This raises something of a chicken and egg question. Do people do retro-revivals of fashions from 20 years ago because they look less ugly, or do they look less ugly because people have done retro-revivals?
Clothes from eighteen years ago are cool, because they are the reappropriated nostalgia of people just reaching adulthood. Clothes from fifteen years ago are goofy and kind of charming because they're about to become hip again among the fashion forward. Clothes from more recentlyare identified in the minds of the youth with the previous generation, and are thus garishly horrible.
On the other hand, JNCOs are gonna be coming back any day now, which'll be handy for me around the office.
Beyond disconcertingly, I have a t-shirt from one of the "Top Brands" on the site in 4 that I still wear regularly. Should I stop, do you think? Am I my high school guidance counselor?
Yesterday, one of the kids in my lab said to me "you can still buy cargo shorts?!"
Oh boy.
Yesterday, one of the kids in my lab said to me "you can still buy cargo shorts?!"
That is hilarious.
I was always glad that cargo pants (and parachute pants before) missed my middle school years, because I would have thought "Boy this is convenient! I can put bulky things in EVERY POCKET!" and then thought I looked fabulous.
I used to wear enormous orange raver pants to work. I'm pretty sure I thought I looked damn good. Luckily, it was '90s SF and I worked at a videogame company.
6: Gosh, um, that would be embarrassing.
feel genuine embarrassment over a picture of themselves from 1998
The key is to be chronically afashionable.
I've been wearing variations on basically the same T-shirt+jeans ensemble for the last 15+years.
Of course working in academia is part of what makes that possible.
Clothes from eighteen years ago are cool, because they are the reappropriated nostalgia of people just reaching adulthood.
According to Laver's Law, they're on the cusp of going from hideous to ridiculous.
I bet that those of us who are not "fashionable" tend to be dressed according to the 1/2xAge + 7 rule. Me, being about 30, would currently be most comfortable wearing the fashions of 2003. So I can expect to adopt skinny jeans in 2027.
9: But it's not like the jeans of 15 years ago don't look ridiculous now, unless you've settled on wearing 501s your whole life. (And if so, godspeed!)
unless you've settled on wearing 501s your whole life.
Guilty.
Is there anything wrong with that?
13: That's me. I like them, they are comfy, they let me avoid dealing with fashion, and they saved a friend of mine from accidentally chopping his cock in half.
unless you've settled on wearing 501s your whole life
Why would one do anything else? When wearing jeans, I mean (I bought a couple of low-end department-store brands when I was in college. Never again.).
Similarly, button-down dress shirts and dark slacks have continued to exist in a steady boring-but-fashion-agnostic manner for a long time.
Slightly apropos, I got to look at some of the suits being made for the second season of Boardwalk Empire the other day. To the naked eye, such garments look much more costume-y than they look on television. They are being made, in many cases, with details that are rare, if not wholly unheard of, these days (hacking pockets, turnback sleeves), but the loud colors and weaves are really astonishing to behold. It would take a lot of brass to wear them now. Also, the materials are about twice as heavy (15-16 oz.) as most modern tailored clothing fabrics: too warm for most of the year in most parts of the country, especially for climate-controlled offices.
I guess that "lagging window" system might make sense if you look at fashionable people as a distinctive subculture. But if you look at attire in Western culture as a whole - not just fashionable people but also nerds and jocks and the rest of the high school clique stereotypes, not just twentysomethings but also thirtysomethings and fourtysomethings - I think you'll find that fashions from the 1980s to mid-1990s went from fashionable to hideous in about 15 minutes, and were objectively goofy all along, or as close to objectively as such a thing as possible. I mean, seriously, legwarmers, shoulder pads and big hair? And for the men, is anyone prepared to defend either leather jackets with puffy sleeves or Tom Selleck mustaches?
I realize it's suspicious that my theory just happens to mirror what the "lagging window" theory says is outmoded at this particular moment. But I'd say that the 80s-to-early-90s really stand out. With some exceptions, mainstream fashion from other eras would look vaguely acceptable in most eras not its own - varying degrees of staid or outmoded, and if you go back far enough certain materials are harder to make clothes out of, but few things would look all that bizarre - whereas come on, someone try to name another era in which this would not have looked ridiculous on a human in real life.
[W]hereas come on, someone try to name another era in which this would not have looked ridiculous on a human in real life.
"Sire, the peasants are revolting."
