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Remember seeing an older woman wearing dark slacks, sensible shoes to church one Sunday during the winter time. Was pleased she was being sensible rather than what was proper for proper attire for church.
Hats were therapy for women and I enjoyed seeing various kinds of hats. Remember Mrs. Kennedy and her pill box hats? It seems in the early 1960's with a bouffant hair do, the hats
disappeared. Men, I thought looked dashing in their hats and I enjoy seeing hats, especially
cowboy hats on men.
Happy the days are gone, when you had to be like everyone else, concerned about wearing the correct clothes. Sorta gone the other extreme, some folks of just wearing whatever.
One can wear comfortable clothes, shoes and still have flair.
Church, pastors used to wear robes, now most just wear suits, ties. For myself, look forward to what the Lord has to say through the pastor and happy to worship with folks.
Men, I thought looked dashing in their hats and I enjoy seeing hats, especially
cowboy hats on men.
Love hats, especially my fedoras. No longer have any cowboy hats (don't know where they disappeared to while I was gone in the military). Kinda funny since I worked as a cowboy on a cattle ranch for a couple of years.
As a child, I had a multiple hat box hanging in my closet (which I think is bizarre) now - had to wear hats to "Church" back in the day . . .also had little white gloves, as well as LONG white gloves for formal affairs . . . wow.
Remember seeing an older woman wearing dark slacks, sensible shoes to church one Sunday during the winter time. Was pleased she was being sensible rather than what was proper for proper attire for church.
Hats were therapy for women and I enjoyed seeing various kinds of hats. Remember Mrs. Kennedy and her pill box hats? It seems in the early 1960's with a bouffant hair do, the hats
disappeared. Men, I thought looked dashing in their hats and I enjoy seeing hats, especially
cowboy hats on men.
Happy the days are gone, when you had to be like everyone else, concerned about wearing the correct clothes. Sorta gone the other extreme, some folks of just wearing whatever.
One can wear comfortable clothes, shoes and still have flair.
Church, pastors used to wear robes, now most just wear suits, ties. For myself, look forward to what the Lord has to say through the pastor and happy to worship with folks.
A minister wearing a suit is fine but not like the one described previously in this thread wearing shorts and flip flops. That, to me, is disrespectful to the church goers and to his profession. It would be really distracting to me, in church.
I say dress for comfort but there is emotional comfort too. People with their pants hanging off them make me feel disgusted, kids coming to school dressed like slobs is kind of disgusting. I may sound opinionated but I've seen schools where kids have to wear some sort of a uniform--even it's it's just a white top and blue pants/skirt--and it has an positive effect on the way they act. It's not wrong to have to conform a little bit.
Why do older folks have to wear sloppy sweatsuits out in public? I can understand it if they're in a nursing home and someone has to help dress them and they don't go out anyway but it looks weird to see a group of older women, dressed almost identically in their silly workout suits. Even a pair of elastic waist pull on pants would look better, and a nice top rather than a sloppy sweatshirt.
NEG is a writer. Maybe she should write a guidebook for how to dress when you're retired. Might become a best seller.
Whenever this topic comes up, what I remember is gloves. Short wrist-length gloves for lunches and Easter Sunday, long elbow gloves for formal occasions and long gowns. My last memory of wearing gloves was in 1967. I was 19 years old, wore a navy/white dotted swiss sleeveless sheath, white pointy-toe kitten heel shoes, hose, and white gloves as I rode in the back seat of a county sheriff car. We were driving to a state mental hospital to admit my mother, by court order.
Just about everything in 1967 was a dress-up occasion. In 1968 things began to change.
I was so struck when I was in Italy a few years back that older and old women dressed up, many in hose and heels, to go to the grocery store. Of all shapes and sizes as we age, are we too old to dress up, or are we going to go around in sweats and shorts with baggy tops?
I am a younger boomer (age 53). I do remember people dressing more for the work place and for the disco scene in my late teens and twenties (late 70's to mid 80's), but not to go to the grocery store or on weekends. I believe it has always been custom to dress properly for interviews, weddings and funerals regardless of the era. The one area where dress is more casual these days is for the upscale restaurant scene. The coat and tie is seldom required any more...even at the nicest big city hotel restaurants.
Is it possible today to be "dressy comfortable"? To show some panache even when "dressed down"? I think I'll design some clothes...
Sure, give it a shot.... but you'll be hard pressed to beat that classic look of a Hawaiian shirt, t-shirt, and jeans. If you want comfy clothes with panache, that's the look to go for.
As for me, the great thing about retirement is I'm no longer obligated to follow a dress code. I grudgingly followed the rules a few of my employers had, but it was because they paid me. If you're not paying me, why should I let some stranger on the internet tell me how to dress? Call me "frumpy" or "slob" if you like, but I personally think name calling is what really makes a person look bad. The way I see it, the person who indulges in it is the one guilty of showing disrespect, not than the person who is wearing a pair of jeans.
Ha ha, I can feel my inner rebel stirring. Maybe wearing the comfortable clothes I like is also a way of making a statement. As in "you are not the boss of me" so don't try to tell me what to wear. Retirement means I've earned the right to wear my comfy jeans and my Hawaiian shirts, and I intend to keep right on doing so.
There's also different concepts of 'dressed up'. I think of being dressed up as wearing skirt/nice blouse or dress, fancy (a.k.a. uncomfortable) shoes that have no traction, and appropriate make up and jewelry. Never again!
That was the model when we are growing up. There's probably a happy medium between looking really nice and looking like you just came in from gardening....
Older people, especially retirees, who don't get the respect that they feel they deserve might want to reconsider the slovenly way that they dress.
The way that you dress sends a message about the way that you want to be treated. If you dress like the 17 year old who delivers your pizza, he is reasonable in presuming that he is your peer and treating you accordingly. You instinctively become "dude" to him rather than "sir." These de facto rules go back many hundreds of years (see, for example, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle.
And then there is the misplaced sense of somehow having earned the right to do whatever you want, even though you have had more or less the same basic role in life as a cabbage -- producing carbon dioxide. For example: Einstein has frumpy hair and wore a Hawaiian shirt, and you are just like Einstein, right?. Therefore, you too can have frumpy hair and wear a Hawaiian shirt.
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society" -- Mark Twain
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Call me "frumpy" or "slob" if you like, but I personally think name calling is what really makes a person look bad. The way I see it, the person who indulges in it is the one guilty of showing disrespect, not than the person who is wearing a pair of jeans.
