<p>It depends on the school and the region and the climate - every place is different</p>
<p>I have never understood why dressing a certain way would be a measure of maturity.</p>
<p>I think dressing for an ocassion is a sign of majority, sure. It’s not a certain way, per se, it’s thinking, hm, this circumstance requires something respectful. That’s a def sign of maturity. Its not cookie cutter dressing, its stepping up.</p>
<p>Would it be mature to a show up to a classy wedding in jeans? As we get older, we learn there are societal rules. There I said it. Rules. Amd yes I stand by my assertion that dressing for the occasion is a sign of maturity.</p>
<p>My friends husband is over sixty, and he wears workout pants to dinner out. There are nice pants for men that are comformtable. But he thinks it cut to shpw up in baggy, ugly, old nylon work out pants. His wife dresses up. He couldn’t be bothered to change and it’s very passive aggressive and immature. Makes him look like he’s an old man trying to be a teen. </p>
<p>Even his male friends point out to him his lazy dressing. Ah well. Young once immature forerver</p>
<p>Kids tend to do what they want to do and when they want to do it. As adults, we know there is a time and place for everything, it includes how one may need to dresse differently for different occasions (wedding vs funeral), and showing up in a T shirt is disrespectful when it is formal event. We tend to just suck it up instead of making a big deal out of everything because we don’t need to prove that we are so very different and unusual.</p>
<p>I dont care what my kids wear. I want to see A’s and a smile :)</p>
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<p>Me neither. Then again, I was fortunate to attend a HS where being fashion conscious made others perceive you as an intellectual dilettante trying to overcompensate in another area and an undergrad college where in the '90s…it was considered a sign you were affiliating yourself socially/politically with the conservative “bourgeois capitalist establishment” unless you were a con student and thus, required to dress up for recitals/performances.</p>
<p>Ended up being great for me as wearing worn hand-me-down clothes was not only a-ok…but even regarded as a great positive. It also meant that in college…anyone who attempted to act as the fashion police tended to get harshly lectured about not being “closed minded bourgie establishment conformists.” ROTFLOL! </p>
<p>Also, I’ve heard many female alums of my era that it was a great positive to not be subjected to harsh judgments because they didn’t abide by the upper-middle class mainstream US fashion dress norms. </p>
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<p>A part of it was that dressing fashionably/corporate styles was interpreted as a sign your politics are to the extreme right by the political spectrum then in place in the mid-late '90s. </p>
<p>Another factor was that the campus of that time was viewed as a safe haven for “misfit” students who were bullied and given such “maturity” BS in high school by the more politically/socially conservative preppies and they don’t want that haven invaded/changed by them. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I’ve heard from later alums after 2004 that the campus has mellowed greatly…which has prompted much angst from older or contemporary to me Oberlin alums that the school has gotten “too conservative” over the last several years. Some of this was played out in letters to the alumni mag not too long ago. </p>
<p>To hear some of those unhappy alums…you’d think the preppies have won…which doesn’t seem to be the case from what I hear from younger alums and seen in what they wear. The campus just moved from being mostly left of the Green Party to being on the left side of the current Democratic party.</p>
<p>mom5i52:
I wish I could go back and edit my earlier reply from this morning (#19). I think I was too quick to answer and my words were a bit too harsh.</p>
<p>cobrat, I do not go to a school with a “non-conformist” mentality and there’s still no taboo against hand-me-downs or other non-upper class clothing. Seriously, I think you think people care much more than they do. At the vast, vast majority of colleges, hand-me-downs, sweats, etc are a-ok. There are VERY few colleges where any kind of upper-class or “conformist” clothes are seen as the norm. No one acts a “fashion police”. Seriously. No one.</p>
<p>But thank you for making me glad I never went to Oberlin. I am about as liberal as you can get, but I don’t care what other people do. Apparently Oberlin alums care GREATLY about what other people wear or think. Yuck.</p>
<p>For me, one should select clothing that is respectful of other people. By this, I mean clothing that does not offend common sensibilities for a given occasion. </p>
