Althouse: "Dressing up was my mother’s way of taking control, and making sure that she felt her best going into a situation that..."

November 20, 2014

"Dressing up was my mother’s way of taking control, and making sure that she felt her best going into a situation that..."

"... though she didn’t betray it at the time, left her shaken and scared.... Now that I live in San Francisco, land of the billionaire hoodie, I never see anyone who looks like my mother. It’s clear that in Silicon Valley, there’s a strong relationship between informality and innovation, and I wonder how my mother would feel about that..."

From a NYT op-ed by Anna Nordberg with the title "Dressing Like My Mother."

33 comments:

MadisonMan said...: I really liked that.

Way back when, my mother criticized me when I showed up at my Uncle's funeral in jeans. What I tell my kids: You will rarely be overdressed at a function and feel uncomfortable because it's easy to alter what you have on to look less formal. It's very hard to show up somewhere underdressed and make yourself look more formal.; 11/20/14, 10:38 AM
Tibore said...: Meh. Fashion will likely swing towards less informal sartorialism at some point. I've noted that a lot more pro and college sports teams have their players dress up to at least business casual if not full-on suit-and-tie to travel for away games. That'll get noticed by some younger fans.

It's all about trendiness. Silicon Valley denizens do the informal look because they disdain the whole notion of formality for "business", but it won't take much to change the social focus towards folks who dress up. I'm very willing to bet that in the near future those tech guys will be viewed as slobs.; 11/20/14, 10:39 AM
virgil xenophon said...: Sigh, the days when adults dressed like adults....still the norm in Europe--that's how they can always spot the slovenly Americans in their midst..; 11/20/14, 10:43 AM
Jaq said...: Did you know that dressing in a grey t_shirt everyday is every bit as sexist as dressing in a shirt that depicts space amazons in a ray gun battle?; 11/20/14, 10:49 AM
chuck said...: I'm waiting for the tech lords to build castles in the hills so they can survey their demesne from their towers. There is no doubt that they would like to have the techno-serfs bound to their lot and, given a generation or two, they will probably have the equivalent of sumptuary laws. It is already the case that some stores specialize in overpriced tee shirts and such, the prices serve to keep the riff raff out of the stores.; 11/20/14, 10:53 AM
Jaq said...: Zuckerberg's tee shirt looks like one of those 3 for $9.99 jobs you can buy at rite-aide, the way it fits him.; 11/20/14, 10:56 AM
Will Cate said...: Very interesting. My mom was the same way -- it was of extraordinary importance for her to look perfect before she set foot outside the house. We were never on time for anything, because of the 30-60 additional minutes it would require her to "get ready."

Fortunately today at age 75 she's not that concerned with what she's wearing.; 11/20/14, 10:58 AM
Balfegor said...: Re: Tibore:

Silicon Valley denizens do the informal look because they disdain the whole notion of formality for "business", but it won't take much to change the social focus towards folks who dress up.

There's a mix between the pretentious types who wear designer jeans and a affect informality to flaunt their power, and the people who genuinely have no idea what "formal" dress is. My roommate in college described a sportcoat as a "suit" -- to him, business dress might as well have been cosplay (or white tie, for that matter).; 11/20/14, 11:01 AM
Balfegor said...: Anyway, I am in favour of dark suits and ties for everyone, so no one has to worry about what to wear.

A T-shirt with pictures on the front? NO.

Jeans? NO.

Trainers? NO.

Short pants? NO (unless in Bermuda)

It's as simple as dressing can get. The only questions are at the edges, like "Can I wear this loud check?" (NO), or "Is it okay to wear a bow tie?" (NO) or "How about if I leave the last button on my cuffs undone" (NO) or "Can I wear a four button suit?" (NO) or "Can I wear a suit with satin lapels for business?" (NO that is a tuxedo) or "Can I wear a necktie with cartoon characters down the front?" (Only if they are in a small repeating pattern indistinguishable from a distance).