"You said it: they stink on ice!"
I don't know about other people but most Levi's jeans are a really odd fit that are profoundly uncomfortable on me. This has held true for me both when I was really skinny, and when I was fat. Particularly standard red-tab 501s which seem to be made for someone with a much bigger arse and much higher waist than me. Women, basically.
19: whereas come on, someone try to name another era in which this would not have looked ridiculous on a human in real life.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not so sure you're right either. Joan Collins' dress looks like something that could have been worn (with a little bit more material) any time from 1885 to 1920 without too much comment. As does the dress of the young woman opposite her. Given that this image is from a theatrical presentation focused on the lives of a group of very wealthy people, and that nobody in 1985 would have expected to see people dressed like this while in line at the In-And-Out Burger, I'm not so sure this goes to the larger point.
My wife gets annoyed at how irritated I can be by certain clothes she likes. To her they are just mildly quirky/cool, whereas to me they look like half-arsed hipster retreads of really really bad memories of the late 80s.
I've dressed pretty much the same -- work clothes, sport shirts, jeans, boots, army surplus -- since I was 14 or so. But that's more of a response to not being able to find other types of clothing cheaply and in my size. So pretty much every picture of me looks like it could have been taken yesterday, depending on hair & glasses.
I did procure a pair of parachute pants once in the early 1990s, but as soon as I'd done it, I knew I'd made a mistake.
But it's not like the jeans of 15 years ago don't look ridiculous now
This is exactly right. I've had similar shirts all of my adult life (plain v-neck knits)*, but the kinds of jeans I've had very wildly.
*The trend, now many years ongoing, of putting ruffles and floral appliques and all this decorative shit all over tops cannot die soon enough for me. Ditto for little gathers at a round neckline. Gathers + large chest = I look like a peasant.
I got some jeans recently which I really like but which I am painfully aware will, when they do turn into jeans that look ridiculous, look really, really ridiculous.
This thread is worthless without pics.
26: Do you have any idea when this "turn" might happen? Do you worry that it might happen right in the middle of a date?
I was recently at a bar where they were playing "Pretty in Pink" on the TVs, and was impressed at how cool James Spader looked. Not sure how this fits in with anything else, really; just thought I'd share.
Ruffles and applique can fuck right off, but I would be happy to have the round neck with gathers stick around for a while. Gathers + small chest = at least a little mystery about the smallness.
Question: how long do we think all this ruching of sides is going to last? Because I am eyeballing an otherwise classic little black dress with side ruching, but it's possible that no suitable occasion for wearing it will arise before the trend is dead and gone.
If I get to wear a sword I'm down with a return to doublets and hose.
29: I watched part of that movie recently, and I was struck by how it really seemed to be all about clothes.
I hate gathers/ruching/shirring -- anything like that. Hate it all. I'm not sure if I've identified it as unflattering on me, or whether there's something else going on in my head.
It's going to take a lot of googling for me to understand 30.
@19if you look at fashionable people as a distinctive subculture.
I think they definitely are. Not that I don't appreciate the fact that such people exist. The world would be a significantly duller place if everyone dressed like me.
"In ruching, a large number of increases are introduced in one row, which are then removed by decreases a few rows later. This produces many small vertical ripples in the fabric, effectively little pleats."
I've dressed pretty much the same [...] since I was 14 or so
Same here. I have placed a premium on finding jobs that allow me to continue doing so.
I got my first article of clothing with ruching on the sides in 2004. I don't know whether that means it's here to stay, or just about to go out now! But the way it's often done on dresses seems pretty 80s to me, and I think we're a pretty long time from 80s looks becoming completely passé.
32: Of course it is. But how often do you hear people lauding the contributions of Marilyn Vance to their 1980s teenagerhoods? Pretty goddamn rarely.
Directors get way too much credit for Mise-en-scène.
I don't know. THe 80s revival seems like it has gone on long enough that it just has to end at some point. Also, men's ankles: put them fucking away.
Someone pass ttaM the smelling salts.
It's almost like we read the same thread.
I would like teenage-girl jeans to stop being skintight. Mostly because it means that they have to fit fairly well, which is really really annoying when you're buying them for someone who's growing. Skinny jeans can bite me.
When everyone on the Sartorialist started looking exactly the same -- ankle flapping trousers, etc -- I stopped reading.
42: All those kids just look like they're extras on Blossom. I don't remember real people dressing much like that.
