When did we lose it?

[F. Corbera]



Doug Larson. Courtesy of Google.

http://www.quotegarden.com/nostalgia.html

Is the state of our literacy now so impoverished that we must quote a dude named Doug?

 

[OlSarge]

This thread is high comedy. Keep it up.

Two of my great uncles were tailors. My father wore an OTR suit to work every day of his working life. All the OP's chosen standards of quality would have made him blink in confusion. My entire working life I never needed a suit. Today I like to wear them now and again and am willing to pay for quality--but not for labels! However, as I said at the beginning. Keep the one-liners coming. I'm having a great time.

 

[Archivist]



Is the state of our literacy now so impoverished that we must quote a dude named Doug?

Yes

 

[EriQ009]

While the video has some outlandish ideas about future fashions, it was pretty accurate in other ways. The disappearance of skirts, sheer fabrics, and the like.

[VIDEO][/VIDEO]

 

[EFV]

 

[F. Corbera]



While the video has some outlandish ideas about future fashions, it was pretty accurate in other ways. The disappearance of skirts, sheer fabrics, and the like.

You can also see that it predicted the mobile phone clipped to a belt, perhaps the ultimate sign of individuality and non-conformity of modern times.

Oh, where are my manners? Shout out to the OP for being on SF since '08 yet only racking up fewer than 70 posts, one of which was made to start this thread. That's a ninja mind game if I've ever seen one.

Hell, I've posted in this thread alone more than 70 times already...albeit to impart great wisdom and to urge calm.

 

[comrade]



Not true, years ago anyone in an office job wore a suit, even the lowliest of clerks. Most men had a suit to wear to church at the very least, including my blue collar grandfather and his brothers. This was in the 60s.

Quite a few suits here (in the 1920s, I believe).

Before the '20s, maybe 1915.

 

[CYstyle]



When is the next Brooks Bros. sale?

day after xmas

 

[Gdot]



Wow...a patrician on StyleForvm!
This is fantastic news.
I still think that it's fantastic news.

I live to thrill you.

 

[Gdot]



Is the state of our literacy now so impoverished that we must quote a dude named Doug?

You prefer the more formal 'Doogie', I presume?

 

[Galix]



When women lowered their standards.

 

[Patek]

Someone blamed disco, but I think it was before that. I think it was all the damn dirty beats followed by the filthy hippies.

 

[mcbrown]



Not true, years ago anyone in an office job wore a suit, even the lowliest of clerks. Most men had a suit to wear to church at the very least, including my blue collar grandfather and his brothers. This was in the 60s.

Quite a few suits here (in the 1920s, I believe).

The original claim was about our "fathers' fathers"; the 60s were more of my father's time than my father's father, and simply reinforces my point that the mass-marketing of "good clothes" is all a very recent phenomenon.

The photo from the 1920s is of an urban area - quite a significant selection bias. Of course people who went to work in offices wore suits. But our nation was still quite agrarian at that time; what do you think the majority of the population that lived in rural areas wore on a regular basis?

And how many people in America are sons or grandsons of immigrants? How much knowledge of Western suit construction do you think my father-in-law acquired growing up in China?

We might equally romanticize the good ole days when everyone who owned a car knew how to take apart and reassemble the engine and could get it done on a Saturday afternoon; now no one knows how to change their oil. But the reality is those good ole days never existed - we just think they did.

 

[OinkBoink]

The original claim was about our "fathers' fathers"; the 60s were more of my father's time than my father's father, and simply reinforces my point that the mass-marketing of "good clothes" is all a very recent phenomenon.
The photo from the 1920s is of an urban area - quite a significant selection bias. Of course people who went to work in offices wore suits. But our nation was still quite agrarian at that time; what do you think the majority of the population that lived in rural areas wore on a regular basis?
And how many people in America are sons or grandsons of immigrants? How much knowledge of Western suit construction do you think my father-in-law acquired growing up in China?
We might equally romanticize the good ole days when everyone who owned a car knew how to take apart and reassemble the engine and could get it done on a Saturday afternoon; now no one knows how to change their oil. But the reality is those good ole days never existed - we just think they did.

Mass marketing is just a product of technological innovations (like radio, television, and the Internet). Marketing itself preceded these innovations by centuries (here are some old Coke ads: http://www.psdeluxe.com/articles/inspiration/100-old-coca-cola-posters/).

What you're neglecting is the fact that our economy has advanced in other areas. The number of people manufacturing clothing per capita is far, far lower than it was a century ago. And the industry is highly automated. You may bemoan this fact, but it has enabled us to produce other things like safe and fast airplanes, cars, flat screen televisions, nuclear power plants, medical innovations, and compex derivatives that are perfectly harmless in every way (snark).

Frankly, I'll take the tradeoff. I suspect that inexpensive suits 100 years ago were not as wonderful as you "remember" them to be. In fact, I suspect that, as weighed against the typical person's earnings, a suit of comparable quality today may not even cost any more. The fact is, if we had as many people working in textiles today as we did a hundred years ago, we'd all be quite a bit more poor.

 

[mcbrown]



Mass marketing is just a product of technological innovations (like radio, television, and the Internet). Marketing itself preceded these innovations by centuries (here are some old Coke ads: http://www.psdeluxe.com/articles/inspiration/100-old-coca-cola-posters/).

What you're neglecting is the fact that our economy has advanced in other areas. The number of people manufacturing clothing per capita is far, far lower than it was a century ago. And the industry is highly automated. You may bemoan this fact, but it has enabled us to produce other things like safe and fast airplanes, cars, flat screen televisions, nuclear power plants, medical innovations, and compex derivatives that are perfectly harmless in every way (snark).

Frankly, I'll take the tradeoff. I suspect that inexpensive suits 100 years ago were not as wonderful as you "remember" them to be. In fact, I suspect that, as weighed against the typical person's earnings, a suit of comparable quality today may not even cost any more. The fact is, if we had as many people working in textiles today as we did a hundred years ago, we'd all be quite a bit more poor.

I actually agree with your point. "Mass marketing" was a poor choice of words by me - broadly what I mean to say is that the notion that 100 years ago everyone owned a really nice suit (let alone know how it was constructed) is almost certainly false. Suits are ubiquitous because they are cheap, they are cheap because of manufacturing advances, etc. But you already said it better than me, so I'll leave it there.