June 11, 2011

Women in shorts.

In the office. These are supposed to be business suits. Presented seriously by the Wall Street Journal.

If you're getting this dressed up, what is the advantage of shorts? It makes no sense. And it looks awful even on these hyper-skinny models. (Also: Are legs like that considered attractive now? How did that happen?)

57 comments:

Fred4Pres said...

At least you have no gender bias in your dislike of shorts.

I agree, not attractive. Although I do like a short skirt and a nice pair of gams (on a lady of course).

HT said...

It's always risky. The variety of legs that look good in business suit shorts is very very slim, so to speak. Not many can pull it off. When it works it works. But it so rarely works. In any event, it's always an eyebrow raiser, but in my book, not to be totally prohibited.

Shouting Thomas said...

I feel sorry for those girls.

Let's take up a collection to buy them a decent meal.

jeff said...

way too thin, but, yeah. I can see it.

TMink said...

Those are not at all attractive legs. The lack of normal subcutaneous fat makes them look misshapen.

Mostly gay designers like women to look like that.

Trey

Fred4Pres said...

Shouting Thomas, I am sure they are not lacking guys willing to buy them meals and drinks.

Sal said...

I'm a straight legs man, and I can tell you that those legs are not nice to look at.

Carol_Herman said...

Here's the lesson. When men are in scarce supply, hemlines go up. Remember the flappers following WW1's carnage?

I actually like the outfits. Women don't have to stand up when a man walks into the room. But if this is worn to the office? Women will stand at motorized desk, at their top height. Day in. And, day out.

Fashion attends the shorts.

Unknown said...

Ugh ! Skinny models make me think of cocaine. That one on the left needs to be on an IV for a couple of days. She looks sick.

Ann Althouse said...

You could throw a golf ball between those legs with the knees together. There shouldn't be a big, glaring space like that!

Big Mike said...

Are legs like that considered attractive now?

No, no, NO!!!

The woman in the center is marginal, at best. The rest? They need treatment for their anorexia.

And as to the propriety of wearing shorts -- by either gender -- in the office. That's also a firm "no."

We IT folks tend to be a little on the casual side, so the business suit jacket is too dressy while the shorts are too casual. No, it does not average out to "just right."

Paddy O said...

I don't think models are considered attractive anymore. They're very much, now, more like models in the early 20th century or before.

Attractive women attract the eyes (except for those in love, of course...). They're meant to be walking clothes hangers, not to be talked to, seen as real people, or otherwise considered as something other than the best way to move clothes from here to there, while showing a bit of fabric movement along the way.

So, you can't look at those as legs coming out of those shorts. They're just objects that keep the shorts from bunching together.

erictrimmer said...

The center model is the most attractive. Also the most voluptuous. Legs are more attractive from the side than the front. Knees are ugly.


I think those skirts have some ugly bunching in the front, but they're no worse than slacks in that regard. Skirts are smooth in the front so you concentrate on the silhouette, not the nuts and bolts.

One benefit of shorts over skirts, you don't have to worry about flashing your panties.

hombre said...

Cranes in shorts.

windbag said...

The shorts are unprofessional, but the sunglasses are an abomination.

Anonymous said...

The guy on the left is skinny but kind of cute.

Unknown said...

"How did that happen?"

Twiggy

Jeff said...

The woman in the center is marginal, at best. The rest? They need treatment for their anorexia.

Exactly. I'm pretty fit, and I don't like the popular current meme of normalizing as average someone who's twenty pounds overweight. But current runway models are just ridiculous--they have certainly gone far past "fit". Instead I think, "What's wrong with her?"

Fashion is a strange concept.

edutcher said...

They tried the same thing with men a couple of years ago and, in the mid-60s, they tried it with, get ready..., knickers.

A lot of women look worse in shorts than men do, sad to say.

PS What shout said.

I think we're dropping a lot of 60s paradigms (largely because, after 40 years of experience, we're realizing they don't work), not the least of which is women looking like prepubescent boys.

In the case of women looking like women, we can thank our visitors from South of the Border for influencing attitudes (flesh looks good on a woman, a nice round tush is a joy forever, real ones are better than fake).

Steve Koch said...

Those ladies have terrible legs, way too skinny. They look unhealthy.

Econophile said...

I agree with Paddy O--I've also thought the models are best when not drawing attention away from the clothing.

A more plain look should be preferred and a highly attractive and curvier figure is not only a distraction but could misrepresent the lines on display.

That said, some of the models' looks are so sickly they do not even achieve this utilitarian purpose.

Palladian said...

"Mostly gay designers like women to look like that."

