No matter how
sexy, or not, was
Mark Twain correct, do clothes really make the person? Or is it merely a matter of taste and what
best fits one occasion or another?
George Will argues . . . the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.
He agrees with
Daniel Akst that if
hypocrisy had a flag, it would be cut from denim, for it is in denim that we invest our most nostalgic and destructive agrarian longings -- the ones that prompted all those exurban McMansions now sliding off their manicured lawns and into foreclosure, dragging down the global financial system with them.
But is it really the denim that bothers Will and Akst or is it more a matter of
generation or, perhaps
gender? Certainly Will, at least,
acknowledges where he thinks the line should be drawn (both as to gender and generation):
For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.
Mark Twain was not alone in arguing that
Naked people have little or no influence on society. After all, one
dresses to kill, not the other way around. But that's not really Will's and Akst's argument since, as far as I can find, they neither publicly advocate nakedness. Their argument seems to be more that
someone should set the acceptable taste standard and they obviously consider themselves up to the challenge.
What seems to bother Will, since he mentions it at least twice in his column, is that *he* cannot determine one's class by looking at how they dress. Oh, the horror. He has to treat everyone with the same respect -- or lack of respect -- as the jeans-attired person might be a millionaire, or might be a "society's most slovenly."
ReplyDeleteHis column gave me a giggle, as I vaguely recall the color codes of the middle ages, in which only nobility could wear purple. Wouldn't that make it all easier?