In your case, you're wearing better shoes out of respect for the occasion, not because you want to make a personal impression. In that case, I myself wouldn't bother, unless my shoes were horribly scuffed, or unless it was much more formal an occasion than a graduation.
Yeah, but I want the shoe thing to matter for no one, and I don't have that argument worked out. As is clear from the sloppy post.
it keeps them looking nice and keeps the leather in good shape so they last longer. Which is especially true if its raining. So, lol no.
I've been happy with my "waterproof" or "water resistant" or whatever shoes. I was reluctant to replace my old work/dress shoes, which seemed good enough, but it's been worth it.* I got over the feeling that wearing the shoes obligated me to wear a business casual shirt to accompany them right at about the time the weather warmed, but I've stuck to plain t-shirts. This is the first time I've worn these kinds of shoes five days a week; my arches tell me I still have to work on getting better insoles.
*It also happened that there was a big discount on them because it was one of those post-midnight post-thanksgiving sales.
I think of polishing shoes as something you do not just to make shoes look better, but to protect them from the elements.
I've always been amazed at how many airports still have shoe-shine stands. Especially given how rarely I've seen them anywhere outside of an airport.
Train stations, also, sometimes. And once some enterprising hustler followed me for two blocks in Chicago telling me how badly my shoes needed shined and offering to shine them for $10.
I think it was $10, anyway. Something that sounded suspiciously high, but I'm sure he (accurately) sized me up and realized I would have no idea what a shoe-shine should cost. I can't really imagine that strategy pays better than simple begging, though.
6: So I'm being harmfully lazy? Crap.
It doesn't seem like the usual failure modes of my shoes are things that would be affected by shining.
Crap
You only use that if you're shining your shoes in the shower.
12: But it's so difficult to distinguish from Shinola....
There's a shoe-shine stand on 6th Avenue on the way from my office to my therapist's office, but I'm always in a hurry to therapy, so I can't stop. I think it would be great to have someone else polish my shoes.
12 is awesome.
2: Yeah, but I want the shoe thing to matter for no one, and I don't have that argument worked out.
Stanley, how about this: the shoe thing matters only with respect to the sensibilities of the other people who will be present. eekbeat and her family, maybe, who might care? I'll say that I've never had a pair of shoes shined in my life, and I've gotten shit for it from time to time, and I don't feel self-righteous about it, just stubborn.
I ditched a boyfriend once in part (only in part!) because he declined to be willing to dress in a way that wasn't slightly embarrassing to me in certain settings. I'm not proud of that, but it was true. Sometimes people just need you to be willing to conform for the sake of whatever tribe they're in.
12: Of course I wore my outfit into the shower the day before, like you do, but shoes, too? I had no idea.
Honestly, just polish your goddamn shoes. You'll feel spiffy. It'll be nice.
18: Sadly, Polish as I am, I haven't any polish about.
You're going to have to go to the train station to get your shoes polished. It'll be an adventure. You can either have a latte and read the newspaper while you're attended to, or nervously sip your water bottle from home and make awkward conversation.
Funnily, I have a shoe polishing brush and some polish (color matters, though) which I inherited from my grandfather. I should probably toss the polish.
The local train depot is hysterically bad* at anything involving train travel, but the attached private restaurant is renowned for their chicken wings, which come in many flavors. Perhaps they can rub a chipotle-ranch chicken wing on my shoes or something.
*Hello, high-speed rail to DC and NYC; yes, we would like you.
I've seen shoeshine stands at fancy old-school hotels too.
Stanley: So you're questioning the why, not the how? Sorry, but while needing them gleaming at all times is indeed a class indicator, dress shoes can start to look objectively awful after months of not being shined.
The lesser visibility of shoeshine stands outside airports may be because (a) they're confined to classier hotels and office buildings, and (b) even there they're often tucked away around corners. My old office building, which merely verged on upmarket, had one in back near the garage entrance, though it was hardly ever manned.
They do a better job at stands, but I admit it does feel weird, like you're on a throne and they're attending to you. I am glad I have the skill, even though I use it once in a blue moon.
