I was at the Plaza Hotel in New York a while back. One of the most expensive and storied places in the world, and pretty much every guest I saw had brought their clothes at The Gap.
I think one reason I noticed it was that there were photos on the wall showing all the famous guests who’d stayed there. All dressed up. It made no sense to me that people who are going to take the time and trouble to stay in a glamourous place wouldn’t try to look their best.
This sounds like peer pressure from dead people and enforced reverence for fancy shit. I dress for my comfort, not conformance to some rich guy’s standard.
If you’re such an independent thinker you wouldn’t want to stay at the Plaza. It’s much more expensive and exclusive than other accommodations in the same area.
I’m talking about folks who paid to go there specifically because of the ‘dead people.’
Right, I wouldn’t want to be there. If I am ever in any kind of place that expects me to look a certain way, I want to leave. Take me as I am in my solid color tank top and shorts or fuck off.
Third of it are condos. Those that use it as a hotel more likely care about the location, not about rich old fucks of the past that used it before them.
Have you ever tried to make an argument that didn’t include a strawman argument, or do you have trouble understanding the difference between a hotel and a museum?
I’m glad that pretending to be fancy is falling out of fashion. It’s extremely uncomfortable (save me the speech about how I need a well fitting suit or whatever, no thanks) and it’s expensive (very much in conflict with your claim below that it’s cheap to dress up. I’m not sure how you could possibly believe that). As someone who routinely dresses comfortably af, nothing was lost when people stopped dressing up randomly such as on airplanes. Being comfortable is very important to some people, especially those on the spectrum. I’ve got nothing to prove to people by being uncomfortable. I’ll keep wearing gym shorts on a plane and I literally feel for people wearing suits as I know how uncomfortable every aspect of it is.
I wish I didn’t love wearing suits, but I do. I used to get to/have to wear them for work and I never get to or have a good reason/excuse anymore. And now I don’t even own a basic blazer. I had a whole closet of bomb-ass blazers. It was so good.
When I was a programmer I liked wearing suits and sport jackets and Norwegian wool sweaters and selvedge jeans and the like, even though it negatively impacted my career. People in my profession genuinely assumed that I must not have been a very good programmer because of it. Now I’m a school bus driver and whenever I dress like I used to (which is very rarely) everybody assumes I have a job interview or a date.
It’s also too hot. Dress shirts that feel like the Boston Strangler has both his mitts around my neck, and that’s before the tie. Shirts that are 2XL wide but medium length that don’t fit my pre-human simian torso proportions. Pants that don’t conform to my pic-nic ham butt and my stumpy legs. Ridiculous suits with sewn shut pockets and buttons you can’t use and if you do you look like you’re about to turn into the Hulk. Shoes that blister and tear your skin in 10 minutes even though I can hike for 5 hours.
Yep I experience some of the same issues. The feeling of a tie around my neck is oppressive. I hate it! I laughed at some of your descriptions here lol
I’m still wearing $7 old navy T-shirts I bought in 2014 along with sub-$20 gym shorts I bought 10+ years ago. Thing about dress clothes is you’re automatically judged on not only what it is but the quality of it and how worn it is. Not to mention it’s very uncomfortable compared to how I dress. Anyone who judges me for dressing comfortably isn’t worth my time honestly.
It’s apparently a local custom in Texas to go to a wedding dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt, your boots and whatever cowboy hat you wear. Meanwhile everyone else who doesn’t know what fucking a cow feels like is wearing at least a tie.
I do not like NYC “dress code”. I went to a cocktail bar and they asked me to keep my jacket on because I had a t shirt. The cocktails were only $15-17. Not even fancy! Is my money worth less that I’m wearing jeans or a tshirt?
This is why I love Seattle. Everywhere allows tshirts and jeans no matter how fancy. I’m comfy and spending money.
Thats unfortunately the standard now. Makes sense in a place like Canada were our booze is mega taxed but places where it’s the same price as water still want $15 for a basic cocktail.
