
I haven't noticed that not dressing well gives me a better window, but maybe I'm just too extroverted to fade to background, so all I get when not dressed appropriately is negative attention.
A lot of it for more women than care to admit it is need for reinforcement and insecurity. People don't want to be rejected as not good looking enough (by men or women) or not tasteful or whatever. For women, such judgements can be interpreted as "I'm failing as a woman." I suspect that for every woman who genuinely enjoys fashion, there's another one who'd skip it entirely if she could, and yet another who'd skip it at least some of the time.
anonymous:
I think it is too bad that people have to worry about "not being good looking enough" that they feel the need to dress up to be liked. I guess that is where I would differ. I do not feel an overwhelming need to be liked nor do I hold myself up to some standard of being a woman that I feel I have to live up to. Any woman (or man) can skip being involved in fashion if they are willing to live with the consequences. I suppose most people are not. I learned a long time ago that being liked was not a huge priority of mine but it is to some people. My feeling is that if someone only likes me for my fashion sense, they would not be the kind of person I would want to be around and probably vice versa.
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