{"id":210,"date":"2022-05-02T15:44:54","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T19:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/?p=210"},"modified":"2022-05-05T16:45:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T20:45:48","slug":"the-disappearing-middle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/the-disappearing-middle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Disappearing Middle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are \u201cwork\u201d clothes on the way out for good?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

For two-ish years now, the button-down shirts that rest comfortably on a rod in my closet have been staring at me \u2013 challenging me even, as if to say: <\/span>You ever gonna wear me again?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The answer is of course yes, but while I was thinking about this imaginary question, posed by the inanimate piece of cloth, I couldn\u2019t conjure up too many scenarios in which I\u2019d <\/span>willingly <\/span><\/i>slip one on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Button-downs, in this writer\u2019s humble opinion, aren\u2019t exactly comfortable, but they\u2019re not uncomfortable either \u2013 they just kind of <\/span>are. <\/span><\/i>They\u2019re available in all manner of patterns and textures \u2013 there\u2019s the cotton one with multicolored stripes streaking from top to bottom; the crisp, monochromatic, need-it-in-your-closet blue or white one, crafted from oxford cloth; and a personal favorite, the flannel, which is at once comfier \u2013 an exception! \u2013 and more hectic, in its design, than many of the staid, boring versions you\u2019ll find at your local <\/span>Brooks Brothers.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Before we dive any deeper into this sartorial pit, a quick word about the piece of clothing in question: button-downs will probably <\/span>always <\/span><\/i>be an essential piece of some pristine-looking get-ups \u2013 think tuxedos, well-groomed suits, and the button-down, blazer, no tie look that seems to be gaining prominence nowadays. Much like your band\u2019s favorite drummer, though, they\u2019re great as part of an ensemble, but not-so-great when they\u2019re forced to go at it alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another quick word (sorry): I don\u2019t really know shit about fashion or its evolving trends \u2013 I\u2019ve been clinging to the sweatshirt-and-fine-looking-pant look since around 2010. I\u2019m just riffing here, throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. A David Coggins column, this most certainly is not.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But if we\u2019re to assume, for just a second or two, that this <\/span>is <\/span><\/i>a Coggins old-man-yells-at-cloud treatise on the sweatsuit-ification of America, then this is probably the moment where he would start proselytizing about all the benefits of \u201cdressing up,\u201d and how it helps with this, or alleviates that. But you know what <\/span>really <\/span><\/i>keeps the brain fresh \u2013 no thought required! \u2013 and the body comfy? That\u2019s right, a steady diet of sweatpants and sweatshirts.<\/span><\/p>\n

All that aside, I do still think I might be onto something here, but <\/span>just <\/span><\/i>to<\/span> double-check, I asked some similarly-aged people \u2013 vicenarians, if you will \u2013 about their pandemic-era style. What I heard back was that, yes, people are moving away from those \u201cin-between\u201d clothes more and more these days, mostly in favor of athleisure or pieces that <\/span>they <\/span><\/i>enjoy \u2013 the ones they feel represent who they are. Some of these people, like me, have lovingly wrapped their arms around this comfort-fueled movement, but there are also several others who expressed that they\u2019re ready to get back out there, to ditch the sweat-clothes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The work-from-home revolution has thrown all of our wardrobes into flux. Lounge-around clothes are work clothes are going-out clothes are casual-dinner clothes, and on and on. But it\u2019s also catalyzed a long-overdue conversation about how, or why, what you <\/span>wear<\/span><\/i> has anything to do with what you <\/span>do <\/span><\/i>at work. Why has widespread uniformity in the workplace become a hallmark of our society?<\/span><\/p>\n

Lydia Dishman, a staff editor at <\/span>Fast Company, <\/span><\/i>knows much more about this. \u201cChanges in working attire in the European world really began back in the 1600s. That\u2019s when lawyers, civil servants, and other professionals in London, Amsterdam, and Paris first started working from offices.\u201d she wrote in August 2019, in a piece entitled, <\/span>\u201cWhy we dress the way we do at work.\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dishman goes on to explain that, for men, this shift meant embryonic versions of what we now recognize as the modern suit: trousers down to the knee, frosted shirts with way too much lace, a vest, and a cape (yes, our forefathers were rocking capes). Women, once they were able to enter the workforce, often wore deeply uncomfortable hoop skirts, which they then traded in for their own version of the suit, complete with matching gloves, a hat, and a bag. Then in the first half of the 20<\/span>th<\/span> century, long skirts ruled the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