Women, of course, will still face enormous difficulties, but that's what you get for not adopting a uniform in the 20's.; 11/20/14, 11:08 AM
chuck said...: ties for everyone

No way. The lack oxygen would render the techies too stupid to do their work.; 11/20/14, 11:16 AM
Chance said...: One reason Silicon Valley types dress down is because it is a way of signalling to others that you are such a genius that you can't be bothered to conform to previously established conventions. So, in a way, their actions are consistent with the mother's intent in dressing up.; 11/20/14, 11:24 AM
mccullough said...: Men don't wear powdered wigs and breeches anymore either.; 11/20/14, 11:24 AM
chuck said...: @Chance True enough, no one expects a man in a suit to actually know anything useful...; 11/20/14, 11:27 AM
Hoss said...: I gotta admit, I was shocked and touched by film footage in Ken Burns's The Roosevelts of men standing in soup lines during the Great Depression wearing suits and ties. Shocking by today's standards.; 11/20/14, 11:28 AM
SGT Ted said...: Fashion is conformist signaling of tribal belonging. Suits and ties will go the way of powdered wigs and high heels of the 17th century.

want a uniform? Join the Military.; 11/20/14, 11:35 AM
Balfegor said...: Re: chuck:

No way. The lack oxygen would render the techies too stupid to do their work.

Your shirt collar is too tight if it is restricting circulation or airflow -- you should try one size larger.; 11/20/14, 11:41 AM
Achilles said...: People take you seriously when you wear a suit. You also act differently. You are assumed to be in a leadership position.

I think Chance nailed a lot of it. But I think there is also an escape from this world moving into another world aspect to it. Here they are (generally)skinny not physically masculine types who spend a lot of time working on a mental craft. Here they don't want to draw attention to themselves because of physical appearance and be that leader. There they are a giant with power and viewed as attractive. Suiting up here just emphasizes that.; 11/20/14, 11:42 AM
Jaq said...: , no one expects a man in a suit to actually know anything useful..

Ha! Never thought of that, but it is obviously true.; 11/20/14, 11:50 AM
wildswan said...: There's a fashion for people who really work, like carpenters, farmers, ET's, firemen, police , rescue which is like the Duluth Trading Company catalogue - strong cloth, pockets, simple colors, pants stay up.

Another fashion for IT. Overwhelming cartoonish T shirts, plain pants and shoes.

Another for attending events - pants fall down, hair wildly cut and colored, tattoos, torn clothes

Halloween - you wear a suit and tie or a bouffant hairdo, a matching skirt and sweater, slim heels.

Fashion - you gotta love it.; 11/20/14, 12:25 PM
traditionalguy said...: I always noticed that Casual Fridays are how elite law firms showed off. They are so powerful that the Rules of Dress do not apply to them.

The middle classes still have to dress for success.; 11/20/14, 12:32 PM
paminwi said...: What I find amazing is how quickly this devolved into what men wear. Only 2 responses at this point about mothers, none about wives, sisters, aunts, lady bosses. I think mothers set the standards and I am guessing many of the commenters mothers had no such standards as the mother in the article. IMHO; 11/20/14, 1:12 PM
Jaq said...: Yeah, my mother was a loser housewife of a working-class man. I promise never to comment on fashion again.; 11/20/14, 2:01 PM
Balfegor said...: What I find amazing is how quickly this devolved into what men wear.

Well, I could talk about what women should wear. For example, "please, no sequins." Or "avoid open toed shoes."

But really, those lack the force of rules -- they're just my personal preferences. It's easy to say what is and is not "appropriate" for a man, and provide guidance (however disregarded it may be). Dressing is a lot more personal for women, because there are no rules, so women get offended more easily if you tell them they're doing it wrong.

