The Clothing Thread

Pretty simple. I wear lululemon to work and school. I know it's pricey, but my clients are upper class, and I can't walk in looking like a scrub. For going out I love skinny jeans, leggings, dresses, and more dresses. I hate preppy gear so I refuse to wear khakis. Not happening, ever. I like clothes that run along the style of Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, or BP at Nordstrom's. I'd rather have a handful of really nice things that I love than a closet full of cheap stuff I kind of like.

 

Were Khakis ever considered preppy for women? I thought khakis were preppy for guys, and then their women wore dresses. In fact the only women I've ever seen in khakis were lesbanons. So I think you are in the clear TX. Unless you enjoy licking the snatch.

 

Jeans/Tshirts/Hoodie in the winter.

Shorts/Tshirt/Flip-flops in summer.

Men in V-necks and skinny jeans need to be beat. Those are for women only. They only look good on women. Women who like men who dress like that should re-think their sexual orientation. In LA this seems to be the standard uniform for our sub-species of douche. It cuts across all racial/ethnic lines.

 

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The whole argument of "I dress like shit because I'd rather be comfortable" drives me up a fucking wall.

I care a lot about how I dress, and mostly work in the fashion industry (I just came from an interview for a vintage couture house). It's hard to describe my style, though, because it's full of contradictions. I think dressing in one style is boring, and not very indicative of my personality (and to me, fashion is all about self-expression) so my M.O is to throw some kind of twist onto my look from a different style so it's a little off kilter. I feel just as comfortable wearing a leather jacket and motorcycle boots as a ruffle-y polka dot dress as a men's sweater and canvas sneakers as a little black dress and a mink. But if you ever see me in any iteration of the fucking Northface-leggings-Uggs uniform that has destroyed the nation, shoot me in the head because my body was probably taken over by an alien bent on Earth's destruction.

I also have a talent at looking a lot more expensive than I really am. 80% of my wardrobe comes from H&M, yet I somehow still manage to come off looking (mostly) impressive and unique (ifIdosaysomyself). I cannot wait to have disposable income again so I can have the option of shopping at the millions of amazing boutiques in the city, or even just fucking Anthropologie or J.Crew.

I just think it's really fun and it's like costuming a character each day. I never understood why girls wouldn't care, and while it makes more sense for guys, I don't see why they wouldn't either, especially since it is SO much easier for a guy to dress well than a girl. A sweater and some nice, dark-wash, straight-legged, unstained jeans and shoes (with a good coat and a scarf) is all I ask. It. Is. All. I. Ask.

 

I guess I'm lazy.
I like blue jeans, white shirts, harness boots, and a belt for almost any occasion.
Summer in Texas is hotter than Satan's ballsack, so I'm a little looser...flowy mini dresses and thongs are my uniform.
I hate fads.
My work clothes? Lululemon pants, or Nike pants, and one of my CrossFit shirts. During summer it's booty shorts, knee socks, converse, and a tank top or CrossFit shirt.

I like feminine clothes with a bit of an edge and GODDAMN do I hate ruffles. Jennifer Aniston's clothing style is I guess the most 'celebrity style' type thing I could say is close to mine.

Shoes? I have four pair of workout shoes, two pair of cowboy boots, one pair of motorcycle boots, an ungodly number of heels, and like five pair of climbing shoes.
Lets not talk about the two closets my clothes take up. My poor boyfriend made me throw half of them out when I moved.

 

Is comfort limited to how a material feels on your skin, or might it extend to how careful you have to be not to spill stuff on it? How about the level of anxiety you feel about being perceived as either trying too hard, or not trying hard enough?

I like wearing cheap stuff because I get dirt and food on myself. I like doing things that are physical and eating things that are messy. I like that to be my default behavior. I like not being a prisoner to my things. More on that below.

What is a "vintage couture house?" You can't possibly take yourself that seriously.

Why is that a talent?

That's the reason you can't wait to have disposable income?

I apologize if it seems that I'm singling out you and your appetite for clothing. It's no worse than any other material craving, e.g. guns, cars, video games, and tech gadgets. Vulgar acquisitiveness for anything of this sort is pathetic.

 

You're a boy, you don't understand. And I think her point is that she works in fashion, so it is important to look fashionable if you expect to work. The reality is that looks, appearance, and yes, clothing matter. I was pretty much told after I was hired for my current job that it was because of how I looked and presented myself. Granted, I am not a babbling idiot, but it was what gave me the edge. They wanted somebody who represented the practice well.

