Have you ever noticed that people dressed better in the past?

https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1955756224030630264

by surprisetalk • 11 months ago

24 36 11 months ago

coldtea• 11 months ago

adults were more responsible and less juvenile in the past, dressing better comes from that (and no, I'm not talking about the medieval ages)

mulmen• 11 months ago

It’s a Twitter link so I can’t be bothered to actually read it. My immediate reaction is to ask if this is some form of bias.

Survivorship bias: People who had access to stable lives and institutions are more likely to have their photos passed down to the present day.

Selection bias: are you looking for old fashion photos or just statistically random old photos of people?

Sampling bias: Aren’t well dressed people more likely to be photographed because they are better subjects and because the privilege that allows them to be well dressed also affords them access to cameras and photographers?

Ekaros• 11 months ago

Many of the pictures were somewhat posed... So people selecting to pose might have been in general those that were at the moment presentable. If you do not think you look at least decent you might not choose to have picture taken.

chiffre01• 11 months ago

There were higher (different) social expectations of personal appearance amongst other things.

lambdadelirium• 11 months ago

Great, define better

arduanika2• 11 months ago

Come on. When you write code, do you believe that there are standards of quality that vary between codebases?

Do you think that we're unique among crafts, in having taste?

latexr• 11 months ago

They did define it, and its opposite, over several posts when relevant for the specific point. For example (emphasis mine):

(…) many outfits in the past looked great because they conferred distinctive shapes — a boxier shirt, fuller pants, short shorts, etc. (…)
(…) the man in the white t-shirt and fuller legged pants looks better than the man in the blue polo because the higher rise pants lends better proportions.
(…) I think McQueen looks better here because the t-shirt on the right is just too long. (…)
(…) their trousers often drape well because they are cut from heavier wool fabrics. (…)

There are more, but I think those get the point across.

blactuary2• 11 months ago

This is a positive development. "Better". Who cares, stop worrying about how other people look.

andy992• 11 months ago

https://xcancel.com/dieworkwear/status/1955756224030630264

Didn't really resonate with me, I'm not very interested in fashion.

I did think the first comment was interesting, that it could be selection bias as fewer photos were taken so people dressed up.

arduanika2• 11 months ago

But fashion is interested in you!

And there's not much selection bias in the old footage you see of crowds walking city streets at the turn-of-the-century.

vannevar• 11 months ago

And there's not much selection bias in the old footage you see of crowds walking city streets at the turn-of-the-century.

Are you sure? What part of town were the photos usually taken, and for what purpose? I would actually be very surprised if there weren't selection bias in where, when and why such photos were taken.

kube-system• 11 months ago

An aside: I remember reading something recently about the modern increase in skin cancer rates... with some blaming sunscreen and others blaming increased detection. It just struck me that people also just simply used to simply wear more clothes.

miyoji• 11 months ago

The thread isn't about fashion, really. It's about style and aesthetics. Most of the poorly fitting loose clothes that he's criticizing are "in fashion" but they look terrible. Even if you don't agree with his sense of aesthetics, learning to see what he's talking about is valuable.

I did think the first comment was interesting, that it could be selection bias as fewer photos were taken so people dressed up.

He addresses this in replies, noting that people today dress worse even on formal occasions when they expect their picture to be taken. https://xcancel.com/dieworkwear/status/1955872833965580437#m

andy992• 11 months ago

The thread isn't about fashion, really. It's about style and aesthetics.

Fair enough, I meant what you are calling style.

VLM2• 11 months ago

The article in detail danced around a couple socioeconomic issues:

People had vastly higher standards of living in the good old days. A working guy in a factory could buy a house on a cheap small mortgage, have a new car, pay for a stay at home wife and a bunch of kids, and, yes, buy fancy clothes almost recreationally, and anyone higher up had an even better lifestyle, of course my grandfather had a cottage on a lake for the summer, just like everyone else in his socioeconomic group ("management"). The fancy clothes go well with the nice house and new car that even relatively poor people could afford... back in the old days. People are much, much poorer now, much more hand to mouth, if that. Long term socioeconomic decline. I'm sure Rome after the fall of Rome was not quite as stylish as Rome at the peak of the Empire, and now its our turn for steep permanent decline and all that results from it.

Profit must be maximized at all costs explaining why designer clothes are so boring. If you are in the business of buying nice fancy attractive imported shirts for $10 and marketing them for $250, you're more or less legally obligated to buy the cheaper more boring looking shirts for $5 and market them for the same $250. And this trickles down to lower financial levels. So no more fancy multi-part button down shirts with elaborate buttons and collars and shaping, you get the cheap rumpled looking tee shirt with the expensive label.

