Fashion Care Symbols

Ever been stymied by those perplexing care symbols on garment tags? Well, the American Cleaning Institute, formerly known as the Soap and Detergent Association, comes to the rescue:



Another helpful guide is available from the American Society for Testing and Materials, via the Missouri Textile and Apparel Center.

Work Clothes Update

I recently saw Tree of Life. I think it's a very important and beautiful film and, at some point, I might say something about it here. For now, however, I simply want to point out that the Brad Pitt character works in the yard and on his car in nice clothes and great shoes.

While these garments appear to be ones from his normal wardrobe rather than ones he specifically designated for gritty tasks, his sartorial practice here nevertheless functions as a case in point for the work clothes discussion on this blog (see here).

This got me curious: Was it common for men in the fifties to refrain from changing for yard and car work (like the Pitt character), did they change into high quality but slightly blemished attire (like I advocated), or did they do something else entirely? Does anybody know?

A-Shirts Underneath: What's the Point?

Here's something that's always puzzled me: Why do men wear those ribbed tanks (technically called "A-shirts" but commonly known as "wife-beaters") under nice -- I mean well-made, expensive -- shirts?

If you don't like undershirts at all, that I can understand; in fact, on one level, it's immanently sensible to avoid wearing an undershirt if you prefer fine garments because it allows you to feel the exquisite material against your body all day.

But the reason the rest of us put on an undershirt -- that is, a tee -- with such clothing in particular is that we want to prevent our underarm perspiration from rendering it impossibly rank (you can get several days' use per washing with an under-tee) and, worse, ruining it with permanent discoloration. An A-shirt may keep the torso in general dry, but it doesn't address the majority of the problem, namely, pit sweat.

So why wear one, at least when the clothes are nice? Why not wear a tee to save the shirt or nothing at all to feel the fabric? Is it because A-shirts hug the body, making it feel sleek and taut? Then why not use them for other purposes, like pajamas? (This is what I do.) Or is it because it feels cool to look like a rapper (since most guys who wear these things for undershirts unfasten a button or two to let everyone see what they've got underneath)? Really, I could use a hand with this one.

Changing the Subject

I recently came across the following aphorism:

A fanatic is someone who won't change his mind and won't change the subject.

The quote is often attributed to Winston Churchill, though Churchill scholar Richard Langworth insists otherwise (see here).

For my own part, I'm less interested in who said it or in whether it accurately describes a "fanatic" as I am in what it says about discussion and debate in friendly and polite settings.

Some of the standard adages floating around on this topic are "don't talk about religion and politics" and "don't give your opinion on a subject unless asked." The problem with the first of these is that it precludes some of the most stimulating and life-giving conversations possible for all parties involved. The problem with the second is that, for all the self-denial endured, the principle doesn't accomplish much in terms of its intention. It assumes either that most people don't ask for others' opinions or that, when they do, they actually want to hear them. In reality, people frequently ask for others' views on hot topics, seemingly in hopes that their interlocutor agrees with them or at least doesn't have a good reason for disagreeing. When such hopes are dashed, uncomfortable interaction ensues and it doesn't make much difference that the interlocutor was officially asked to opine.

The bottom line is that, at times, we all want to talk about the big, important subjects and it's simply not reasonable to expect agreement all or even most of the time. The key, then, is not how we get into the debate, but how we get out of it (and what we do while we're there). This is why the quote is important. In a polite setting -- for example, dinner with friends, as opposed to, say, arguing with a lover about something that has to be resolved (use your imagination) -- if the conversation is going badly enough for it to be obvious that one interlocutor is no longer interested in convincing or in being convinced, the debate should be over and someone (hint: the one still enjoying the debate) should change the subject. Otherwise, a great deal is fair in love in war, so long as the lovers and warriors are still interested in loving and warring, respectively.

Work Clothes

I really like wearing ties. This is not a secret; I've said it here. I love the way they look, I love what they stand for, I love the way the stiff material guides my neck into proper posture.

My problem, however, is that the place I work gets me very grungy and thus necessitates wearing "work clothes" -- and here I don't primarily mean the apparel one wears on the job (at some point, I hope to do a post about "work clothes" in this more narrowly-defined sense as well) but, more generally, the apparel one wears for any endeavor bound to sully up raiment: changing the oil in the car, mowing the lawn, and so forth.

Since my job obliges wearing this type of clothing, I've been spending a lot of my existence in uninspiring attire. And while part of me would love to change into nicer clothes when I get home from my job, the other part militates against putting on a shirt and tie for dinner, etc., only to take them right off again to go bed.

What to do? Well, recently, I decided to incorporate a tie into my work clothes outfit. This would allow me the joy of daily wearing ties without having to change into them for that express purpose. I selected a few ties that are high enough in quality to be appealing yet are mildly deficient in some way that disqualifies them from my normal tie rotation: e.g., they're a bit too long or short, perhaps lightly stained, and neither decorative nor versatile.

Of course, wearing a tie requires a somewhat nicer shirt, which might call for better pants. Since I have some pretty good bleach-splashed or red soda-speckled shirts and trousers, I went for the full work clothes makeover.

Wearing this new garb got me thinking. Why do we throw away nice but stained clothes while hanging on to cheap, baggy jeans and freebee tees to wear for yard work? We wouldn't be caught dead in this stuff under normal circumstances, but somehow it's good enough when we're working? Wouldn't we rather wear that shirt that makes us feel like a million bucks when it invariably has something go wrong with it? I understand we might not want to wear hot, constricting clothes for strenuous activity, but a lot of nice clothes are not hot or constricting (hey, yank that tie down a little!) and a lot of work is not strenuous. In these cases, wouldn't the work be more enjoyable if we conducted it in an outfit we liked?

Fashion and Posture

In her fascinating study on human posture, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, Esther Gokhale reports that debilitating back pain is a distinctively Western, post-nineteenth century problem for which the fashion industry is partly to blame (see pages 10-15 in particular). Elaborating on this charge, she notes that, around the time of World War I, French fashion magazines began to feature models with a supposedly more relaxed and casual but quite unhealthy posture. The idea was that the previous, more upright and therefore more natural and healthy, stance was stiff, rigid, and passé. Today, she says, clothes are made to fit the newer, more unnatural positions, which we have long since habituated.

According to Gokhale, if we abandoned this bad posture in favor of that which prevailed in Western culture prior to the twentieth century and still prevails in indigenous populations, we would experience a number of positive changes: less or no back pain as well as relief in muscles and joints all over the body; more energy, stamina, and flexibility; less stress.

This raises a host of questions in my mind. First, if clothing manufacturers alter the way they cut fabric so it will lay correctly on people adopting a new, unhealthy posture, doesn't this mean it will no longer sit well on someone striving for the older, more salutary stance? In other words, when clothes change in this way, don't they start encouraging the bad posture rather than merely accommodating it?

Second, I want to know which types of clothing do this. Is it just the ones we immediately think of as casual (jeans, t-shirts, etc.)? Is it not these at all but other types of garments? Or is it all clothes, including suits and dress shirts? After all, even dress clothes have been modified for comfort over the years and this "comfort" would have to be defined by what has been comfortable according to the reigning (in this case, unhealthy) posture.

This whole topic is really just a side issue in Ms. Gokhale's larger discussion so she doesn't fully address these concerns and I'm having trouble finding other sources on the matter. Can anyone point me in the right direction?