Also, doesn't it look like the girl in the center of the August 19th picture is holding a bong?
It's almost like we read the same thread.
Following which I read almost all of the awesome 90s tumblr.
Blume, are you thinking of the late-80s dresses that looked like the Michelin Man had been flayed and the skin stitched to a dress form? Those were a mistake. This is the dress I'm thinking of. The fact that it has shoulder pads, however small, is cause for some concern.
THe 80s revival seems like it has gone on long enough that it just has to end at some point.
It has been going on a while, but I feel like it has only just recently reached full saturation. That is, where I see people who are not obviously hipsters wearing things on the street and I think, wow, that's a really 80s look and I'm not sure they even realize it. Which means that 80s-style clothing still has a good several years before it will look actively outdated.
I recently watched an episode of "My So-Called Life" in which the Clare Danes character dresses, for Halloween, as a "50s girl.". Except, she looks exactly like the kind of 90s retro hipster that would emerge roughly three years after the episode originally aired. So confusing!
49: Ooh, pretty! Get it, get it! Is that acutally ruching, though? It looks like it's just on one side. I think of ruching as being on both sides. And if it's not, I guess I think of it as gathers.
Wait, cargo shorts are out? I was just thinking of buying a pair.
I notice the kids are wearing aviator sunglasses and Chuck Taylor all-stars. That was my look in 1998. My problem might be that I am just way ahead of the times. Maybe in another 15 years, all the kids will be wearing chinos with crocks.
I LOVE YOU GUYS! WHO WANTS A HUG?
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Whee, unnecessary vaccinations make Sifu loopy. Next time I try to register for some fancy ass private school with some kind of a ridiculous thing against infectious disease, remind me to find my goddamn medical forms in time. At least I got a lollipop.
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53: Well okay then! I have been teetering on the fence and the word of an imaginary internet person is enough to make me topple. And you're right, I've been lumping ruching and gathers into a general category of excess topographic variation.
I do feel like TV costuming departments tend towards the extreme and are thus unreliable historical indicators of fashion. Few kids dressed like Blossom, few adults like Seinfeld. The Golden Girls seemed pretty accurate for how old ladies dress.
For menswear, California male lawyers have basically been wearing the same uniform -- a blue or white dress shirt with pants-- now for 13 or so years. And yet, older versions of this same look are hideously ugly, though it's difficult to say exactly why.
57: That kind of gathering can be amazingly flattering. Somehow it draws attention to the waist if the waist is really small, and can mask it if you've got a bit of a belly.
Skinny jeans can bite me.
Wide-legged jeans are back, but it looks like that's only going to help from the knees down.
Somehow it draws attention to the waist if the waist is really small, and can mask it if you've got a bit of a belly.
Like a thermos!
Today I'm wearing trouser-cut jeans. One of my very favorite things to wear to work.
Re: cargo pants, they probably aren't fashionable at the moment, but sometimes it's just plain practical to have extra pockets. Surprise at their continued marketability is unwarranted.
58
I do feel like TV costuming departments tend towards the extreme and are thus unreliable perfect historical indicators of fashion.
Fixed that for you.
Seriously, of course TV and movies tend towards the extreme. They have to create settings with certain moods and atmospheres, costumers have to justify their budgets, actors have to maintain their own images, etc. But that doesn't mean they're bad examples of fashion. If a real-life version of a certain fictional character would wear expensive designer clothes somewhat more than most people, then the fictional version would dress like that any time it's even vaguely plausible, just to make sure viewers get the message. Directors and costumers aim for an idealized version of whatever era they're depicting, but they do work from some version of the era rather than make things up from scratch.
You could probably find lots of people wearing t-shirts in public ever since their invention, just because they're a simple, casual, practical article of clothing for warm temperatures. But they won't show up in any surveys of fashion for certain eras until people started buying them with artful rips or witty slogans or pictures on them. That's not because people didn't wear them in earlier times, it's just because they weren't fashionable.
But then, what do I know about fashion?
I'm wearing cargo shorts and a cheap polo shirt, just like I wear every warm day. When it's cold, I wear jeans and a cheap polo shirt. And sometimes a sweater. Truly, I am a man out of time.
49 is really cute.
I need to buy some jeans that fit. This is really hard to do because the stretching and whatnot are unpredictable, plus maybe my body is unpredictable or something. Blech. I really need to just make an effort and shop more, because things I've been wearing for 5-15 years are wearing out.