I think ties have fallen out of fashion. At least in business dress. Button up shirt, nice slacks and a sport coat, all tailored. You have to specify black tie if you want people in fancy dress.
Designer clothes are designed clothes. The pretentiousness of looking like you have money was still there, just people do it differently now. You don’t scream “money” by wearing a suit you could’ve got tailored at Macy’s. There’s douchebag designer shit you can wear where it’s clear you spent a lot on it, and people recognize it.
Clothes and dressing nice has always had a pretentious side. Some people used to just be showing off they could afford a suit and nice clothes. Now it doesn’t mean as much. You show off you can afford to spend extra money on designer jeans.
Last time I went for a fancy dinner I wore jeans and a work shirt. And that was like a $350 dinner. I’m paying for the view not to be judged for my dress.
But why would you dress fancy for a hotel? Most of the time it’s just less comfortable than jeans and a t-shirt. Not to mention the cost of dressing fancy.
Sure, but why? What is the point in wearing decent clothes when other clothes are often quite a lot more comfortable. I’m not here to impress people with my clothes, I’m here to get on with my day/holiday/escort, not brighten some hotel lobby with an expensive suit.
That just used to be the social norms in the past. At one point, it was expected that you had to wear a hat when going outdoors by default. When we were young we used to tie an onion to our belt, which was the style at the time. Things change over time.
Depends on the clothes. It’s not that I feel physically uncomfortable in a suit, just often socially uncomfortable. However a good suit is often more comfortable than jeans and a holey t-shirt physically. It’s soft, well made and fitted material. It shouldn’t be super uncomfortable.
The Plaza isn’t the Hilton Garden Inn. It’s a Fairmont hotel, and people 100% go there just for food, drinks, afternoon tea, the spa, etc.
Also, you need to book reservations for a lot of that stuff well in advance. Those things are frequently booked up and used by a fuck ton of people who are not hotel guests.
The Plaza is more than a place to crash. There is the Palm Court and a number of bougee things going on there. I would argue that more that half of the folks using those hotel amenities are not staying the night. They’re there for special occasions.
My personal theory is that it is a symptom of societal decay. People would dress nicely and look good when going out, so others would see and be impressed or attracted.
Now i have literally not worn anything else but different sweatpants for the last year or so, because i could not care less what other random passerbys perceive me as, since i am decidedly not interested in them either.
Nobody cares about real life impressions any more because the people that matter to them are in their phone. Friends and family are not necessarily in the same location as you, and romantic options are for the most part also in your phone now. Why brother looking good when potential partners are expected to judge you by your social media presence anyway and i’m just here for groceries.
Eh, i kinda miss it. Of course its carefree living, but it also is a symptom of our individual detachment from society at large. We don’t relate to the people around us, we handpick those connections digitally for the most part, where shit is just as shallow as it supposedly was in reality before that.
Sure, you dont care what you look like in the street. But if you have mainstream social media as well i would bet you have made an effort for your profiles that other people can see. Good looking pics, possibly edited too, relatable posts and personal information.
This is the only social media I use. Not caring what others think, while maintaining respect for them, is the closest one can get to true peace. I want to get closer to that. Dressing with other people’s perceptions as a focus gets me further from that peace, not closer.
There’s a difference between not caring about what strangers think about you and showing a little respect for everyone you’re going to encounter when you’re out in the world
It’s not about airs and graces, but that little bit of effort is indicative of how people behave when interacting with others generally
At a minimum, I don’t want deal with people who haven’t worn clean clothes or washed themselves (and I do volunteer work washing homeless people’s clothes for them, so that they can at least enjoy the feel of warm, clean and dry clothes)
It’s not snobbish to expect people to put some effort into the interactions they’re going to have during the course of their day
I don’t really understand comparing not showering and wearing dirty clothes to “dressing up”. If someone is disrespected by my clothes, that’s their own weird biases. Nothing I’m doing is the least bit offensive, I’m just being comfortable. And I know I get judged for it. Which is their problem, not mine.