People in general are statistically very fat and fat people have ... unusual, generally inaccurate, very optimistic ideas about what makes them look thinner, like skin tight clothes so they're still a size "large" despite looking very overstuffed. And due to mass marketing everyone has to wear the same style so as a thin athletic guy I have to dress like how a 300 pound guy inaccurately thinks makes him look thinner. If I shop at Target or Old Navy or something like that, I look like a thin guy in a scarecrow stuffed with straw costume. Fat people clothes are NOT flattering on thin people; ironically they're also not even flattering on fat people. But in 2025 everyone has to dress the same and everyone has to dress like them.

Racial vs socioeconomic status signaling. In the old days if you were not a manual laborer you'd dress fancy to make a visual point of not being a manual laborer. Now we have racial profiling where if you're not obviously an illegal you're clearly not a manual laborer, so there's no need to dress up like a factory owner to make it clear you're not a factory worker. I, and people like me, don't need to dress up for people to assume I'm not a groundskeeper on sight. You're judged based on your demographics much more intensely in 2025 than in 1955. All people need to know is my obvious visual demographics and my postal address and where I hang out, they don't need to look at the quality of my clothes, to have an accurate idea what socioeconomic class I'm in. No need to count the pleats in my pants or measure the starched width of my collar.

So, basically, everything is downstream of slow long term economic collapse, profit taking, normalization of fatness, and multiculturalism.

throw0101c2• 11 months ago

People had vastly higher standards of living in the good old days.

As a percentage of spending on groceries, people used to spend 25% and now it's 10%; for clothing it used to be 10%, now it's 3%. In 1900 people used to spend over 40% of their budget on food:

* http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archi...

Transportation and and telecommunication costs have plummeted over the decades:

* https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter1/what-is-tra...

Compare the Mustang (and Charger) in the 1968 movie Bullitt compared to today: more horsepower, more torque, better fuel mileage, better safety and comfort (air conditioning!).

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang_(first_generation...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang_(seventh_generati...

The main thing that has changed is that housing has gotten more expensive: just about everything else has gotten less expensive.

blitzar• 11 months ago

Yes. Also pyjamas and a dressing gown is not suitable attire for the school run.

blactuary2• 11 months ago

That is absolutely none of your business

righthand• 11 months ago

I think there’s “people dressed better in the past” and there’s “people only took pictures of themselves when they were dressed nicely in the past”.

There were lazy afternoon pants in yesteryear. However you also owned fewer pants, shirts, etc back then as well. You HAD to take care of what you owned and you had less disposable income. You only bought the nicest you could practically afford.

Nice view of how much manufacturing excess changes things.

—

I still try to dress nicely. I have a nice linen shirt and pants that I love but they were expensive. I have less expensive nice clothing with patterns, flannel shirts, a pair of wool pants, a pair of corduroys, all varying colors. What I enjoy doing is matching different fabrics and colors. That a lone looks fancier than all cotton ensemble even if the fabrics aren’t expensive. And remember you can always put on a flashy pair of sneakers. Usually shoes don’t even have to match anything.

There are simple things you can do too. For example, you don’t have to buy $150 selvedge jeans to roll the cuff up on your pair. Dressing nicely is about variety and flourishes more than cost really.

jmclnx• 11 months ago

Yes, and I believe this is due to people following how the rich dresses.

In the past, the well-to-do dressed in suites and nice evening wear, so the poorer people start following them.

Then at the start of "Tech" wealth, the people starting those companies tended to dress down, guess what ? Poorer people followed. I kind of expect it has to do with reproduction as in finding a mate :)

grues-dinner• 11 months ago

Someone, whether employed or married, being at home every day to faff about boiling and ironing and starching may not explain why people wanted to do that, but it helps explain why it was possible.

Much as I actually do quite like wearing a nice shirt to work, ironing the damn thing plus pressing trousers and running about having suits dry cleaned in the window the laundry is open and I'm not at work is a hassle and if I'm not prepared to do it if I don't actually have to, I'm certainly not going to make my (also full time working) spouse do it for me.

secretsatan• 11 months ago

That seems very subjective, i’m more of the opinion clothes are far more practical nowadays, who wants to wear a suit in summer? It’s just not sensible

VLM2• 11 months ago

Socioeconomic class issue to assume attractive clothes are "scorching" in the summer. They are not.

If your family can only afford one buttondown shirt, one tie, and one pair of nice pants you buy the winter weight because its far more durable (will last years or decades) and you will SWEAT in the summer.

If you can afford summer weight stuff, I own plenty of silky light button down shirts that are far more comfortable and flattering to my body than a thick heavy soggy cotton graphics art lower class tee shirt.

Staying "cool" used to mean being rich, or rich enough to own finer fabrics.