<p>Personally, I think sweatpants are inappropriate for most occasions. However, there are sweatpants made nowadays that do cross-over and may be acceptable if they fit well. I’m thinking specifically of Nike womens black sweatpants that can look like regular slacks if they are not too tight and are worn with a longer top. There is probably a mens equivalent of this.</p>
<p>My biggest pet peeve is pajama bottoms. I literally feel disgusted when I see people wearing these in public. I assume that they were worn all night and then into the next day. For me, wearing pajama bottoms is equivalent to wearing one’s dirty underwear in public.</p>
<p>I would be interested to hear university professors’ opinions about how their students dress, and if they care at all.</p>
<p>^ If I’m reading correctly, post 23 is from a prof. (Apologies, strad, if I’m mistaken!)</p>
<p>My son is a senior at a LAC in NW PA. He has had internships in DC and has a very nice wardrobe. But I know that every day he has been at school he has had shorts, a tshirts, sweatshirt, North Face if it was cold and Chaco sandals. I will bet money he will wear them to graduation too. He’s happy, he does great and he knows the occasions when it is necessary to dress up. But if he read something in a student newspaper he would certainly do the opposite.</p>
<p>Cobrat - Don’t you see the glaring irony? You talk about the ‘fashion police’ in college being harshly lectured about being close minded, and yet you turn around and judge those that dress differently because you naturally assume style of dress X=Y beliefs. You state "it was considered a sign you were affiliating yourself socially/politically with the conservative “bourgeois capitalist establishment”. So, who’s doing the judging here?</p>
<p>btw, you must have missed the fact that thrift store shopping is quite popular now. It is actually quite hip to be wearing second hand.</p>
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<p>Yep, romani, you’re right. Although my kids tell me that my eye for fashion reflects my, er, mature sensibilities…</p>
<p>I’m ok with students wearing anything in class that covers enough geography to allow me to focus on their faces during a conversation. Preferably, it will be laundered recently enough that the aroma doesn’t distract me, either. ;)</p>
<p>jpm50:</p>
<p>It’s fine. I like open discussion.</p>
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<p>You misread me. Those weren’t my judgments, but those by most of the campus back when I attended. </p>
<p>I’m just relaying what I observed as a student at that college in the mid-late '90s. Mere relaying of observation does not mean I necessarily share most/all of those views. </p>
<p>Personally, I could care less what others wear unless they start judging me about my clothing choices. In that case, I’m of the view that turnabout is fair play. :)</p>
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<p>You wouldn’t have liked teaching a couple of classes I’ve had where there were a few classmates from a dorm well-known for neo-hippies who had a habit of not showering for months. Let’s just say the aroma from those classes were memorable to say the least. :D</p>
<p>re “clothing…respectful of other people”. To me this would mean nothing at all expensive- you don’t want those who can’t afford the name brands to feel badly. Therefore NO Northface, Crocs or those other brands mentioned on CC. Sweats are universal. We are talking college students, what is appropriate for campus- not off campus/dress up /job interview events. It is not a sign of having/lacking maturity to dress as a typical college student while being one on campus. Part of the luxury of going to college is living in that world. Clean enough- ie not smelly or shedding dirt, and covering enough of the body is needed. When I was a medical school freshman the pathologist in the morgue we visited noted how our class had cleaner jeans than recent clases- this was the mid 1970’s. I noticed how college freshmen wore dressier clothes-pants than my freshman year as an undergrad.</p>
<p>My husband went to Oberlin and we visit there often. The students are still interesting and delightful and I doubt they spend much time thinking about fashion or anti-fashion.</p>
<p>there is no reason that jeans are “nicer” than sweatpants except someone has decreed it so.</p>
<p>views like this are the reason that my office thinks it is very important that I wear a tie to work while I stare at my computer for 8 hours everyday.</p>
<p>A lot of baseball hats and sweats on the campuses.</p>
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<p>And why it’s oh-so-important for us to wear nice pants, shoes, and blouses to work in the mail room or in cubicles in locked off rooms where no one sees us :rolleyes:</p>