I see it almost the opposite way. A lot of what you’re describing is exactly why I don’t put much value in dressing fancy or performing “respectability” for strangers.
Wearing a nice suit to the lodge once a week doesn’t make someone a good person. Plenty of people can dress up, look impressive in public, shake hands, say the right things, and then go home and be cruel, abusive, miserable, or drunk. I saw enough of that growing up to lose any belief that polished appearances are proof of character.
So when people stop treating suits, fancy clothes, and public image as moral signals, I don’t see that as societal decay. In some ways, I see it as growth. People are realizing that looking respectable and being respectable are not the same thing.
If anything, when I see someone using appearance, tradition, or status as a mask for behavior I don’t respect, it makes me want to be the opposite of what they stand for.
It’s one of the most egalitarian things. Dressing down is inclusive of people who can’t dress up. And as far as society goes, the world was very well dressed through the period it couldn’t stop declaring war on itself.
I used to occasionally go to nightclubs in LA with some older guys that insisted on wearing nice, fitted suits. They actually bought me one when I first moved out there. If I was in a nightclub in my 20’s, it was usually cause I was working. So I don’t really have much to compare the experience to. But I’d say they were attention-getting - not necessarily in a good way. One dude tried to start a fight with me. And a girl I texted afterward was surprised to discover that I was, in fact, quite poor. That was a while ago. I have plenty of suits now. I never wear them. I guess nobody dresses fancy anymore.
the family of the deceased (35, sudden heart failure from undiagnosed blood pressure condition) were in suits. It was at a crematorium with a flavor of traditional Vietnamese traditions. No dress code was specified.
Fancy is in the eye of the beholder though. In some places a polo shirt is fancy, in other places a western shirt. I think you want people wearing white button up shirts, slacks and nice dresses, but for some people it might be something completely different.
Nobody dresses fancy anymore.
I was at the Plaza Hotel in New York a while back. One of the most expensive and storied places in the world, and pretty much every guest I saw had brought their clothes at The Gap.
They are guests of a hotel, not on some kind of event.
I think one reason I noticed it was that there were photos on the wall showing all the famous guests who’d stayed there. All dressed up. It made no sense to me that people who are going to take the time and trouble to stay in a glamourous place wouldn’t try to look their best.
This sounds like peer pressure from dead people and enforced reverence for fancy shit. I dress for my comfort, not conformance to some rich guy’s standard.
If you’re such an independent thinker you wouldn’t want to stay at the Plaza. It’s much more expensive and exclusive than other accommodations in the same area.
I’m talking about folks who paid to go there specifically because of the ‘dead people.’
Right, I wouldn’t want to be there. If I am ever in any kind of place that expects me to look a certain way, I want to leave. Take me as I am in my solid color tank top and shorts or fuck off.
My original post was that people at the expensive hotel weren’t dressing up.
Apparently you either didn’t read it, or chose to ignore it.
You can go to the hotel and spend the money, and dress any way you want.
I see you are full of rage, but who you’re mad at is a mystery.
Third of it are condos. Those that use it as a hotel more likely care about the location, not about rich old fucks of the past that used it before them.
Have you ever looked at a map of Manhattan?
It’s about 12 miles end to end and about 3 miles across.
There are literally hundreds of hotels in walking distance of The Plaza. Many are less than half the price.
No one goes to the Plaza because it’s closer to where they are going.
Like, a museum?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Hotel
It’s so famous it has it’s own Wiki page.
Do you dress up to look at a medieval-castle-turned-museum?
Have you ever tried to make an argument that didn’t include a strawman argument, or do you have trouble understanding the difference between a hotel and a museum?
One is still in use?
People use both museums and hotels.
You are obviously very confused about many things.