 

I'm a dude who wears skinny jeans and that's like, your opinion, man.

Focus: I guess I dress like a hipster, or the close approximation of it. I like my button up plaid shirts, or just button up shirts in general. I also wear skinny jeans and you can often see me wearing a wool jacket with a hoodie. I do own quite a bit of really expensive clothes for various occasions and have been known to dress up once or twice (Apparently, I own a $300 pair of jeans which I got for like 100). I also own like eight pairs of shoes; mind you, like 8Track, they all have their own purposes. My steel toe boots (carbon fiber fuckers), two pairs of Vibrams, skate shoes, two pairs of flat bottomed shoes that are pretty rad, really nice dress shoes and a couple others.

I wear steel toed boots, Carhartt overalls and a heavy jacket while working and I've met people outside of work and they usually have a double take. There is quite a change between work Primer and not work Primer.

 

I wear whatever my girlfriend tells me to. She tells me what to buy too, it's just easier that way. It equates to a lot of dark jeans, button downs and sweaters in the winter, and... the same fucking thing without the sweater in the summer. It's just easier this way. Sometimes I try to branch out on my own, and I recently started wearing polo shirts over thermals. It was met with disinterest, which is her way of being nice and not telling me i look like an asshole. Oh well. She used to work in fashion so I'm happy to go with that.

As far as the skinny jeans debate goes... I like the fact that some dudes wear skinny jeans. It's an easy way for me to look at people and say to myself "now there is a hipster douchebag" and I can avoid them. See? Very handy.

See also, "corduroy pants, brown" and "t-shirts, pink v-neck". Same thing.

 

I think the divide between "nice" clothes and "casual" clothes is silly and entirely constructed.

People shouldn't wear nice clothes. They should wear clothes that make them look good. There's a difference, and if you've ever seen anybody who rocks the fuck out of some jeans in a khaki and oxford, you've seen it. I just don't buy into the idea that everybody looks best in leather shoes and striped shirts, or whatever you'll find at the sort of clubs that have dress codes. Some people just look better in casual clothes.

For what it's worth, I used to (sort of) work in the fashion industry. I wasn't a designer, but I've been around enough of those sorts of people to form my own opinions.

EDIT: I do think that it's entirely up to companies if they want to have a certain sartorial culture, and if you want to work someplace, you should probably dress like it. But on a personal level, it kind of bums me when people wear collared shirt + sweater + khakis as some sort of signal that they're reliable and inoffensive.

 

You make a good point here. I know guys who do the looking-like-I-rolled-out-bed look and get treated the same as Franky McSuit who's wearing the fitted suit. Perception is part of the social dance that people do; they will treat you according to how you dress and act, upon first meeting. I wear what I wear because I'm comfortable and enjoy the look, this translates into me being more at ease in my environment and ultimately makes other perceive me as a person with high confidence and high confidence is one of those things that people flock towards.

 

Oh jeez. In general, listen here: don't be one of those tools who attacks my interest in clothes in a thread where the entire point is for everyone to come together to talk about what they wear and why. Specifically:

Clarification: I meant more as the average person's day-to-day outfit. I feel terrible for guys who have to dress up in suits in the hot weather. And I don't think wearing skin tight dresses and five inch heels every day is neither comfortable nor a good sense of style. I was reacting more to hearing the complaint of girls who wear sweatpants and hoodies unless they're going out because they "just want to be comfortable." A pair of jeans and a shirt or a sundress, is just as easy and comfortable to wear as sweatpants, and you look 100 times better if you do.

Whenever I've heard this word in this context, it usually equates to ease. Sometimes it also equates to self-esteem, where they don't want to risk trying and failing, or showing too much of their body, or getting too much attention (like you were wondering, or accusing, in the second question). It's only the first reason that makes me angry (for the reasons listed in the first defense). Although what I was mostly talking about is this is usually put into the argument when they're defending looking entirely inappropriate for an occasion. I don't think it's okay to wear what you slouch around your house in to a restaurant or to the theater or wherever, but so many people do now. Everyone looks like a slob these days and it's sad.

