Here's another example: recently I saw a film about Bangladeshi sweatshop workers (the film was made by the National Labor Committee). Since I've never been to Bangladesh, it was striking to me how beautifully dressed the workers were - these were people working for extremely, criminally low pay, and the film showed their quite impoverished living conditions - huts constantly filled with muddy water by flooding. Yet, they dressed in gorgeous, brightly colored, flattering, ornate clothing. I don't think this was intentional on the part of the film-makers, but the amazing fabrics these women were wearing made a dramatic visual contrast to the drab cheap clothing they were making for Americans.
Whereas, plenty of white people in America, no matter how much money they have, don't really seem to care how they look. I think Steve was being deliberately provocative in his essay - because dressing well is so often seen as self-indulgent, he is pointing out that this is not necessarily the case and that dressing badly is its own form of indulgence. (I doubt he would deny that many sloppy dressers are good people who demonstrate care about their fellows in other ways - let's not take his contrarian thesis too seriously.)
Leisurewear, I would add to Steve's point, is a kind of sartorial SUV: it says, there's plenty of room in here for ME, and that's what matters.
In some sense, I think mainstream American culture has kind of an anorexic, or puritanical, view of appearance that is much like its relationship to sex. so you have, on the one had, ubiquitous leisurewear and sloppiness, and on the other, teenage girls getting plastic surgery for their 16th birthdays. which is obviously horrendous.
None of this is to say that I, personally, think anyone has a moral or civic *obligation* to dress nicely, not at all. A lot of people may have other things on their minds, and more pressing concerns, and that's fine. But, I enjoy and appreciate seeing people who make an effort -- not specifically to dress fashionably or in any specific way, but ANY kind of effort at all to express any sort of aesthetic -- and am grateful for it. I think plenty of other people feel the same way.
Liza
> From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 09:50:07 -0400
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] dregs and drugs
>
> Kelley:
>
>> about your fellows. The implication was that people who dressed sloppily
>> didn't care about their fellows. A few people were rightly annoyed with
>> that because they can't afford to dress like a dandy.
>>
>
>
> I think that is the correct implication. When I first came to this country
> I was surprised to see that the best dressed people were Black women, while
> most whites dressed like slobs (this was before the hip hop craze.) I made
> similar observations elsewhere: in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America....
>
> Poor people tend to dress up well because dress is a message about a person
> who wears it. The message sent by dressing up is "I care how others
> perceive me, and I want to be perceived favorably, even though I may be
> poor." This is why poor people in many parts of the world pay much
> attention to their appearance and dress.
>
> Casual dress, on the other hand send a message "I do not give shit how
> others perceive me, I wear what is most convenient to me." It as uniquely
> American phenomenon that cuts across social classes - both the "trailer
> trash" and the "middle class" express the same attitude, they differ only in
> the price tags of their clothing. This is the typical "I do not give a shit
> about anything but me, me, me" attitude that can be found in every aspect of
> this country's culture and society.
>
>
> Another point - you seemingly do not like when people criticize forms of
> behavior that they find unacceptable when that behavior is found among the
> groups of people on "our" side. How is it different from the "but he is our
> thug" mind set of the Right?
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
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