Don't you claim to be some sort of counselor or therapist? If so, I feel sorry for your patients, especially if any of them are gay.

dbp said...

I think they look fine but would not be within dress-code for most workplaces. The ban on shorts, to keep men from showing any leg, would have to apply to women as well. Women could wear short skirts that don't change the overall look though.

tim said...

I don't know that I would go out of my way to sexually harass any of them.

dbp said...

by "they" I mean the outfits. The models are all a little scary.

Rob said...

Once again Althouse is revealed as a legist pig.

Trooper York said...

This is one of those stories about what the "artistic" types think about women's clothing not what people who are actually involved in the creation of womens ready to wear clothing.

Making suits is one of the most difficult jobs in womens clothing. Simply because women (people) are not uniform. They are bigger on the bottom than on the top. Or they might be well endowed up top but smaller on the bottom have a hard time buying a suit.

So what I did was take a page out of the way mens wear does it and offered suiting as a seperate. We made suit jackets, skirts and pants of the same material which is tapered and fitted to my sizing
(between 10 and 28. So a girl who is a 10 on the top and a 16 on the bottom can get a tapered fitted suit that fits every part of their body. With a choice of a skirt or pant or both to be purchased seperately.

I made an limited amount and have just finished a 99% sell through undiscounted which is generally unheard of in the business.

Trooper York said...

I respect what Palladian is saying but in my experience the gay designers in the fashion industry do have a bad attitude. Without exception.

And a particularly vehement dislike of plus sized women. One of them said to me "I don't want fat bitches to wear my clothes."

Sadly he is not unique and it is not an isolated incident. The attitude was best illustrated by Calvin in the recent TV series “The Fashion Show The Ultimate Collection.” He said “I am the designer and you wear what I tell you to wear bitch.”

It is very interesting to be a straight man in the fashion industry as they are few and far between.

Trooper York said...

I do know that Trey is a good man and is most definitely a good therapist.

Generalities can sometimes feel hurtful even if they are true.

Like the fact that most bald guys are grumpy. Just sayn'

Trooper York said...

Oh and most fat guys are jolly.

I mean just because I am chubby with a white beard doesn't mean I have to be happy all the time.

That's Santa for crying out loud.

Henry said...

Why would a woman wear a skirt-like substance that looks far far worse than a skirt?

Anonymous said...

Nice legs are really nice on a woman. But there's something else that's even better.

Peter

Alex said...

That wouldn't look good on a young, fit, female executive. NOt that I know any young female executives. Usually they are 40-60 and you don't want to see any part of their lower body.

rhhardin said...

It's the right outfit to look like a crazy woman.

Trooper York said...

Rh you freak me out man.

Trooper York said...

Rh Hardin giving women fashion advice is like Cedarford picking out your kosher butcher.

I mean we all have our strenghts and weaknesses buddy. Just sayn'

Trooper York said...

Although come to think of it Cedarford probably knows where all the Jews live in town so he can mark their doors and stuff. Just sayn'

The Crack Emcee said...

Are legs like that considered attractive now?

Legs? I don't even like their faces!

You could throw a golf ball between those legs with the knees together.

Ahhh, Ann, always with the ideas,...

Jim said...

I'm sure it helps if you work at the IMF.

rhhardin said...

The skirt/shorts combo is called a spork.

Big Mike said...

@Trooper, regarding your comment at 1:53 about selling women's suits as separates.

I'll bet my wife wishes she knew about your shop back before she decided to stay home with our handicapped son. Finding a woman's suit where top and bottom both looked good on her was really hard.

John Lawton said...

This appears to be a close relative of the skort, which was trendy in the 1980s as I recall (my ex had a favorite pair).

Trooper York said...

Thanks Big Mike that is true. It is very hard. But as a store owner you have to make a basic choice: do you just want to complain about it or do you want to do something to fix it. So we started making our own clothes. In this way I wouldn't be stuck with mismatched suits if I split up the pieces to fit the actual body of the customer. Most people don't want to do the extensive tailoring required to get a suit to fit properly. It is too complicated and too expensive. So I made up a bunch of the vairous sizes so people could mix and match. The problem is that I don't have enough dough to make enough to fill the demand. And that I only made the suits in black. No colors. I just can't afford it.

If your wife is ever interested in buying online she should check us out at leeleesvalise.com and she should email me before she orders and I will hook her up.

Dark Eden said...

Just don't blame skeletal models on guys. We don't like them, but we get blamed for them. Men like curves, not bones protruding from skin

Dustin said...

Something this obvious would have been popular for decades if it didn't look stupid.

This is just desperation in place of innovation. Which frankly, can be fashionable, even though it looks terrible.

