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penfield"I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes."
- Yves Saint Laurent (snooty fashion designer)
"Jeans represent democracy in fashion."
- Giorgio Armani (snotty fashion designer)
Today is an "Office Cleanup Day" at work. Officially, we are supposed to avoid our usual duties with the singular goal of cleaning up our individual offices and common areas so as to maintain a neat and organized workplace. Unfortunately for me, the high-falutin' policy staff's method for avoiding their usual duties is to have me do it. Not only does this prevent me from doing any actual cleaning, it adds even more crap to my desk.
At least we are allowed to listen to music in our offices, and get a semi-catered lunch at the boss's expense, and may wear casual attire. In fact, the Big Boss, who came up with the whole idea of "Office Cleanup Day," made a point of telling us that we could wear jeans.
(For the purposes of this excursion, let's ignore the fact that most places of business have already gone mostly casual. Here in Washington D.C., a more conservative millieu is typical. I personally have worn through four ascots this month alone.)
I think it's interesting that jeans have become the fundamental standard for whether one's wardrobe is acceptable or unacceptable. Some of your borderline exclusive establishments even make an explicit point of it in their dress code, "no jeans." (Some places go even farther, outlawing such items as bandanas and work boots, just in case a 1930s prison gang thinks of stopping by.)
What makes this workplace convention sort of silly is that, as the average American ass has gotten larger, American jeans have gotten slimmer and tighter, rising lower and bunching higher -- making jeans much more uncomfortable than regular trousers, and only barely more comfortable than a routine colonoscopy. Also, jeans have ceased to be the rubric of the working-class poor; certain jeans, painstakingly colored, weathered and ripped in just the right places, can cost as much as the appliance you wash them in.
Jeans, as we all know, were developed for and by country laborers who needed something cheap and sturdy to wear while lassoing steer and rounding up dogies and whatnot. For cowboys, jeans were wholly appropriate workplace attire. I wonder if, when the cowboys had a "Hosing Out the Corral Day," they were advised by the head rancher to "wear your finest britches, something with a nice crease."
- Yves Saint Laurent (snooty fashion designer)
"Jeans represent democracy in fashion."
- Giorgio Armani (snotty fashion designer)
Today is an "Office Cleanup Day" at work. Officially, we are supposed to avoid our usual duties with the singular goal of cleaning up our individual offices and common areas so as to maintain a neat and organized workplace. Unfortunately for me, the high-falutin' policy staff's method for avoiding their usual duties is to have me do it. Not only does this prevent me from doing any actual cleaning, it adds even more crap to my desk.
At least we are allowed to listen to music in our offices, and get a semi-catered lunch at the boss's expense, and may wear casual attire. In fact, the Big Boss, who came up with the whole idea of "Office Cleanup Day," made a point of telling us that we could wear jeans.
(For the purposes of this excursion, let's ignore the fact that most places of business have already gone mostly casual. Here in Washington D.C., a more conservative millieu is typical. I personally have worn through four ascots this month alone.)
I think it's interesting that jeans have become the fundamental standard for whether one's wardrobe is acceptable or unacceptable. Some of your borderline exclusive establishments even make an explicit point of it in their dress code, "no jeans." (Some places go even farther, outlawing such items as bandanas and work boots, just in case a 1930s prison gang thinks of stopping by.)
What makes this workplace convention sort of silly is that, as the average American ass has gotten larger, American jeans have gotten slimmer and tighter, rising lower and bunching higher -- making jeans much more uncomfortable than regular trousers, and only barely more comfortable than a routine colonoscopy. Also, jeans have ceased to be the rubric of the working-class poor; certain jeans, painstakingly colored, weathered and ripped in just the right places, can cost as much as the appliance you wash them in.
Jeans, as we all know, were developed for and by country laborers who needed something cheap and sturdy to wear while lassoing steer and rounding up dogies and whatnot. For cowboys, jeans were wholly appropriate workplace attire. I wonder if, when the cowboys had a "Hosing Out the Corral Day," they were advised by the head rancher to "wear your finest britches, something with a nice crease."
