<p>I just noticed that the OP is from NYC. Newsflash: Dress standards in NYC (and, to a lesser extent, LA, but who cares?) are different from just about everywhere else. On any day at any hour almost anywhere in Manhattan (from Morningside Heights on down, at least, and maybe a little further south as you move east), 90% of the people on the street are "flaunting it" from a provincial point of view. It's really striking, and it's been true forever. (I worked in Manhattan for 7 months 30 years ago, and I have never felt so conscious of what I was wearing and what other people were wearing.)</p>
<p>So, I think people have to adjust their perceptions in both directions. I know my daughter had a different standard for NYC schools than she did for schools elsewhere -- she just took it for granted that people (especially women) would be more dressed up there, because everyone was more dressed up. (And anyway she tended to approve of what they were wearing. The Barnard quad had dozens of young women dressed exactly like my daughter. I thought it was hilarious). By the same token, it would behoove Manhattanites (and their ilk) to remember that, north or east of Greenwich and south or west of Princeton, they may be perceived as "flaunting it" even if they don't mean to do that.</p>