I did see a girl in a halter top and super baggy cargo pants walking by as I drove to lunch just now.
This is the least comprehensible Unfogged thread ever.
I don't think there's any significant difference between jeans I wear now and jeans I wore 10 or 15 years ago, except size. This probably means people are secretly gaping in horror whenever I wear them, right?
essear, I think the difference is probably that you're a boy. Women's jeans change in wacky and unpredictable ways, or so it seems to me. I never did embrace the skinny jean thing and I will not try. They'll be gone soon, I hope.
Blume encouraged me to switch to jeans that actually fit me. I tried some expensive-ish (not really expensive, but, like, not from Target) ones but the crotch wore out too fast, so we canvassed some gay friends and they came up with some numbered Levis (not 501s) that work well. It was all pleasingly straightforward, and I can even tell that they look better.
Today I'm wearing trouser-cut jeans.
Dear God no.
This probably means people are secretly gaping in horror whenever I wear them, right?
Not secretly, no.
Everybody in my office is trying to figure out whether we just felt a little earthquake.
Type "earthquake" into Google and it shows the most recent ones. 5.8 in Virginia 5 minutes ago.
76 not to 75, but in response to my twitter feed, newly full of earthquake talk from DC folks.
Whoa. Yeah, that was an earthquake. Never felt one on the east coast before.
Felt that here! That's pretty weird.
Although it doesn't sound serious enough to be evacuating the Pentagon.
Or the capitol or Main Justice, or the NYT building.
I suppose, though, if there's another bigger one coming, then maybe the answer is to abandon the East Coast altogether.
Coordinates I have seen put it between Richmond and Charlottesville. A bit north of a line between them--not sure how accurate that is.
Near Mineral, VA, says the USGS
86 not to 85. Though I guess as he is a drummer, they might be able to keep tabs on him.
Our building swayed an impressive amount; I don't think I've ever been this high up during a quake before. Some coworkers thought it was cool, some were disbelieving, some fled the building.
A few of my co-workers say they felt it.
I felt the earthquake in my living room in Cambridge. Very strange.
Huh. I was out for lunch, at ground level, and didn't feel a thing. But there was a funny moment when people on the street seemed kind of excited about something.
I really have to start paying more attention.
Here's a "shakemap." Looks like it would have no more than "very light" damage potential in Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, and maybe some Richmond suburbs. Everywhere else just a little shake.
Appears that it would have been just north of the "Central Virginia Seismic Zone but it is not that active, from the site apparently 4.8 was the largest historical quake. This site seems a good overview of Virginia and earthquakes.
I'd love to see a Twitter earthquake propagation map of the kind posited in xkcd, but real.
89: I don't think I've ever been this high up during a quake before.
Same here. Have felt stronger motion (not a lot, though) around LA, but was on 6th floor here. Not real high nor was it that strong, but unsettling all the same and my biggest fear was that it was some non-quake-related building integrity issue.
Although it doesn't sound serious enough to be evacuating the Pentagon
I beg to differ! The shaking was very impressive. The expectation of a massive explosion was not fun. My group bugged out pretty fast.
Yeah. We are back inside. There was some damage even. A co-worker who was eating in a food court said that some folks were screaming and very freaked out (especially as they didn't know how to evacuate from an unfamiliar location). Many people thought it was another attack.
I didn't mean to suggest, md, that people in the P shouldn't have been concerned when they felt/heard it. Rather, that a formal evacuation after it's over seems a funny response. Jaded from my time in CA, I guess.
It was the strongest I've felt since 1989 (when I was in the East Bay), but it wasn't all that long. A legitimate quake though, for any Californians out there who are amused by some of the responses.
I'm about to head over to see if I can get back into the Library of Congress. They sent everyone out and even put up the barricades on the streets on Capitol Hill (or at least on Independence) to keep the traffic out.
Some chunks of rock fell off a church nearby, but it doesn't look like anyone was hurt.
Yes, apparently some structural damage in a few places in and around DC. I assume it has some areas with less competent subsurface that might have a tendency towards liquefaction. So potential for some "disproportionate" shaking for an earthquake of that size and distance away.
The Cathedral was damaged, and that's on pretty good ground, I would think. Better than the Pentagon, surely.