I’m glad that pretending to be fancy is falling out of fashion. It’s extremely uncomfortable (save me the speech about how I need a well fitting suit or whatever, no thanks) and it’s expensive (very much in conflict with your claim below that it’s cheap to dress up. I’m not sure how you could possibly believe that). As someone who routinely dresses comfortably af, nothing was lost when people stopped dressing up randomly such as on airplanes. Being comfortable is very important to some people, especially those on the spectrum. I’ve got nothing to prove to people by being uncomfortable. I’ll keep wearing gym shorts on a plane and I literally feel for people wearing suits as I know how uncomfortable every aspect of it is.
I wish I didn’t love wearing suits, but I do. I used to get to/have to wear them for work and I never get to or have a good reason/excuse anymore. And now I don’t even own a basic blazer. I had a whole closet of bomb-ass blazers. It was so good.
When I was a programmer I liked wearing suits and sport jackets and Norwegian wool sweaters and selvedge jeans and the like, even though it negatively impacted my career. People in my profession genuinely assumed that I must not have been a very good programmer because of it. Now I’m a school bus driver and whenever I dress like I used to (which is very rarely) everybody assumes I have a job interview or a date.
It’s also too hot. Dress shirts that feel like the Boston Strangler has both his mitts around my neck, and that’s before the tie. Shirts that are 2XL wide but medium length that don’t fit my pre-human simian torso proportions. Pants that don’t conform to my pic-nic ham butt and my stumpy legs. Ridiculous suits with sewn shut pockets and buttons you can’t use and if you do you look like you’re about to turn into the Hulk. Shoes that blister and tear your skin in 10 minutes even though I can hike for 5 hours.
I dress borderline homeless now.
Yep I experience some of the same issues. The feeling of a tie around my neck is oppressive. I hate it! I laughed at some of your descriptions here lol
https://www.dickies.com/pages/profession
I can get a collared business shirt for about $20, what I’d pay for a fancy T-shirt.
I’m still wearing $7 old navy T-shirts I bought in 2014 along with sub-$20 gym shorts I bought 10+ years ago. Thing about dress clothes is you’re automatically judged on not only what it is but the quality of it and how worn it is. Not to mention it’s very uncomfortable compared to how I dress. Anyone who judges me for dressing comfortably isn’t worth my time honestly.
It’s apparently a local custom in Texas to go to a wedding dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt, your boots and whatever cowboy hat you wear. Meanwhile everyone else who doesn’t know what fucking a cow feels like is wearing at least a tie.
I do not like NYC “dress code”. I went to a cocktail bar and they asked me to keep my jacket on because I had a t shirt. The cocktails were only $15-17. Not even fancy! Is my money worth less that I’m wearing jeans or a tshirt?
This is why I love Seattle. Everywhere allows tshirts and jeans no matter how fancy. I’m comfy and spending money.
“Only 15-17$” Does everyone there has a 6 figure income or how can this bar survive lol
I’m from Seattle so that’s not even a crazy cocktail cost. And I think you need a six figure income to survive in NYC.
$15.00 for a cocktail??
I’m glad I don’t drink…
That’s not even horrifically expensive in most cities. I’ve seen people pay $20/shot at some bars.
Thats unfortunately the standard now. Makes sense in a place like Canada were our booze is mega taxed but places where it’s the same price as water still want $15 for a basic cocktail.
Non alcohol cocktails cost more than alcohol cocktails. Rip off.
Why would you dress up for a hotel?
When traveling “looking fancy” is the last thing I care about.
Nobody dresses fancy anymore.
Thank you for proving my point
I would dress fancy if the world were worthy of it.
Realistically, it costs about the same to dress up as to dress casually.
In my humble opinion, when a person dresses nicely they are saying that they feel worth the effort.
Are you a trust fund kid or what? This couldn’t be more false.
https://www.dickies.com/pages/profession
Those pants look nice, and last a long time.
I can get a collared shirt for less than the price of a concert T-shirt.
If you expect them to dress up for no reason, sure.