Stanley: So you're questioning the why, not the how?
Good question. It's that I find the matter quite unfogged-able. And now I should say, good night, all.
There's an outdoor shoeshine stand at the end of the California Street cable-car line in SF. Every Nordstrom I've ever been in also has one.
Decadent coastal elites, the lot of ya'.
I've heard shoes shine themselves in New Mexico.
18: Sadly, Polish as I am, I haven't any polish about.
It's as close as the nearest drugstore. I just got some myself! On account of the scuffing my shoes endure. It's unsightly.
I admit I did shine a shoe or two with my grandfather's brush once or twice, and it was kind of fun.
In Soviet Russia, shoes shine you. Also true of occupied Poland. Postwar Poland was more concerned with the odor of nice shoes than with their polish.
In La Paz, not only are shoeshiners eminently visible, they look like terrorists. They don balaclavas and set up shop on the corner. I conider it great fun to get one's shoes shined by the Provos.
So, um, what is a sensitive way to suggest to one's significant other that they might start to dress better, if they clearly feel they already dress pretty well?
(Entirely academic, by the way, but I'm curious in the same way I'm curious about the question of cummerbunds at the opera.)
"Dress better" is entirely too vague, and is a non-starter.
I know communities in which that would mean that you're wearing clothes that are too tight, or you're wearing clothes that are too loose, or you're wearing shoes that are too scuffed, or you're wearing shoes that are too shined.
Do you really think that the general form of advice to be given depends on the specific sartorial infractions to be remedied?
Yes, I do. If the question is how to broach this to a significant other who clearly feels he or she is already dressing pretty well, the nature of the alleged infractions needs to be specified.
Ah -- but what if the feeling is just a general need to step up the game?
(Like, they break the rules inconsistently, sometimes being over shined and sometimes over scruff?)
(Seriously, don't think this anything over than a waste of time...)
But! If one were to be precise, how could one suggest that, say, wearing jeans with faeries painted thereof mayn't always be fitting? (With other such overly dfh problems following in train*.)
* Sorry that was awful.
Parsimon, your professional advice has been requested in the other thread.
Keir, you can't pretend that this is an academic exercise while giving such specific examples.
So, jeans with faeries painted on 'em, and other such things. You just have to say that the people you'll be seeing in the event to be coming are the sort who won't respond well, ask whether she'd be willing to compromise in this case, and go from there. Right?
If I have to generalize, it'd be to say that having conversations about this involves talking to each other about the fact that different costumes give off different vibes and are comfortable in different contexts. And then move on to whether or not the significant other is open to having multiple costumes available and is willing to adapt to occasions.
The example isn't academic; it's having an issue with it that is.
||
Someone noted in a previous thread that Zyrtec can cause vivid dreams/nightmares. I can now confirm that.
Amongst my numerous vivid dreams last night, I dreamed that Unfogged switched to a threaded comments system, and included "subject lines" on the comments like the Mother Jones blog.
There were some bugs that nosflow was working on, because the printf % codes were showing up in the comment numbers.
And there was a 14000-comment thread.
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So, jeans with faeries painted on 'em, and other such things
Sounds nice, actually.
In general, I've decided that dressing children is fun,* and that dressing like a child would probably be fun too.
* The picking out outfits part, not the getting them to put on some goddamn clothes before they go outside part.
Has no one said congratulations to eekbeet?
45: Hey that was me! I hope that my mentioning it didn't cause them.
Rob has better manners than all of us. Congratulations, eekbeat!
To Keir's question, I'd say that I (arbitrarily) draw a very sharp line between "You, in general, do not dress as fashionably/revealingly/modestly/FITB as I would like. Please change your entire style of dress so as to improve your image as the person accompanying me."
And on the other hand, "We are going to specific event X, and I am concerned that what you are planning to wear will inadvertently offend or distract my grandmother/the priest. Could you please adapt?"