Charley, I agree. We didn't wait on anyone to tell us to leave. And they were pretty good about quickly checking the building and letting us back in. But as it ramped up it went from "is that a B-52 flyover or yet more construction" to "uh oh, let's go". It lasted a good 20-30 seconds. Solid building though.
The cathedral! It is an all-masonry building. And those finials are way up there.
The P's swampy foundations are notorious. But, the rehab (and the original work) was pretty good. One burst water pipe that flooded & closed a section on one floor. That was quickly fixed. Some stuff fell off of shelves, but that's to be expected.
98: we did not evacuate, but it did not occur to me that it was an attack, as it seemed too earthquakey
The Library is still closed, but they're letting people sit outside and re-opened the street. I hate to think of what the stacks might be like.
108. Dr. Evil's earthquake device!
I BLAME ARCHITECTS.
Sooo, has there been a elevated number of earthquakes lately? Or is it my imagination/media coverage?
Every time something like this happens, I have this strange reaction where I think "Man, Obama just can't catch a break.".
114: Well, bob might say you're not being paranoid enough. You don't think somebody has the technology to generate an earthquake? Guess again.
But seriously, this is good for Obama. Any distraction is good for him.
You don't think somebody has the technology to generate an earthquake? Guess again.
Bank for International Settlements was totes behind this one, enabled by their liberal backers like Matthew Yglesias. Fucking liberals.
Al Gore would have caused it if he'd been elected.
Mikkos Cassadine could have done it, but Luke killed him in like 1982.
They're still not letting us back in.
96: I'd love to see an xkcd earthquake strip link map.
They're just now re-opening the Capitol, according to some loudspeaker around the corner.
Heard about it here before the house staffers I'm eating with right now. Wow, you guys are good.
OK, back to fashion. I regret that just as slim and tailored cuts are finally available everywhere, I am no longer of slim and tailored form. I could be with some effort, but it would have been nice if effortless form and effortless form-fitting would have matched up. I feel like I always have about 1 1/2 decent-looking outfits and otherwise look blousier than I should.
118: Probably Long Branch's (or maybe Spotsylvania's) fault.
125: Yes. I got a couple of shirts from here last winter, very happy to have found what looked like a source of affordable and nice-looking slim dress shirts, but when they arrived I was too bulgey for them. Somehow I lost weight during finals and they now fit me, but I'm not expecting it to last.
126: I'm here for your explicitization needs, Eggplant.
This wait is getting ridiculous. I guess the problem is that the building is on top of a big parking garage, which has more intense inspection needs. Or so the rumor goes.
122: If you're asking for a link and not going to direct me to Standpipe's blog, here.
This Earthquake Impact map from the USGS has an easier to read version of the shaking contours.
Sooo, has there been a elevated number of earthquakes lately? Or is it my imagination/media coverage?
There have been a lot of earthquakes recently caused by natural gas extraction, mostly in Arkansas. Being in Pennsylvania I presumed they were now gracing our fair state, but that seems erroneous.
re: fashion
I was quite taken with the high-waisted, slim but loose 50s suits in The Hour. I'm very much not the shape for them.
130: I thought Cyrus was asking for a map showing the rate/distribution of people's links to that xkcd.
56: A co-worker of mine had a really strangely behaved bat in her apartment, so she's in the process of getting rabies shots. It's more than one visit, but the only place they have them is the ER, so 2 $100 co-pays.
Did not realize *how* close that nuclear plant was to the epicenter. About 10 miles or so. And close in other ways: Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle said the plant was designed to withstand an earthquake of up to 6.2 in magnitude.
It very much depended on where you were; I think I only felt it because I was up high.
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Hey, we should plan a Boston meetup soon. Like maybe uh some weeknight in the first half of September? I'll try and send an email if nobody else does.
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My office is sort of submerged, so maybe that's why.
Yes to a Boston meetup. I'm not cool enough to organize one myself. I've been wanting to see Bave since he transplanted himself.
127: I want to lose 5 pounds and then get some of those.
130/135: Yes, that's what I meant, a map of people linking to it, because I had seen at least one such link within 20 minutes of the quake. After I posted 122 I realized I had forgotten a word. I meant "I'd love to see an xkcd earthquake strip link propagation map", which would have made the parallelism clearer. Oh well.
"For menswear, California male lawyers have basically been wearing the same uniform -- a blue or white dress shirt with pants-- now for 130 or so years."
fixed that for you.