Go where people actually have a reason to care and you’ll find them…
It is expected to dress up for high end dining…. Even when traveling. It’s not “no reason”
That’s the point OP is making. Nobody is dressing up.
Last time I went to a nice restaurant, my wife and I were the only ones dressed nicely.
She wore a nice dress, I wore a shirt & tie; the entire rest of the restaurant was enjoying $75 entrees in designer athlesiure outfits.
I think ties have fallen out of fashion. At least in business dress. Button up shirt, nice slacks and a sport coat, all tailored. You have to specify black tie if you want people in fancy dress.
Only 75 dollars? Where did you go? Olive Garden?
Designer clothes are designed clothes. The pretentiousness of looking like you have money was still there, just people do it differently now. You don’t scream “money” by wearing a suit you could’ve got tailored at Macy’s. There’s douchebag designer shit you can wear where it’s clear you spent a lot on it, and people recognize it.
Clothes and dressing nice has always had a pretentious side. Some people used to just be showing off they could afford a suit and nice clothes. Now it doesn’t mean as much. You show off you can afford to spend extra money on designer jeans.
Last time I went for a fancy dinner I wore jeans and a work shirt. And that was like a $350 dinner. I’m paying for the view not to be judged for my dress.
But why would you dress fancy for a hotel? Most of the time it’s just less comfortable than jeans and a t-shirt. Not to mention the cost of dressing fancy.
Look at pictures from back in the day.
People used to wear suits and ties / dresses and jewelry if they were going out to dinner, or getting on an airplane.
Also, the Plaza is a very expensive hotel. If someone can afford to spend the night here they can afford decent clothes.
Sure, but why? What is the point in wearing decent clothes when other clothes are often quite a lot more comfortable. I’m not here to impress people with my clothes, I’m here to get on with my day/holiday/escort, not brighten some hotel lobby with an expensive suit.
That just used to be the social norms in the past. At one point, it was expected that you had to wear a hat when going outdoors by default. When we were young we used to tie an onion to our belt, which was the style at the time. Things change over time.
Depends on the clothes. It’s not that I feel physically uncomfortable in a suit, just often socially uncomfortable. However a good suit is often more comfortable than jeans and a holey t-shirt physically. It’s soft, well made and fitted material. It shouldn’t be super uncomfortable.
You sound pretentious.
That’s not what ‘pretentious’ means.
If anything, I sound elitist
You sound insufferable
The truth can hurt, so yes, I suppose you could be suffering.
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because nobody goes to hotels just to spend time at the hotel anymore. because nobody can afford to.
The Plaza isn’t the Hilton Garden Inn. It’s a Fairmont hotel, and people 100% go there just for food, drinks, afternoon tea, the spa, etc.
Also, you need to book reservations for a lot of that stuff well in advance. Those things are frequently booked up and used by a fuck ton of people who are not hotel guests.
The Plaza is more than a place to crash. There is the Palm Court and a number of bougee things going on there. I would argue that more that half of the folks using those hotel amenities are not staying the night. They’re there for special occasions.
My personal theory is that it is a symptom of societal decay. People would dress nicely and look good when going out, so others would see and be impressed or attracted.
Now i have literally not worn anything else but different sweatpants for the last year or so, because i could not care less what other random passerbys perceive me as, since i am decidedly not interested in them either.
Nobody cares about real life impressions any more because the people that matter to them are in their phone. Friends and family are not necessarily in the same location as you, and romantic options are for the most part also in your phone now. Why brother looking good when potential partners are expected to judge you by your social media presence anyway and i’m just here for groceries.
People get more ware of the shallowness behind it. Which is a good thing imo.
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I would say not caring what strangers think of you is an enormous improvement.
Eh, i kinda miss it. Of course its carefree living, but it also is a symptom of our individual detachment from society at large. We don’t relate to the people around us, we handpick those connections digitally for the most part, where shit is just as shallow as it supposedly was in reality before that.
