ALAN ROEBUCK writes:

Commenting on the marvelous photos of the old America, Kilroy M. said

…it seems like the decline of modern architecture, industrial design and with it the form of vehicles is somehow representative of our culture’s departure from celebrating the beautiful, to worshiping the merely useful.

He hasn’t taken his observation far enough. We have changed from celebrating the beautiful to celebrating the ugly. Think of it: Almost every major fashion movement in the last 50 years or so has been to elevate the status of what was once regarded as (and still is) ugly. In the 50’s, it was the wearing of jeans in non-working situations. In the 60’s, the hippies celebrated the dirty and disheveled look. In more contemporary times we have the Goths (who dress like corpses, complete with the colors of putrefaction), children dressing like homosexuals, prostitutes, or drug addicts, and the celebration of tattoos, which are a sign of lowlife. And, of course, I could go on and on.

All of these fashion movements were deliberately instigated, and their obvious intent (perhaps unconsciously held) is to express hatred by shoving ugliness in your face. Nowadays, to be hip, cool and fashionable generally means to be ugly.

I’m very interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Laura writes:

When people who can afford beauty deliberately choose ugliness, there has been some basic inversion of aesthetic objectives. Extreme egalitarianism accounts for the cult of ugliness. The wealthy want to spend (just as the wealthy have always wanted to spend), they very much want to spend, but they don’t want to look like they are spending. That’s because they lack the language and principles to defend hierarchy and privilege. They suffer from guilt and they embrace ugliness as a democratic gesture. This trickles down to those who can’t afford much beauty anyway, depriving all of society of the ideal. I discussed before the wedding dresses of Vera Wang. Some (not all of them) flagrantly celebrate a disheveled, ragamuffin look, making a bride look like she just crashed into a cartload of chiffon. These extremely expensive gowns, worn by pale and consumptive-looking models, have a vaguely pornographic, S & M quality to them. (Sex too is another way of pandering to the common man.) They clearly defy the idea that marriage is beautiful and stirring, and proclaim, “I didn’t really spend an ungodly amount of money on this whole thing.”

Beauty is inherently hierarchical. If the privileged were called upon to explain their beautiful objects under radical egalitarianism, they couldn’t do it. Again, they lack the language and principles to defend hierarchy and privilege. And so they spend a lot of money to cultivate conspicuous ugliness.

                                                                                  — Comments —

Mrs. P. writes:

I was a teenager during the fifties. Unlike today, we did not have tons of clothes crammed into our closets back then. Yet we dressed well for special occasions. We had our Sunday best. I remember how we dressed for Sunday Mass. Father wore a suit and a crisp white shirt and tie even in the hot summertime in a church that was not air conditioned. He always carried a clean handkerchief in his pocket. Mother wore a dress, heels, and a hat. My sister and I wore dresses and hats of some kind. As a teenager I was especially fond of picture hats. When Easter came, Mother went to great lengths to make sure she and her girls were properly outfitted with new dresses and Easter hats. Maybe we were a little too concerned about dress back then, a little too showy, but then everyone was showy. Everyone wanted to look their best. So we were not drawing undue attention to ourselves by dressing up. 

Today people attend church in the most casual of clothing. Anything goes. I do not think it matters to God how we dress for church though. He is more interested in our interior appearance.

Brittany writes:

I think people finally wanted to dress for comfort. Men had to wear hot suits all the time and ladies wore painful girdles and high heels. Yes people can look nicer but we do have more choices now in how we want to dress.

Laura writes:

But I don’t think our casual dress is more comfortable in many cases. I think we believe that it is because we’ve gotten used to it. I don’t find it comfortable to walk around in clothing that clings and shows off every slight contour. I don’t find it comfortable to have bra straps slipping down my shoulder or skirts that expose my underwear when I sit down. Do you think low-riders are comfortable?

Certainly sweatpants and a T-shirt are more comfortable in some ways than a jacket and tie. But they create their own form of discomfort because the wearer is always more conscious of his body. Casual clothing accents the worst in the physique of a normal person, especially a normal person in America today, who is significantly overweight.

Granted, casual clothing is easier. It requires less work to maintain.

Brittany writes:

I personally don’t have any tattoos but Alan is harsh when he says a tattoo is a sign of a lowlife. Maybe someone was just curious or got one because their friends talked them into doing it. There have been some clean-cut people who have turned out to be horrible people. Some examples would be Bernie Madoff, BTK Killer, and Carl Eugene Watts (he killed at least 80 women). Did Hitler have a tattoo? If you can be a horrible person without a tattoo then you can be a decent person with a tattoo.

  Laura writes:

Tattooes are anti-social and ugly, graffiti of the body. That doesn’t mean everyone who has a tattoo is “a horrible person.” Alan didn’t say that. It just means that everyone who has a tattoo is participating in that particular medium of ugliness.

Jenny writes:

I grew up in the eighties and nineties. Although our school attire was more casual than in the fifties (nice jeans and a shirt tucked in), we were still clean, modestly, and neatly groomed. However, when Sunday rolled around or we had a program at school, our mothers knew how to dress us, themselves, and our fathers. Boys and men wore dress pants and nice shirts (some with ties and jackets) and girls and ladies wore dresses (or suits for the ladies). Of course, at Easter and Christmas attire was bit more showy (velvets, taffeta, lots more lace, nice suits for the men, corsages, etc.).

Now as a mother, I send my little boy to school dressed in clean, nice jeans but his shirt is untucked. I’m ok with that. He has a hard time keeping his shirt tucked in, and he is only five with a long torso. I’m willing to let this pass until he is a bit older. One thing I refuse to compromise on though is Sunday best. I have a Sunday dress that varies with the season and I always carry a matching purse and wear heals (not spike-y, so not uncomfortable at all); my son wears dress slacks and a dress shirt with tie. On Christmas and Easter, he wears the matching vest. He carries his own little cotton hankie made by myself and looks such the gentleman. My husband wears khakis and a dress shirt. My husband is not as easy going as my father is when it comes to clothing, so he makes his own decisions, but knows that jeans are simply not allowed.

I just don’t understand how all knowledge of proper dress has managed to die out in all but the older generation (really older — like 80 and 90 year olds) and with throwbacks like myself. Everything is just so gross now and turned upside down. It seems that the only occasion anyone ever dresses up for anymore is prom. Really, there are appropriate ways to dress for every occasion, but it seems as if nowadays pajama or yoga pants and camisoles are what you wear for shopping; nasty hole-y jeans and weird t-shirts with layers are what you wear for school and dates, and something in between is what you wear to church.

Laura writes:

I just don’t understand how all knowledge of proper dress has managed to die out in all but the older generation…

That’s a direct result of feminism. Women are the guardians of civility, in dress and manners. That takes time. I know a woman who did not bring her children to the funeral of a beloved great uncle. Why? Because her children had no dress clothes. They were not poor, by the way, and had every expensive toy money could buy.

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