Thursday, December 17th, 2009...8:38 am
#146: Don’t Dress Up. I Mean, Don’t Dress Down.
Everything boomers do is bad. You know that, right? Not only are boomers selfish, greedy, boring, and disgusting, but, worst of all, they’re deeply unfashionable.
Witness today’s incredibly offensive piece in the New York Times Style section on Dressing for Success, Again. It wasn’t enough for the writer to make the point that young men are (theoretically, anyway) wearing pin-striped suits and wingtips ala Mad Men; he had to contrast the supposed nattiness of the Evil Young against the 55-year-old “worst-dressed man in the room.” The new dressing-up, according to the Times, is nothing less than an enlightened revolution against boomer slobbiness.
Gee, just when I was about to think it was okay to wear pajama pants and Uggs to the theatre. Seems to me it was the boomers, as young professional bucks in the 80s, who wore Gordon Gecko suits and starched white shirts to the office. And our youngers who pioneered ripped jeans and untucked shirts and running shoes, not to mention free-range Labradors and indoor basketball courts, at work. Who practically viewed a necktie as a noose.
You see what’s happening here: The Evil Young are changing the rules yet again for the sole purpose of making us seem foolish and unattractive and very, very wrong. We dress up; they call us convention-bound and uptight. We dress down; they say we’re clueless slobs.
If David Colman, who wrote the Times piece, weren’t so blinded by ageism, he might have been able to focus on the real story, which is that men have felt increasingly free to embrace their feminine sides, to care more about style and grooming, to take time off to be with their kids or fall in love with someone smarter and more successful than they are.
But why dig that deep when you can just gun down daddy? And why pander to the only constituency that still gives a shit about reading your newspaper when you have to try so hard to prove you’re not over the hill yourself?
Colman ends his piece by urging moronic boomers to do what he says they’ve always idiotically done: jump on yet another age-inappropriate trend, albeit this time the laudable one of wearing argyle sweaters with plaid pants.
“What’s the worst that could happen, Pops?,” he writes. (I swear I’m not making this up.) “Someone might think you are 10 years younger?”
No, a-hole. i could spend over a thousand dollars on the janky outfit on the cover of the Style section, and then you could turn around and tell me Springsteen tee shirts and baggy jeans are back in.
Pam, your link takes us to “My Parisian Christmas,” not the NY Times article. That aside–you are so right on about the evil young. They are always changing the rules so they can “win.” Didn’t we learn as children that doing so made you a spoiled little spoil sport? A sore loser? Nuff said.
It’s just typical – the younger generation always rebels against the older one. It’s not just Boomer hatred specifically.
I love this line:
“I think it’s a reaction against the homogeneity of casual wear,” said Gordon Henderson, the design director of Topman. “There’s nowhere to go with that in terms of personality, whereas a suit sets you apart.”
Hilarious. In the old days, all men looked the same BECAUSE they were wearing suits. Now they claim casual dress all looks the same. “The man in the grey flannel suit” was the epitome of the Everyman.
This is at least the third time they’ve claimed dressing up for work is coming back in style. I’ve yet to see it become really prevalent except in some businesses. Historically, if you look at codes of dress through the ages, it always goes from more complex to less and less complex. I don’t think people, now that they are able to wear comfortable, practical clothes to work, will ever go back to uncomfortable fussy clothes (and for women, god forbid, pantihose) if they can help it.
We work longer hours now in offices than we ever did before. You just can’t keep that up when wearing a noose around your neck or pantihose and heels.
Perfect, Mauigirl. And I wonder whether the editorial support for dressing up might be underwritten by the increased pressure to attract advertisers? “People don’t give a crap about what they wear to work” is not a story that’s going to bring Brooks Brothers through the door.
Oh, where to begin. This whole article suffers from New York Times Columnist syndrome, in which some vapid, self-centered, neurotic writer, usually a woman, lifts her head briefly from her ongoing examination of her own navel to look at the navels of her friends and identifies a Global Trend, or a Universal Truth, which she generally pulls out of her posterior. Looks like this guy did the same.
In academia and in IT, men who dress up are viewed with deep suspicion, because the only men on campus under 40 who dress like that are either B(usiness)-schoolers or administrative types, the sort who wander cluelessly into a given department wondering whether it’s the sort of thing that can be cut and farmed out to Bangalore for distance learning. IT types in their 20s and 30s still wear the uniform of t-shirts and jeans. Younger professors wear button-down shirts, khakis, and sweaters.
Best strategy is to consider these guys to be trying too hard. Because they are. Ask one of these dandies for his boss’s contact information–and then say, “Oh, forgive me–I’m afraid I thought you were an administrative assistant.”
casual wear IS very homogeneous – in the US. look outside the borders and you see much more fashion, meaning expressions of individuality, among all age groups. quit navel-gazing about being 40+, 50+, whatever. wear what you like, what expresses some part of who you are, and have some style. if not now, at this age, when??? someone thinks you’re old? so what. no doubt they’re younger. inspire them to be this way when they’re older.
The main problem with this critique of the NY Times Editorial is the writer’s line “Gee, just when I was about to think it was okay to wear pajama pants and Uggs to the theatre.” First of all, anyone criticizing a style editorial would never, and I repeat, NEVER ever think it is ok to wear pajama pants and UGGs anywhere outside of your home. And also, anyone criticizing a style editorial would never, and I repeat, NEVER ever buy UGGs in the first place. That’s like criticizing the Chanel pistol pump while wearing your Crocs. Here’s a tip from Mr. Gunn which I hope will help you in the future. “If you are going to dress like you just got out of bed, don’t get out of bed”
Wow, I’m flattered you mistook me for Andre Leon Talley. But in case it wasn’t evident enough, I guess I need to insert the word HUMOR in red capital letters every sentence or two. And in case I still haven’t made my point: Don’t worry, babe. I don’t really think it’s okay to wear pajama pants and UGGs to the theatre, though some 19-year-olds might feel otherwise.
Wendy, I love you. Perfectly articulated:
“…casual wear IS very homogeneous – in the US. look outside the borders and you see much more fashion, meaning expressions of individuality, among all age groups. quit navel-gazing about being 40+, 50+, whatever. wear what you like, what expresses some part of who you are, and have some style. if not now, at this age, when??? someone thinks you’re old? so what. no doubt they’re younger. inspire them to be this way when they’re older.”
I couldn’t agree more. As I age past youth, my thing is to become more of who I always was and to wear it proudly giving barely a *ish what some evil youngster thinks. They stopped ruling my life in highschool. I refuse to relive it.
Ha! Once again, the pleated skirt, twin set and penny loafers RULE! If it’s not in fashion, it can’t really be out. Or at any rate, I’m dressed the way I feel comfortable, and the Evil Young may laugh at me all they want! (And Pam, I read your book AGAIN over the weekend– what a hoot. I really needed it, since the Evil Young in my house were attempting to leave it wearing short shorts, a sports bra, and a t shirt with no sides or sleeves. And they laugh at what I wear?)
[…] Despite the confusion the New York Times brought to this issue, I’ve decided after much deliberation and observation that the official How Not To Act Old dictate should be “Don’t Dress Up.” […]