Sure, you dont care what you look like in the street. But if you have mainstream social media as well i would bet you have made an effort for your profiles that other people can see. Good looking pics, possibly edited too, relatable posts and personal information.
We just shifted most of our presentation online.
This is the only social media I use. Not caring what others think, while maintaining respect for them, is the closest one can get to true peace. I want to get closer to that. Dressing with other people’s perceptions as a focus gets me further from that peace, not closer.
Or we realized wearing a 3 piece suit when it’s 98°F outside with 95% humidity is fucking stupid.
There’s a difference between not caring about what strangers think about you and showing a little respect for everyone you’re going to encounter when you’re out in the world
It’s not about airs and graces, but that little bit of effort is indicative of how people behave when interacting with others generally
At a minimum, I don’t want deal with people who haven’t worn clean clothes or washed themselves (and I do volunteer work washing homeless people’s clothes for them, so that they can at least enjoy the feel of warm, clean and dry clothes)
It’s not snobbish to expect people to put some effort into the interactions they’re going to have during the course of their day
I don’t really understand comparing not showering and wearing dirty clothes to “dressing up”. If someone is disrespected by my clothes, that’s their own weird biases. Nothing I’m doing is the least bit offensive, I’m just being comfortable. And I know I get judged for it. Which is their problem, not mine.
I see it almost the opposite way. A lot of what you’re describing is exactly why I don’t put much value in dressing fancy or performing “respectability” for strangers.
Wearing a nice suit to the lodge once a week doesn’t make someone a good person. Plenty of people can dress up, look impressive in public, shake hands, say the right things, and then go home and be cruel, abusive, miserable, or drunk. I saw enough of that growing up to lose any belief that polished appearances are proof of character.
So when people stop treating suits, fancy clothes, and public image as moral signals, I don’t see that as societal decay. In some ways, I see it as growth. People are realizing that looking respectable and being respectable are not the same thing.
If anything, when I see someone using appearance, tradition, or status as a mask for behavior I don’t respect, it makes me want to be the opposite of what they stand for.
It’s one of the most egalitarian things. Dressing down is inclusive of people who can’t dress up. And as far as society goes, the world was very well dressed through the period it couldn’t stop declaring war on itself.
Nah. We just realized that the people wearing suits all the time are villainous cunts. #finance
The world is also much warmer now…
That makes a lot of sense.
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I used to occasionally go to nightclubs in LA with some older guys that insisted on wearing nice, fitted suits. They actually bought me one when I first moved out there. If I was in a nightclub in my 20’s, it was usually cause I was working. So I don’t really have much to compare the experience to. But I’d say they were attention-getting - not necessarily in a good way. One dude tried to start a fight with me. And a girl I texted afterward was surprised to discover that I was, in fact, quite poor. That was a while ago. I have plenty of suits now. I never wear them. I guess nobody dresses fancy anymore.
I was at a funeral recently where about 1 in 10 people were wearing cargo shorts or jeans, a graphic tee or a polo shirt, and sneakers.
Not that I think we should go back to dressing in powdered wigs and hose but I think there is room for clothing choices to mark an occasion
Depends on context. For my grandmother, I wore a black dress. For my boyfriend, a bunch of us wore replicas of his favorite tshirt.
the family of the deceased (35, sudden heart failure from undiagnosed blood pressure condition) were in suits. It was at a crematorium with a flavor of traditional Vietnamese traditions. No dress code was specified.
The clothing choices marked the occasion.
Fancy is in the eye of the beholder though. In some places a polo shirt is fancy, in other places a western shirt. I think you want people wearing white button up shirts, slacks and nice dresses, but for some people it might be something completely different.
But there’s quite an array of options between “fancy” and “t-shirt tucked into jean shorts.”
fancy? in this economy?
Aight, the real question is “What were you wearing”.
And thank god for that too. The last thing I need is to worry about all the bullshit of dealing with clothes on top of everything else going on.