I've seen the former play out in both F/M and M/F contexts. It would drive me bananas, but it seems to work out well for at least 70% of the couples I've seen. Ha ha, isn't it cute, she threw out his whole wardrobe and then went shopping for him.
I've actually experienced the latter firsthand. It feels more or less unobjectionable to me, especially where the asker has a much keener sense of the social protocol of the given event than the askee. It's just polite to avoid taking attention away or causing a ruckus on somebody else's important occasion; if you know in advance that the restaurant is going to require a jacket or whatnot, why bother being deliberately rude?*
(Caveat: If someone clearly makes a real effort, you can't then impose new, additional rules. E.g. requiring staff to wear dress-up clothes for an event, where one of the women then shows up in an understated but dressy tuxedo-esque outfit, should NOT result in "When I said you had to dress up to be respectful, I meant you had to wear a dress.")
48: Yeah, I got onto my ex a bit about not dressing nice, in part because he was a fairly wealthy guy who used his class privilege to dress however the fuck he wanted. We'd go out for a really nice dinner and he's wearing a dirty T-shirt from Montauk and hiking pants. Now generally, I don't care. One of the things I learned from hanging out with him is that worrying about what waiters think of you is a sign that you don't belong there. (It's a horrible lesson to have learned, but I do move with a lot more confidence around rich people if I have to now.)
But what did get on my nerves was when his friends would invite us to dinner at their house and he'd dress like he'd been gardening. He seemed to have nothing between oversized T-shirt and suit. So I bought him some sweaters in his actual size.
IIRC, there were a few words about how his ex-wife had been so horribly critical of him and his lack of fashion sense and how awful it was to revisit that with me. I said I didn't give a shit if he wore designer clothes; I just thought it was nice to look nice for a party.
What he ended up discovering from this experiment was that he looked really fucking sexy in tighter jeans, sweaters that fit, etc. Women paid way more attention to him. Men listened more closely when he talked. He started dressing that way a lot more often, even when we weren't doing anything in public.
I think he didn't get that I didn't dress nice, when I did, for him so much as I did it for myself. I like it when people treat me like I'm really right in front of them. I certainly don't do it all the time, and in fact make an effort not to when I'm working, but I do like wearing interesting clothes if I have the chance.
I don't know if that helps with the dressing-better question. I was glad I brought it up in that situation, because I think his dressing-down obsession was starting to make him depressed.
This all sounds very shallow. Sorry!
The example isn't academic; it's having an issue with it that is.
(`Having an issue' should also include being in a position to say anything or think anything such like; the dress sense is fact, but the specific relation to it isn't.)
I've seen the former play out in both F/M and M/F contexts. It would drive me bananas, but it seems to work out well for at least 70% of the couples I've seen. Ha ha, isn't it cute, she threw out his whole wardrobe and then went shopping for him.
Would probably involve me (or most people I know) running screaming for the hills, to be honest. Has anyone had it work for them?
This all sounds very shallow. Sorry!
I'm asking how would one try and make a mostly hypothetical someone else dress better -- on the internet -- because it takes my mind off the horrible people our new government is appointing and running as candidates and such. Shallow is rather what I'm looking for.
(What if it were just a friend (and what if he were male?))
Well, it may have only worked in my case because my ex was really arrogant about his looks. I think if you were dealing with someone who was self-conscious about "looking good" it could be a lot messier. It seems to work best if one presents the question like "OMG please wear those jeans that show off your hot ass" rather than "We're going to a party; can you make a fucking effort?"
(What if it were just a friend (and what if he were male?))
I dunno. I don't mess with friends' clothing choices. That's a lot harder.
And on the other hand, "We are going to specific event X, and I am concerned that what you are planning to wear will inadvertently offend or distract my grandmother/the priest. Could you please adapt?"
Yeah, this seems just like kindness all around. Kindness to grandmother/the priest, and kindness to the person you've told who hopefully now won't feel all self-conscious and uncomfortable when s/he shows up and recognizes that s/he was going to stand out. (Maybe not a kindness to the person who would have dressed inappropriately for the explicit purpose of standing out , but I'm not so concerned about that person.)