And those women look like young boys. Their legs look awful.

For some reason, 'beauty' in the NYT and fashion world looks like a young boy. Never like a beautiful curvy woman. It's hilarious how much these people resist beautiful women. Especially with displays like this, which would be much more useful to the NYT audience if they showed normal human beings wearing the fashion of the minute on realistic looking women.

Phil 314 said...

Fred;
Although I do like a short skirt and a nice pair of gams (on a lady of course).

You got me thinking and I just had to find out.

Beldar said...

These are the long skinny legs that go in the long skinny jeans favored by long-legged skinny model-types on trendy shows like "Gossip Girls." They are gazelle-like, and perhaps suggest youthful freshness. Or bulimia, or heroin addiction, or some combination.

There's no doubt that they're certainly in vogue.

What must also be understood, however, is that male appreciation for the female form isn't driven exclusively, or even primarily, by fashion designers or this season's shows on The WB. Thus most adolescent or older males would probably find the models in the WSJ's photo quite attractive (I do). But we also find attractive an extremely wide variety of more "real-world" women with more typical proportions. I could make a long list of young actresses, for example, who don't have gazelle legs but who are almost universally considered "incredibly hot" anyway, and whose legs in particular are also considered "incredibly hot," even though they may be much shorter, or more muscular or fleshy or ... whatever.

Beldar said...

(As for the use of these shorts as professional office-wear, they're a notch less risky and risqué than wearing a very short skirt as part of a "woman's business suit." Not many women could carry either off naturally, and seeming unnatural while trying to could become the kiss of death to professional advancement. I wouldn't recommend any of these outfits to my 20-year-old daughter as something to wear to interviews, for example, even though she's an attractive young woman with normal but attractive legs.

Beldar said...

Last point: No doubt because of the specific apparel they were promoting (shorts), the young women in this photo are long- and skinny-legged to an extreme even for models. They're in the Elle MacPherson mold (and yes, her legs and the rest of her still look amazing as she approaches 50).

But most of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, and almost all of the Victoria's Secret models, have more normally proportioned and fleshed legs. Alexandria Ambrosio, for example, has lovely but average-length legs, but has been VS' most-photographed bikini model for several years.

My impression is that the crowd of runway and high-fashion models may tend more toward the looks of the young women in this photo. If so, that's an indication of women trying to look good for other women IMHO.

rhhardin said...

The most interesting office wear I ever saw was a secretary with large breasts wearing a skirt with suspenders.

The suspenders had to travel a very noticeable great circle route, seeking to minimize distance.

Every guy was wondering if the great circles were in fact planar, or if an ellipsoid imparted a third dimension to their route.

I don't know if anybody actually did the calculation.

You'd think it ought to be planar. An ellipsoid is just a linear transformation of a sphere, and a plane ought to map into a plane.

Work with engineers, die with engineers.

Max Truth said...

The answer to glass stairways.

rhhardin said...

Also: Are legs like that considered attractive now? How did that happen?

Very little actually matters to guys. It's the famous male low standards. Everybody has a chance.

It's more a battle among females via style.

A pleasant disposition and laughing at jokes doesn't seem to be on the women's agenda; it works though.

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that I can see the attraction for some women here. Pants may work in the winter, but if they can avoid wearing such during the summer, then so much the better.

Business skirts really need to be fairly long. Short ones just don't look businessy enough. And, all that maneuvering to protect from guys seeing what they supposedly shouldn't see just makes it more obvious that they are a woman, and, thus, should be treated differently. And, the shorter the skirt, the worse this problem is. Plus, do women really want to wear nylons in the middle of the summer? Esp. in warmer climes? Being a guy, I have never had to experience such, but have been told by more than one damsel that they can be hot.

So, the shorts look a lot cooler than either a skirt with stockings or long pants. And, can be shorter than a business skirt. So, they make some sort of logical sense.

But, outside the two coasts, I just don't see this look working, esp. in business. Maybe it is because a relatively longer skirt often looks conservative, while pants can make a woman look less feminine, and thus less different from the men. But men can't wear these shorts, and they display enough leg that we (men) will always be reminded of the women's sexuality.

Or, maybe just because they don't look all that good.

wv: newip - what Ann should shortly be getting for her blog.

Titus said...

How do those women sit down "at work" in those shorts?

You would definitely see their cooch. I guess the cooch has to be totally waxed.

Gay men can be so cruel to women sometimes.

Anonymous said...

You would definitely see their cooch. I guess the cooch has to be totally waxed.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


Peter

davis,br said...

Were those photoshopped?

...not.attractive.

At all.

Lance said...

Those aren't business women. They're working women. You can tell by the shoes.