<p>Thanks for responding. It seems “up-to-date” these days frequently includes elements of hip-hop fashion … like the hoodie for women your age and my age. It seems the mass market hoodie is the intersect of high fashion and street fashion. Or so I’m learning on these other sites. :)</p>
<p>My father was quite the clothes horse. Mother too… Grandparents… The apple …</p>
<p>edit: I hope Shrinkrap comes back to discuss hip-hop fashion/aspiring to look wealthy and that others do. too. Is that what hip-hop fashion is about or not? Isn’t it more subversive than that?</p>
<p>By hoodie, do you mean sweatshirt-material type? Because what I’m referring to (and wearing) isn’t that material - it’s a slightly longer (to the hip) sweater that has a zipper down the front and has a tie belt, and just happens to have a hood. It can be dressed up or down, unlike a sweatshirt-material hoodie which is always down. I call these kinds of pieces “go-to” pieces – things that can go both up or down depending upon what you wear with it - and I find that those things are a better bang for the buck than something which is only dressy or only super-casual.</p>
<p>Is outside air any more germ-laden than the air inside a hospital full of sick people?</p>
<p>Though what really seems odd is that there are still people who work in hospitals who smoke (seen at the curb on breaks, since the hospital does not allow smoking anywhere on its property). One would think that after seeing all kinds of smoking-caused sickness and suffering that they would know…</p>
<p>Here is another one of those annoying assumptions that gets repeated over and over by cobrat, when no one on this thread has proposed that everyone must dress like a “mainstream upper-middle class” suburbanite. The only attire being ripped apart here is sloppy sweats and pajamas in public.</p>
<p>And by the way, cobrat, plenty of kids in our area wore those “ratty holes-ridden hand-me down jeans” when they were in style years ago. Even my Ds wore them to some degree, “rips” in the knees being okay with me, but not in the rear. Sorry to burst your bubble of specialness, but your decision to wear them in college would not have been unique in our upper-middle class suburban community at all.</p>
<p>“I hope Shrinkrap comes back to discuss hip-hop fashion/aspiring to look wealthy and that others do. too. Is that what hip-hop fashion is about or not? Isn’t it more subversive than that?”</p>
<p>Oh, there is just so much to say about it, as I am sure you are finding. What I originally meant was, it started off as VERY urban, not at all attempting to look mainstream wealthy, but now, not only do middle class white kids try to emulate the look, but folks like Mark Ecko and Tommy Hillfiger made a fortune from it. There was a cute SNL spoof about this last weekend. I think this is it</p>
<p>My son does not wear “hard core” hip hop stuff, but if you had to label him, that’s what the label would be. And it does not come cheap or convenient around here,</p>
<p>Good grief, cobrat. MOST people over the age of 17 do not care about what the upper-middle class white elite conformist blah blah blah believes or does. And they especially don’t do anything to actively go against it. Seriously, that rebellious stage was over for most people in high school. </p>
<p>Most people <em>gasp</em> dress the way they WANT to- not how they feel they should to conform or to rebel or to do whatever. Give it a freaking rest. </p>
<p>Most of us dress how we do because it’s what we’re comfortable in, what we feel we look good in, or what is required (by rules, not social norms). If you’re <em>really</em> still dressing to flip the bird to the upper classes, then I feel bad for you. Oh and since I know <em>you</em> never do anything, then I feel sorry for your cousin’s aunt’s best friend’s boss in rural Kentucky who DOES feel that way. </p>
<p>I wear sweats. I’m wearing them now. They’re comfortable. I wore them after work because they’re comfortable and not because I thought “Hmm, how can I stick it to the man today?” because that is what normal, well-adjusted people do.</p>
<p>There’s a noticeable difference between pre-ripped jeans one buys in brandname stores like the GAP and ones kids like me wore because they were handed down from older relations and the holes were from genuine wear & tear from years of use. </p>
<p>The former was cool back then among such kids and some of their well-heeled parents…the latter…no so much from what I’ve seen when visiting some of those suburbs to visit family and college classmates at their homes. Saw that firsthand when I visited relatives or college classmates and noticed the reactions of their neighbors to the confirmed sardonic amusement of myself and college classmates who concurred that their neighbors were a bunch of closed-minded snobby jackasses.</p>
<p>This is where you continue to lose credibility, cobrat. Because no one really believes that when you go visit relatives or college classmates, that their neighbors “react” to your dress in such a way that you can make a blanket statement about anything. Most people aren’t going to “react” to your dress (unless it is entirely inappropriate for a situation, like sweatpants at a funeral) in any way, shape or form because most people don’t CARE. </p>