I think it's obvious that I'm not implying every lifestyle has to dress the same way. Just like with the guy who (I'm assuming) is a lawyer and gripes about having to wear suits every day, I'm not going to roll my eyes at a mechanic because he's not wearing a suit. It's not like I'm some rom com character who tries to wear a cocktail dress while camping. If I'm doing something physical or more relaxed, I'm wearing something suited to the day. As I said, I wear all ranges of clothes, so I'm aware that there's a wide range of different ways to look good and stylish and appropriate. That being said, walking around with food and dirt all over your clothes doesn't look good in public and is occasionally disrespectful. If you're like that when you're with your friends or in your house, it doesn't matter, but if you're one of those people who can't differentiate between that mode and when you need to wear a nicer pair of jeans or a suit, then it does.

"Vintage" = clothing made between 1920 and 1990 (at least for now it does). "Couture"= a commonly misused word for "high end designer clothing" (but technically means custom-made, exclusive clothing with high-end materials, and the designer actually has to be recognized as a couturier by some organization that I'm blanking on right now). "House"= shop. I didn't make up the language, man. And I didn't make up (or participate in) the lifestyle. I just happen to have been studying the industry as an art form and as a business for around ten years, so I've picked up a few things here and there. Knowing and understanding the language is a part of it, just like with every single other hobby or interest of profession or field of study.

You should calm down. The phrasing (I thought) was clearly just being silly and facetious. Although, yes, I do take pride in being able to stretch and manipulate a closet filled with clothes that are rarely over $30 to be able to make it look like I can do business with people who are wearing $900 shoes and a $2000 jacket. And if you're one of those people who thinks that appearance doesn't matter in business, then I'm just going to give up right here.

Well, that and to be able to move out of the ghetto, pay my student loans, have health insurance, eat healthier/better quality food, travel, afford to do things other than sit around my apartment, and own a dog. But those are all irrelevant in a thread about clothing.

Meh, I stopped apologizing for being materialistic when I was eighteen after spending far too much time defending being interested in fashion and wanting to work for magazines instead of devoting my life to building irrigation systems in Africa or joining a hippie commune and growing my own food. (Yes, I had these actual arguments for two years with the guy I broke up with at that time. Meanwhile his holier-than-though goal to be a musician and smoke pot all day now has him struggling to eventually graduate from a state school when he's 26 and working at Price Chopper, but that's life. End of side rant.)The point is that it really shouldn't matter to you, and I can nearly guarantee you have some frivolous equivalent in your life (unless you're Ghandi or in the Peace Corps or whatever, then by all means continue on with your righteousness). I'm not some two-dimensional fashion bot, and I'm not one of those insufferable fashion personalities, so I really think that it's okay that I take the time to think about what I'm wearing every day and not look disgusting, and to think it's generally a shame that more people don't.

(This went on far too long. Apologies to everyone else.)

 

From my perspective, clothing can be considered another form of art. Art, in general, is a way for people to express themselves through a given media. It can be painting, music, drawing, sculpting, acting or a plethora of ways. Lots of people use clothing as a means of expressing themselves, much like a painter does through his canvass; one could argue it doesn't take much talent in order to look good, I disagree. I know plenty of people who have no idea how to dress themselves and up until recently, I didn't either. There is a trick to being able to look good without spending thousands of dollars and very people have it.

You can call buying nice clothing extravagant and materialistic but it's no different than spending thousands of hours practicing the Cello and never playing for an audience.

 

FYI: It's ok for a chick to talk like that, but coming from a dude it just sounds gay. You basically just outed yourself as a gay hipster in this thread.

 

Currently I work at a high-end casual clothing store, so my style has been heavily dictated by that for the last six months. The company has an image to present and as an employee I'm obviously expected to project that. My go-to outfit is usually skinny raw denim, a low-cut, oversized tank or tee, cashmere cardigan, and knee-high leather boots. It may come across as slightly hipsteresque, but not overly so.

Like the dude in the article (who actually shops at my store), I am a member of the "I Don't Wash My Jeans" club. When wearing raw or selvedge denim, we always recommend to customers not to wash them for at least 6 months to allow them to properly fade to their bodies; washing the jeans earlier won't create the personalized worn effect that most customers want out of their denim.

As others have mentioned it's not so important that you wear nice clothes - wearing clothes that flatter you and your personal style is far more important. Despite being obviously tattooed and dressing on the casual side most days, I'm always treated well wherever I go because I present myself well.