The comfiest socks tend to be cotton athletic socks, in my opinion. And they’re usually white, or sometimes gray.
I have a pair or two of black dress socks that I’ve worn maybe thrice each since the turn of the millennium. For whatever reason, I find thick cotton socks to be most comfortable, and for some reason they’re usually lily-white. Maybe I have racist feet.
My choice is nearly always to wear athletic shoes every day. I have a pair of hiking boots I’ll wear for hiking, a pair of black cowboy boots I haven’t worn since the early 90s, a pair of black leather dress shoes I’ll wear with a tux, and various pairs of New Balance sneakers of various ages and degrees of wear. The joys of a supple pair of Italian leather shoes are utterly unknown to me. Which is fine; I spend my money elsewhere.
when you’re a kid and you take no notice, you’re not playing the game. when you start noticing that you like/dislike how others dress (assuming you ever do) then it’s a (in my case slow) realization that others are noticing you in that way and you start playing the game. nothing wrong with not taking an interest but i do think a grown person that doesn’t even notice is weird. then again I’m from a heritage art background, so I’m sure it’s me that’s weird since most folks really don’t understand colors and forms etc. also I grew up in subcultures where dress was a signifier in a way the normals didn’t have. But I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with “opting out” and choosing to ignore the game over ease/functional considerations when you’re in public (but specific situations shouldn’t be ignored e.g. formal, workplace.) plus I’m a dude so I love function and ease. my style ends up being a trade-off but that’s the interesting part to me.
the trap is that it’s really hard to win and easy to loose. easy is not noticing, caring, or kicking the ball into the woods and not playing. BUT you can decide it matters and still fuck up egregiously. and you may not even notice. getting everything to work together is a lot tougher than it sounds. I’m good with visual stuff and I love self-expression but there’s also the risk of not being able to pull it off (maybe looks “good” but not suited to you personally) or going overboard/sending the wrong message. I go for an understated look and hopefully it looks good instead of looking like I don’t care. that’s what I’m saying, it’s a fine line.
the messed up part is that I’m a prep cook so I mostly don’t get to play the game since all my clothes/footwear get crud all over them. so usually I dress to “opt out” but my outerwear is pretty legit IMO.
to the topic’s point and several poster’s points ITT, I pretty much wear the same pair of pants for like a month at a time if they don’t get food on 'em. nobody seems to care; I’m lucky I’m a dude. but if I were in a more professional workplace I’d actually love to not do that and be more dressy in general.
That does not sufficiently explain similar effects in different kinds of societies.
It also looks like an attempt to shoehorn a simplistic $pet_cause into an explanation of next to everything; a trend sorely common in sociology and its ilk and various -isms because their mechanisms to weed out the chaff are weaker than in hard sciences.
this is something that’s so ubiquitous over here that it’s only relatively recently I noticed how odd it looks. it’s hard to get away from even if you care to, they’re now the most readily-available type of sock here.
Her soapbox about “today’s media landscape” is sorta BS. She has a choice. Look at Rachel Maddow, same grey suit jacket & black blouse nearly every appearance. She looks classy and serious. You almost don’t notice her clothing and that’s the point.
After Wilkinson finishes lamenting how difficult it is for women in that media landscape she should take a look in the mirror and realize her clothing choices, like this blaze pink getup, is totally distracting.
I’m way ahead of all you bulk sock buyers. I don’t buy in bulk I buy in batches.
The reason is that socks color fades over time. You can’t match a new sock with one that has been washed 50 times or they will look completely different. If you don’t have a system you will end up wasting your time sorting your socks into a spectrum of ages from new black to faded grey. It becomes even more difficult to match socks because they only differ by subtle shades, and you start to regret not having different sock patterns to make the process easier. Been there done that.
So: Buy two batches of socks as large as you can cram into your sock drawer at once. One goes in the drawer, the other goes in storage. As you wear your socks, you rotate them by using the socks in front and putting the washed ones in the back. Walla, everything ages at the same rate: sock matching nirvana.
When enough socks have gotten holes that you start running out of socks before laundary day, the socks become rags (actually quite a useful size for rags) and a nice new batch gets swapped in. Then you use all the time you saved to write ridiculously long posts on boingboing.
I love the way the 527 looks on me but they wear out too fast for the money. I had three pairs and the crotches all blew out. I switched to cheap Old Navy and Wranglers. They don’t look as good but I can’t abide a jean that wears out in less than a couple of years.
she was 11 and it was as much a realization that conformity to a certain type of clothing had made me predictable as it was shame. the shirts i’ve added to my collection since then have been brightly colored-- solids in orange, yellow, violet, blues, and reds; stripes in high contrast color schemes; floral and tropical patterns; plaids in arrays of bright colors–i also take much better care of my clothes now so that almost all of the shirts i’ve bought over the past 9 years are still in good condition. it was an experience that goaded me into wearing my aesthetic on my sleeve rather than keeping it inside.
I have 30 black T-shirts and a few pairs of black jeans, a pair of black boots and 30 sets of underwear. I buy all my shirts at once every few years, as with their number and the cold wash I do, they last a while.
At my very laziest, I only have to do laundry once a month, although I find it easier to just throw smaller loads in occasionally.
People in workplaces usually comment about my wardrobe within the first week, and it thereafter becomes a running joke. I don’t mind, as it’s my choice and I relish my freedom from fashion.
The thing I’ve learned is that any choice you make that forces people to examine their own assumptions regarding necessity is taken as an affront. Saying you actually prefer to wear the same thing every day because you like having unnecessary choices stripped from your daily routine is like a subtle declaration of war on other people’s values. They have to convince you your tastes are wrong to validate their own. I’m not a vegetarian, but they seem to cop the same flak.
s It’s not fair! The moment a guy decides to show his creativity and originality by not wearing what the Man tells him to wear, his professionalism is questioned. It’s no wonder the rest of us stick to beige or black! /s
If you ever tune into the local news, you can see that there has been a race to the bottom (of the cleavage) and the hair and makeup is very done. I’m not sure why the local markets tart up the female anchors so much, but they do.
In Mika Bryienski’s book Knowing Your Value she talks about attempting to get by with a uniform type of look and the outraged mail that she got about it, and she hardly projects a super feminine quality and seems like the type who could pull off a simple look like she was trying to achieve.
Could someone translate this article to German for me?
(just kidding).
It’s only that the German language distinguishes between “derselbe” - “the same” in the sense of identity, of being the same physical object, and “der gleiche” - “the same” in the sense of being equal.
So, did he get two or more identical outfits, or does he own just one smelly blue suit?