As time passed, things changed (as they do), and new trends emerged. The 1970s were a wild time, and the collective\u2019s wild and free \u201cfuck it, why not?\u201d attitude eventually seeped into the fashion world. Theresa Avila, a journalist who\u2019s written about fashion in places like <\/span>The Cut, Mic <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Remezcla<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>wrote a piece for <\/span>Mic <\/span><\/i>in 2015<\/span><\/a> in which she tracked the evolution of women\u2019s work style in the 21<\/span>st<\/span> century; when she reached the 70s, she wrote, \u201cIn her essays on style, the <\/span>New Yorker\u2019s <\/span><\/i>Kennedy Fraser captured how casual separates like jeans, T-shirts and sneakers made their way into workspaces \u2013 yes, even for women.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As is the case with many trend-shifts, a slow trickle eventually bloomed into a nascent, evolving <\/span>movement. <\/span><\/i>If one person starts makes adventurous choices, it\u2019s easy to chalk those decisions up to a particular brand of countercultural individualism. But when more and more join in, it becomes something worth paying attention to. And in San Francisco in the 1980s, a fashion movement emerged that <\/span>demanded <\/span><\/i>everyone\u2019s attention.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Around that time, some young men out in Silicon Valley decided that wearing a suit to work didn\u2019t make much sense; their particular work <\/span>culture<\/span><\/i> didn\u2019t align with their cross-country financial counterparts on Wall Street, so why would they wear the same thing? From that realization, \u201cbusiness casual\u201d was born.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This new category of work-dress was characterized by \u201ckhaki pants, sensible shoes, and button-down collared shirts,\u201d as Deirdre Clemente, author of <\/span>Dress Casual: How College Kids Redefined American Style, <\/span><\/i>wrote in a<\/span> piece for<\/span>The Atlantic<\/span><\/i><\/a> in 2017. Women seized on this evolution too, creating their own acceptable new-age office look, which featured lots of sweaters, blazers, blouses, heels, and even the tried-and-true button-down.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Michael Abrams wearing Joel Michael Studios<\/p><\/div>\n

These new work-appropriate wardrobes, at first, represented a break from the orthodoxy, but once the movement picked up steam, it opened the eyes of an entire generation. They slowly arrived at a conclusion that seems rather obvious today: presentability and pragmatism don\u2019t have to be enemies. In fact, these two once-at-odds ideals have only grown closer in the 21<\/span>st<\/span> century, and more specifically, in the last half-decade.<\/span><\/p>\n

The start of that short timeframe is perhaps a good line of demarcation between what <\/span>was <\/span><\/i>and what <\/span>is. <\/span><\/i>(We all know what happened in late 2016\u2026)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before 2017, regularly wearing a sweatshirt and jeans to the office seemed relatively ludicrous. But in the ensuing five years, those pieces began to gain widespread acceptance in work settings. Today, Clemente\u2019s piece reads like a prescient document: \u201cClothing has always been personal \u2013 after all, we wear it on our bodies,\u201d she wrote, \u201cbut everyday fashion is moving toward the idea that people can wear what they want, as long as it is authentically them. This principle will define what people wear to work in the coming decade.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Clemente sort of hints at it, but the entire concept of \u201cbusiness casual\u201d doesn\u2019t <\/span>really <\/span><\/i>offer people the opportunity to embody their full selves; rather, it eventually turned into what it sought to destroy \u2013 a requirement that stifles creative self-expression by enforcing pseudo-uniformity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Christina Mannino is a designer behind the brands <\/span>MANNINO <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>L\u00d8VE MEANS N\u00d8THING<\/span><\/i>, and one of the heads of digital content at <\/span>Bloomingdale\u2019s. <\/span><\/i>She, like Clemente, believes that offices and work spaces should prioritize their employees\u2019 desire to express themselves, a belief she wears on her sleeve, literally \u2013 when we spoke over Zoom, she was sitting inside her own office sporting a tie-dye jumpsuit. Mannino, it seems, has been waiting for this movement for a long time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIn the past, the only reason I would buy those intermediary clothes \u2013 stuff that was more business casual \u2013 was our dress code,\u201d she explained. \u201cI do think, for women, dress pants and that sort of stuff will pretty much go away. We brought in a brand called <\/span>Norma Kamali<\/span><\/i> during COVID; she has a bunch of rayon pieces and separates \u2013 there\u2019s a jumpsuit, there\u2019s pants, and they\u2019re all made of this stretchy, soft, silky material that can either be dressed up or down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But wait, there\u2019s more: \u201cOur active category has been amazing, and continues to be,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause all the athleisure \u2013 people wearing that every day \u2013 is a way to make people feel like they got dressed for the work day without having to put on real clothes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>So it\u2019s not just me, after all. After asking all those aforementioned 20-somethings about their evolving fashion sense, I arrived at the conclusion that this is somewhat of a shared sentiment \u2013 <\/span>shared <\/span><\/i>being the operative term. Because with something as amorphous as fashion, unanimity is nearly impossible; some people, it turns out, are eager to put the athleisure back in their closet. Daniel Valentini, a software engineer who also happens to be a friend, told me that he\u2019s going to try to dress up <\/span>more <\/span><\/i>going forward, as a result of all this. To that I say\u2026to each their own.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think the overriding conclusion is that it\u2019s impossible for fashion to be black-and-white. When you combine multiple articles of clothing with billions and billions of unique fashion ideologies, you get infinite possibilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sociologist Herbert Blumer, fascinated by how realities change due to the actions of both its individuals and larger groups, lent his brain to the world of fashion a little more than five decades ago. His words, surprisingly, resonate just as much in our current moment as they did back then. \u201cFirst, the area in which fashion operates must be one that is involved in a movement of change,\u201d he wrote in <\/span>The Sociological Quarterly <\/span><\/i>in the summer of 1969, \u201cwith people ready to revise or discard old practices, beliefs, and attachments, and poised to adopt new social forms; there must be this thrust into the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The future, as we know, is notoriously hard to pin down, but it\u2019s evident that change <\/span>is <\/span><\/i>happening, right in front of our eyes. Can that change create a world where people are free to wear what they want, when they want? I sure hope so, and I think that\u2019s one thing <\/span>everybody <\/span><\/i>can agree on.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

___________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

Cover image courtesy of @manneeni on Instagram<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are \u201cwork\u201d clothes on the way out for good? For two-ish years now, the button-down shirts that rest comfortably on a rod in my closet have been staring at me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-style"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/vicenarian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}