<p>You continually posit this world in which you or anyone else makes a move and everyone around you “reacts” and you have to take into their account their reactions before deciding what to do next. No. In the real world, people wear what they like, and no one comments one way or the other unless it’s exceptionally inappropriate to the situation.</p>
<p>I have never seen anyone so wrapped up with “what the neighbors think” as you – which is ironic, given that you’re the one who tags “upper middle class suburbanites” with caring what the neighbors think. I dress how <em>I</em> like, the heck with what the neighbors think. You, on the other hand, don’t make a move unless you think others will react a certain way, and you’re convinced that they care enough to react.</p>
<p>I think there is some implication here that dressing a certain way is better and that some of us may be fooling ourselves to think that being a little (or even a lot) less conscious about fashion might bother our partners. I know for a fact that my DH flat out does not care about what I wear any more than I do. In fact, he appreciates how little I spend on clothes. We have other priorities. Doesn’t mean I think we’re better than people who care about clothes, just different.</p>
<p>Well, guess what cobrat? My pre-teen Ds ripped their own jeans! Therefore they were much more avant-garde creative artsy fartsy than ye who simply picked up a pair from the Goodwill pile, thus requiring very little effort and zero creativity. :)</p>
<p>“I think there is some implication here that dressing a certain way is better and that some of us may be fooling ourselves to think that being a little (or even a lot) less conscious about fashion might bother our partners.”</p>
<p>My comment on this was primarily related NOT to fashion but to APPEARANCE. Those things might be related, but not necessarily. </p>
<p>Also, I feel like I get related differently based on my appearance. As a middle aged black woman*, I accept the fact that it matters, and I am more willing to deal with it now than I was twenty years ago, because I am in the position to do something about it. And maybe it makes more difference now. Come on; let’s be honest. It can be sort of hard to look “bad” when you are an 18 year old girl. You can get away with a lot of things. </p>
<p>*BTW, I know this is true for my teenage son as well. Who participated in the “hoodie” thread?</p>
<p>That was my lame attempt to get back to the original subject. But I am though. …or at least I’ll try to be through…</p>
<p>It’s not so much keeping up with fashion as it is keeping up one’s appearance (which may or may not be in the latest fashion). There is a difference between saying “It’s important to me to wear the latest trends each season” and “It’s important to me to maintain my appearance and clothing in a generally current, up-to-date, well-kept style.”</p>
<p>Good for them. One area I’ve always wanted to improve on is artistic creativity. :)</p>
<p>To sum up my views…life’s too short to feel offended by what others wear solely for mere fashion/appearance sake. </p>
<p>While I may not like wearing sweats or pajamas on the streets myself, there’s nothing wrong in my book with wearing them on the public street or most college campuses. </p>
<p>However, I will continue to enjoy mocking the wannabe fashion judges/fashionista types as snobby wannabe petty tyrants. :)</p>
<p>If life’s too short to feel offended by what others wear, then why isn’t life too short to feel offended that others have different points of view? It seems to me that you must care a lot about other people’s opinions if it’s so important to “tweak” or “mock” them.</p>
<p>And you’re exaggerating (as usual) because saying “I think sweatpants worn regularly are a bit too sloppy for my tastes” is hardly “tyrant-like.” You always seem to think others who have other opinions are looking to impose them on you, or are engaged in active ridicule of you. I can have this opinion stated above, and simultaneously not really care all that much when I see Random Student A in sweatpants.</p>
<p>People do judge you for what you wear. Not all. But people do. That’s reality. And sometimes the people judging will have any affect on ones life. </p>
<p>I know my husband cares what I wear. He likes that I take pride, work out, dress up for him when we go it. I appreciate it when he puts effort into is attire as well. He loves that I take care of myself and want to look good for him. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just well fitted and classy.</p>
<p>It would make me sad if my husband didn’t care what i wore or how I looked. I don’t need his approval, I just like it.</p>
<p>I agree with you. And this is always my opinion when I see the cat-lady-sweatshirts-and-sweatpants at PTA meetings. I think there are some women who like to think that their husbands really don’t care if they’ve let themselves go and dress in that manner, and I bet that if you secretly asked the husbands, they’d kind of like it if their wives took better care of themselves and paid a bit more attention to their appearance. Which is NOT saying that these men have unrealistic desires for their wives to look like they did when they were 20 or that they want their wives to channel the Real Housewives or drip with diamonds and designer duds.</p>