Because male dress has such clear rules, I think a lot of men also feel more comfortable compartmentalizing rule-based dress into specialized situations (the office, the opera, church, a wedding, a funeral) and either dismissing it as irrelevant for that reason (see this entire discussion) or simply accepting that those are the rules one follows for such and such a time and such and such a place. One can follow this to extremes -- no one wears a morning suit in the US anymore, for example, unless one is the Solicitor General and is making an oral argument before the Supreme Court. Well, that and possibly a very traditional wedding.; 11/20/14, 2:04 PM
Julie C said...: My mom was a housewife and anytime we went downtown we got dressed up. It was a big deal when I was a kid to dress up, get on the streetcar and head into the city from our suburb.

She also used to "put on her face" every afternoon before my dad got home from work, if she had spent the day cleaning or cooking. I remember asking her what she was doing, and she said it was always important to look your best for your husband so you should remember to take a few minutes each day to freshen up, put on some makeup and fluff up your hair.

They were happily married for 60 years!; 11/20/14, 3:03 PM
Sydney said...: I never liked wearing dresses when I was growing up, nor when I was in college. But, when I started doing my clinical rotations in medical school, I embraced the dress (and the skirt.) A business casual dress made me feel like I had at least some authority and gave me more confidence around patients. To this day, I wear a dress or skirt to work. I do not even feel comfortable in dress pants.; 11/20/14, 5:09 PM
Dr.D said...: What a gheat article. I think that there is definitely a strong relationship between how we dress for work and the quality of the work we do. Look like a slob, think like a slob!

When I was in graduate school, I started wearing a dress shirt and to school every day (utterly unthinkable today!). It helped, and I have continued to dress for work throughout my working life. I don't rip my tie off the moment I get home either; I can wear a tie right up until bedtime without a problem.

This whole thing is something I have tried to teach my students, although I don't think I have had much success in that respect.; 11/20/14, 5:19 PM
chillblaine said...: "I used to lean into the closet where she stored her fanciest clothes and let myself be swallowed by the crush of evening gowns."

I like this passage very much. I keep my mother's armoire. When we were kids, it contained the record player that filled the house with triumphant Christmas music.; 11/20/14, 8:56 PM
Danno said...: For those of you that need a suit or other dress clothes to feel powerful or important, I feel sorry for you. This country has far too many empty suits walking around on their power trips, including most of the people inhabiting the Washington, DC area, including our esteemed President.; 11/20/14, 8:57 PM
Laura said...: Though antithetical to the beautiful tenderness of the essay referenced, one of the songs that helps me cope with the loss of my grandmother (a dress designer and milliner whose name never appeared on the shop's label) and my father is Miranda Lambert's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yg05svXp98.

My grandmother customarily wore navy blue with red lipstick, but was buried in light blue polyester with orange lipstick and a blonde wig. For an eleven-year-old who assumed the title of mommy's confidante, it was easy to pretend they didn't bury the right Tante, who most likely started out in the shirtwaist factories and resisted women activists' pushed to spend their earnings at the university instead of the frivolity they had earned. I treasure the picture of her in a man's woolen swimsuit.; 11/20/14, 9:36 PM
a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...: This article made me reflect that clothes are a gesture of our state of mind and relationship to others, significantly defining who we are; and we use clothes that way all our waking lives so much so that we don't often notice it.; 11/20/14, 11:37 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Belfegor,

Short pants in Bermuda????

Oh my goodness gracious no! Think about it... what if Althouse showed up for a visit?

Well, I could talk about what women should wear. For example...

Dude! Where's the "cover up the nipples, please"; 11/21/14, 4:02 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Julie C,

God bless your mother!; 11/21/14, 4:02 AM
virgil xenophon said...: Julie C/

Sounds like my Mother also (I'm 70, so you can see what generation she was from) Although when my blushing bride first married me ('73) the first year of our marriage she would get up every morning before me to "put on her face" so I wouldn't wake up to see her w.o. any make-up! LOL!; 11/21/14, 4:33 AM