Keir, is the worry you have in mind something like the person dressing inappropriately for their age/occupation/station? E.g., female professor wearing jeans with faeries, etc? Or young man trying to dress for work but missing business casual?
In any case, I tend to think it's fine to express concern as long as it's said politely and from a good intention. I'm not sure about the distinction Witt draws, because I can imagine either situation being treated cruelly or kindly. (Where "I don't care, but think of the priest" is just an acceptable way of saying "How you're dressing will embarrass me.")
If you have a suit-and-tie type job, shoe shine stands quickly move out of the realm of bizarre eccentricities from a bygone era and into useful convenience. Dress shoes go downhill fast if they're worn every day and never shined.
E.g., female professor wearing jeans with faeries, etc?
I have a friend who's a very successful professor, who also dresses in a fashion that, while stylish, is what the older professoriate like to call "young." What's funny is how crotchety the undergrads can be about the same thing: she once got a student evaluation saying that she knew her stuff, "but how can you take a professor seriously when they wear pink cowboy boots?" My opinion here is generally, fuck that. When faculty (and students too) complain about a professor's gear, they usually mean "Please be more schoolmarmish." This being a gendery thing - noone complains about my goofy sneakers or visible tattoos.
a gendery thing
I like this. I will use it. Gendery!
The nice thing about being the actual person graduating is that you're not strictly required to have anything on underneath the robe. This can be important when it's an outdoor ceremony with >5000 people in 80-degree weather.
My opinion here is generally, fuck that.
Mine too, unless it were shown to be a consistent problem.
56: Yes, shining leather shoes with wax polish is a good way to preserve them, and a bonus is that they...look shiny. Not that I do it much. My dad (with a genuine but quirky sense of egalitarianism) once said that everyone should shine their own shoes. I mentioned this to a guy who runs his own shoe/leather repair shop in our neighborhood and he said that my dad was taking food off his table.
worrying about what waiters think of you is a sign that you don't belong there.
I understand this innately. If your ex is anything like me, which he probably wasn't/isn't, inattention to dress is a choice, and questioning it is to some degree questioning his persona. Rejection of appearance is compromised by dressing spiffy.
Ha ha, isn't it cute, she threw out his whole wardrobe and then went shopping for him.
To Keir's question whether this works: I've seen it happen many times, but never abruptly. It's always influence exerted over time. One day you'll see the guy and he's got new glasses, or a spiffy scarf. Then he shows up at an event with his girlfriend in a dark shirt and well-cut jeans. Somewhere down the line you realize he doesn't wear that one pair of really terrible shoes any more. It's noticeable if you're paying attention, but it's not as though the girlfriend goes all what-not-to-wear on him in a single day.
52 is very good.
A corollary, which I learned as a very young reader from the novelization of "Summer of '42" (or, worse, "Class of '44"): never tell someone that they look good in a particular article of clothing, because, what, they're ugly unless they're lucky enough to be swathed in madras? Canon is "That looks good on you": it was just some lame rag on the floor until it was lucky enough to be draped across your fine, fine form.
51-63 et al
Just a Little Help
Men can help their partners too!
It's only Love!
I turn up my nose at Stanley's sneakers.
Canon is "That looks good on you": it was just some lame rag on the floor until it was lucky enough to be draped across your fine, fine form.
This is great.
How do we feel about a significant other, or just a datee, taking a look at you in an outfit and saying, "You look nice"? That's a compliment, isn't it? I have trouble with this term "nice" as used by a seemingly increasing number of people. It seems back-handed somehow.
What one ought to avoid is saying."You look nice no that you. Made an effort for once."
66:I wish I had a prehensile nose. Coulda come in handy back when.
Somewhere down the line you realize he doesn't wear that one pair of really terrible shoes any more.
Does Tweety know you feel this way about his sneakers?
He doesn't wear them anymore anyway, so no biggie, right?
Eh, some of the hacker t-shirts I could do without, but everything else is fine.
We shouldn't forget the people Sifu comes from, I guess.
