I’m at home at 2:35 pm, in slippers. Even before The Rona, I saw cutoffs at steakhouses and T-shirts in courtrooms. How did we get here and are we ok? By bits and miles and yeah, mostly.
Those Greatest Gen’ers got through the Depression and won the War – Thanks!! – but in 1945, the culture had a long way to go, baby. My dad ran into a little unexpected dough right after Coming Home and what did he blow it on? A nice pair of cordovans (google it, kids). Clothes made the wo/man back then. Hats and suits and below-the-knee dresses were what respectable people wore.
First day of second grade, 1969, this Late Boomer had on long ‘slacks’ with no holes and brown leather shoes that even then were on the way out, forever. After Brown v Board, the Civil Rights Act, on and on, my brother’s Senior HS yearbook picture that year showed an earnest, clean-cut young man in a blue blazer and striped tie (who a year later would be marching on Washington, in a pony tail).
Even through the 80’s and 90’s and beyond, clothes defined…Izod labels, the right loafers and khakis – it still mattered. But more and more cracks appeared.
In 2000, I landed a job at a law firm in a tall (for DC) building. Lawyers were not then and still aren’t leading edge types, but there was already ‘causal Friday’, i.e., no suits unless clients/court. Then in 2004, still smoldering from 9/11, the firm went ‘casual summer; the de rigeur suit was dead.
On it went, in bits and leaps. More and more variety, less and less uniforms. Along came the virus and Boom! Not only can you dispense with ‘business casual’ dress – whatever that ever was – you don’t even need to come and present yourself to anybody. Stay home! Relax! Keep your jammies out of sight on Zoom and you’re good!!
It’s all good, mostly. Clothes don’t define anybody. No judgments on that surface stuff. Let it fly – or not! But get off my lawn a little. I took my oldest to be fitted for a pre-college suit last year. My younger son in a T-shirt at his (remote) piano recital stung a little. Alas, not a collar in sight, the whole program. And the barefoot young man on the plane…come the hell ON.
- Old Man Wrong