There is also a long term generational shift from people were thin and aspired to look good in "thin" clothes, to people are fat and aspire to look good in "thin" clothes, to now people are fat and don't even bother making an effort anymore. Or putting in any effort at all (clean, no holes, not smelly) that puts them in a high enough class that going even fancier is wasted effort if they already look better than 99% of people they'll run into.

InitialLastName• 11 months ago

In a less "everyone is s**" take than siblings, this could be a number of biases:

- Availability/survival bias: People took fewer pictures in the past and were more likely to be taking those pictures on special occasions (when they were dressed nicely).

- Now that we live in a world of generational fashion, the previous generation's "casual" wear becomes the next generation's "dressy" (read: stodgy) wear.

- People owned less clothing, had less access to varied clothing, and laundry processes were harsh, so they wore sturdier (and heavier) clothing that more easily supported "dressing well".

- "Back in my day, people conformed" isn't exactly a novel take.

tarboreus• 11 months ago

No, people really dressed better back then. source: around for some of it

throw0101c2• 11 months ago

- Availability/survival bias: People took fewer pictures in the past and were more likely to be taking those pictures on special occasions (when they were dressed nicely).

Contra: while not as prevalent as in the current digital age, street photography was a thing in the past too. If you look at the photos (e.g.) Vivian Maier took of everyday people, doing everyday things, you'll get a more random sampling:

* https://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/street-1/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography

sfmz• 11 months ago

Dressing up is a lot more rewarding if you are not obese like 42% of the USA. I think the French still dress nicely is that true?

anonymars• 11 months ago

The author mentions this exact topic. "Contrary to popular belief, people didn't look better because they were slimmer. We see many corpulent men in the past who dressed better than the average man today. It's not true you can look good in anything if you have an athletic body."

sartorially• 11 months ago

Even in the summer, when it was scorching hot?

I have high-twist wool(!) trousers that are comfortable up to 90 F. Most people couldn't tell they're not normal wool dress trousers. I have linen trousers that aren't really any warmer than shorts (and they keep the sun off you). Ditto for shirts. I'd rather be in long sleeves and trousers, all light-woven linen, in high heat, than in shorts and a T. Doesn't really insulate more, does keep the sun off.

I have an unlined wool navy blazer in a Summer weight that breaths so well it's basically totally ineffective at warming a person up, LOL. Put it on, take it off, makes basically no difference, aside from the color being dark enough that it does absorb heat from the sun. If I wore that kind of stuff more, I'd have other options that're even better in the heat.

I have some sweaters that're completely comfortable into the high 70s F (50/50 silk/linen blend, thin) and one that won't make you feel like your clothes are making you warmer up to at least 85F (that one's 100% linen and open-weave).

I dunno where people got the idea that you have to be uncomfortable if you're wearing much more than a swimsuit, in the heat.

GuinansEyebrows• 11 months ago

y'all: this is a metacommentary on "make america great again". he's juxtaposing pictures of a variety of people in the past with ugly "modern" Republicans to make the point that their ideology is inconsistent and contemporary.

daft_pink• 11 months ago

When you work from home, you only have to look good in front of a camera when you have a meeting.

s09dfhks• 11 months ago

This implies I'm turning my camera on for meetings

ompogUe• 11 months ago

Having watch an embarrassing amount of old movies:

Rich people always had tailored clothing: tuxedos were expected for men at dinner

Poor people didn't: lots of "unfortunate pants" and dresses made from sacks

tocs3• 11 months ago

A couple observations of the not so distant past (in my lifetime). NBA coaches and players, not playing but sitting on the bench, used to wear suits and ties regularly. Also, Most of the congregation in the church I attended as a child dressed up for church. Now a large part of the congregation are in very casual wear (including shorts and tee shirts).

I think if I were to take notes I would notice that women tend to dress better, both WNBA coaches and at church as well as just general out and about.

nunez• 11 months ago

Good thread. I wish he touched on COVID's impact to the athleisure and its role in popularizing technical fabrics. Athleisure is all the way in these days mostly thanks to WFH.

As for heat/cold: wool is unbeatable for hot formal wear. A super 120 wool suit with a wool blend shirt will feel effortless and will actually help cool you down a little bit.

fallinghawks• 11 months ago

While I very much enjoy Derek Guy's posts, I find "dressed better" very vague. That were the way clothes were made in the past, that was the style then. I recall seeing an older lady (75-80ish) waiting at a bus stop in San Francisco in the early 2000s and that woman was dressed in an older style but very nice suit and a small hat. That's how people dressed when they went out in public back in the day.

Now we have sweats, yoga pants, blob shaped shoes, saggy pants, and ripped jeans, and it's all acceptable wear, at least in the urban landscape.

Have you ever noticed that people dressed better in the past?

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