That's a compliment, isn't it?
Yes.
My shoe-shining observations:
1. It makes your shoes look a LOT better
2. Shoe-shine stands have withstood the feminist movement without a trace. How many skirt-wearing women will mount an elevated chair in front of god and the world with their thighs open (because of the foot rests) to a man's face? (True fact: in many locales, the shoe shine stand is in the men's room; that's only fair because the chicks have couches in theirs.)
3. The density of shoe shine stands in a country is a linear function of the Gini coefficient. They are almost unknown in northern Europe, for the same reason valet parking is.
4. The best shoe shiners in the world, bar none, work in the Four Seasons hotel Mexico City. Mexico City in general is a great place for a well-executed, inexpensive shoe shine.
79.2: Most women's dress shoes (the kind you would wear with a skirt) wouldn't work to be polished at a shoeshine stand anyway, because they are open on top. Not that you absolutely couldn't shine just the sides and the top of the toe while it was on the foot, but it would be giant pain, and a lot more trouble than just taking the shoe off.
Yeah, that's not feminism as much as logistics.
Shoe-shine stands have withstood the feminist movement without a trace.
Clearly, the feminist movement needs to step up its efforts with its much-publicized onslaught against the shoe shine stand.
(But actually, I would not want someone shining my shoes. That would just feel ... well, what Stanley says).
Sort of on topic: I have just discovered wool socks and I'm wondering why nobody told me about them before. They aren't scratchy and my feet stay drier (no fungus). I'm still waiting to see how long they last, but so far, plus one for fancy foot-related apparel.
that's only fair because the chicks have couoches in theirs
Fixed that for you.
86: I assumed you were being sarcastic. It is very hard figure out when you can trust sock-related advice.
84: (no fungus)
TMI?
But wool socks can make your feet sweat in the winter. Use them with caution.
88: See what I mean about the difficulty of sock-related advice. Why would socks that don't make my feet sweat in the spring (or, at least, don't make them sweat past the ability of the sock to wick-away the moisture), make them sweat in the winter?
As for TMI, just be glad I didn't go into the toe-nail thing I got going.
89: My (male) housemate has a toenail thing, so nah, these things just happen.
Just don't wear the wool socks in the winter if you realize in the course of the day that your feet are becoming sweaty. Maybe they won't become sweaty. Maybe it's just me!
Maybe they won't become sweaty. Maybe it's just me!
TMI?
To the OP, shining-ignorant people should get their shoes shined at a place such as Nordstrom, make a note of how it's done right, and then go get the stuff to do it themselves (unless they're wealthy enough to support their local shoe-shine person on a regular basis). It really does make shoes last longer, so it'll pay for itself.
92: It's true that I go sockless as often as possible, so I may be overly sensitive to the sweaty feet issue. But I was teasing Moby Hick anyway.
I once had a professor who went sockless with Birkenstocks all winter. This was in Nebraska. I have no idea how he did it, but my guess is he wasn't outside much. Also, he was a bit on the heavy side.
When he was younger, probably in his 20s since it was after he moved to California, my Dad offended someone's sensibilities when he answered a question about whether his feet were cold in cold weather (this being coastal California, it couldn't have been that cold) when he wore flip-flops by saying that the fungus kept them warm.
Clarification: by "sockless" I mean that I go barefoot indoors as much as possible, and stop wearing socks with my shoes as soon as possible in the spring. This does not mean going sockless with, like, for real winter shoes in the winter. Sheesh.
For one, I never doubted your sanity on the socks in winter issue.
That's good. I was beginning to think you were all sock freaks or something.
99: According to my therapist, I'm all cured.
Wool socks are super.
Truer words were never spoken. It is hard to darn socks? It seems like a lost art. I have all these super-cozy wool socks that I can't wear because of holes, but I can't bring myself to toss them or turn them into rags.
103: I'd just try making it up. Start with needle and thread and go from there? A person shouldn't give up on super-cozy, after all.
There's a picture of my feet in oversized wool socks on the flickr group, so I'm not a hater of wool socks.
You can use a light bulb as a darning egg. This is about right.
I was just looking at that very page. My only objection is that using a light bulb robs me of an excuse to have a darning egg, which seems like kind of a neat thing to have.
Or a darning mushroom. I love the Internet.
A darning mushroom. It's just dawned on me that that's what that is, that I've seen around my grandmother's, then mother's, house. We were kind of using it decoratively by now. Excellent.
I'll darn your socks for you, JMcQ.
"Darn you, socks! Darn you to heck!"
That was easy.
I'd really like to hear the specifics of 15.
and yeah wool socks are great. especially in summer.
112: Me too.
This: "Sometimes people just need you to be willing to conform for the sake of whatever tribe they're in." is a lesson I've only recently started to internalize. I have no problem conforming to other people's tribal expectations, but conforming to the expectations of what is effectively my own tribe has always been a sticking point for me. I'm slowly learning to pass for swipple, though still not very good at it.
The whole idea of getting someone else to shine your shoes for you is utterly bizarre to me, unless you're on your way to an important meeting or something and you've just realised they're scuffed. It's a piece of piss to do it yourself and the polish costs a couple of quid at most.
getting someone else to shine your shoes for you is utterly bizarre
I take my shoes to Jiffy Lube.
112: I'd really like to hear the specifics of 15.
You mean this?
I ditched a boyfriend once in part (only in part!) because he declined to be willing to dress in a way that wasn't slightly embarrassing to me in certain settings. I'm not proud of that, but it was true.
Uh, pretty straightforward. He was the kind of guy who had basically no dress clothes, which was fine by me the vast majority of the time. But there were occasionally times when it bothered me -- I'm remembering particularly a college friend's wedding held at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. My boyfriend had one suit jacket which was pretty ill-fitting and unstylish. Neither of us had much money, but he didn't want to go with me to the Goodwill to find him a nicer-looking jacket. He didn't have anything remotely close to dress shoes, and I think wound up wearing his boots, these seeming dressier than his sneakers.
That's obviously not a deal-breaker scenario by any means, but it was part of a larger issue: actually people here have talked before about some of us being class cross-overs. (I don't remember the term we've used for this.)
I went to an ivy league school, and have become able to be comfortable in higher class environments than the one I grew up in, and I find myself, and/or put myself, willingly, in those settings from time to time. My boyfriend wasn't uncomfortable with my old college friends, but he wasn't really willing to put any effort into keeping himself from sticking out like a sore thumb sometimes. I eventually thought it might be better for me to be with someone who flatly enjoyed things like going to a lecture, or having dinner at a nice(r) restaurant, on occasion, instead of my feeling that he was gamely accommodating me.
I'm coming out sounding bad here, I know. There were a lot of other reasons, more important ones, for the breakup. And I was fairly young -- 25 -- and would probably make a different decision now.
I don't think you sound bad. You shouldn't be with someone who keeps you from things you want, unless they are bad things and they are compassionately preventing you from injuring yourself. You're probably right that you'd make a different decision now. You probably want different things now.
Thanks, Wrongshore. I just remember still the first time I felt that -- embarrassed and frustrated by him -- and how ashamed I was of myself, my apparently newfound snobbery and pretentiousness, as it seemed to me. I yelled at myself plenty.
But, a long time ago now.
You shouldn't be with someone who keeps you from things you want,
this dictum seems quite anti-relationship, or at least anti long-term relationship. Eventually a relationship with anyone will end up keeping you from at least something that you want.
Leather lasts a lot longer if not worn two days running, and regularly saddle-soaped and oiled and waxed --- and wool lasts a lot longer if not worn two days running, but brushed off and hung somewhere not-too-dry-or-hot (with the leather shoes). They last so much longer that I regularly wear boots older than I am and coats older than my parents. Old-fashioned frugality, and also the Vimes Theory of Boots, yo.
I had more sympathy with the 'don't make me dress up, man, I'm above that' before discovering in college that you can be wearing the wrong thrift clothes to be accepted among the DFHs. Sss.
