emeraldkity4

in high school they have spirit week- where you have twins day- purple & white day- ...
I asked D why they didn't have pajama day, as at her other school, she said " at Garfield, every day is pajama day.

There is also a difference between not caring what they wear, and thinking they look good in stuff that doesn't ( to us)

I am horrified at what I used to wear in high school
very short dresses Admittedly I then had the body for it but still, I don't think things that barely cover your rear look good on anyone.

WHen I was a young mom, I was so dowdy, I can't believe that either.
baggy jumpers and sweaters with appliques.

In contrast my younger daughter always looks good, since she stopped wearing baggy tshirts.
My older daughter doesn't have much of a clue what looks good on her, but that saves her money I guess. Garanimals would be a great idea for her.

3bm103

3 sons also. Two couldn't care less what they wear. They buy new jeans (From salvation army) when the one pair they own has holes to big to go out in public in. If they go someplace where looking nice is required (graduation, funerals, etc.) they wear what I give them.

One does care. Owns many pairs of jeans. Buys a new shirt for his graduation party.

I prefer one and two. Much cheaper.

When they start to care, either because of a girlfriend or job interview, they will ask you what to wear.

emeraldkity4

those with boys will appreciate this story.
For graduation, the students at older ds school didn't have cap and gowns, but wore suits or tuxes and formal dresses.

One of the boys wouldn't get fitted for a tux, so his mom measured a pair of his pants in the closet and ordered the suit.
The pants she had measured were the crotch to the knees style!

mommusic

Two reactions: LOL and Duh!

Mostly LOL!

whatismouse

i got rid of the mirror in my room because it was a waste of wall space. i wear pajama pants almost exclusively. my mom freaked when i wore my south park pajama pants to a Whitman interview, but i only own one pair of jeans and it was in the laundry. i pretty much abhor clothes, shopping, style, etc. their is a certain personality i think that tends to have similar views on clothing, along with many other things, but i wont bother you all with my myers-brigg astrology.

jk, buy this book: Amazon.com: Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence: David Keirsey: Books

WashDad

You are SO not a man.

A.S.A.P.

College son wears basically what he wore in high school. T-shirts, sweatshirts, cargo shorts and tennis shoes in winter, flip flops in summer. For work, he'll don a pair of khaki's and a shirt with an actual collar!

I think he is quite unusual in one respect...he will actually iron a shirt if it has too many wrinkles. I think this habit is left over from being in Boy Scouts. I don't know many other 19 year-olds who will do this.

Daughter, on the other hand, prides herself on finding cheap clothes at thrift stores and putting them together in some unusual way. Called with pride the other day because she bought 2 big bags of clothes for $5. I'm eager (and a bit apprehensive) to see her latest fashion statement when we go back in May. Sometimes I wish she'd be happy with cargos and a T-shirt! At least there would be some consistency. I know, I'm boring and old-fashioned.

HarrietMWelsch

I kind of have to second mommusic here. Well put and yes, mostly lol.

I actually have my own version of Garanimals for S1 - every shirt with a collar can be worn w khakis (dress code, for school); everything without a collar can go with jeans (the rest of his life). His approach to getting dressed is one from pile A (shirt), one from pile B (pants). 99 times out of 100, they get worn in the exact order of the piles, too.

When D still lived at home and was responsible for much of the laundry, she used to shuffle the piles.

wis75

Don't worry. You are lucky- he has more important things to occupy himself than the pursuit of fashion. My H and S aren't shoppers, nor do they care what the "in" brands are. There is time to dress up when he has to- no need to in college. Son is a runner, that defines his footwear, and he has plenty of shirts from HS meets and other races. Add those to his college logo apparel and there's his main wardrobe (he also has polos left over from HS). He has a white dress shirt and a pair of black pants and shoes from Orchestra days plus another shirt or two and khakis plus ties (think HS "formal" dances and graduation) for the zero dress up needs.

Novelisto

soozievet -- Beat me to it. My dh goes shopping once a year and even then he's like a six-year old, "are we done..can we go now...?" He recently lost 30 lbs and everything he owned was hanging off his body like he was wearing a line created by the Incredible Hulk. He wanted to drag out stuff from when he was that size last...10 yrs ago? He was very disappointed to find that so much of it had disintegrated or fell apart when he pulled them on. I hated to break it to him that yes, things age even if wrapped in plastic!

So we went shopping...two pairs of jeans, a pair of khakis, two dress shirts, 6 polos and a bag each of t-shirts and underwear. He was more interested in the socks we bought than any of the clothes. Any day now I'm going to have to drag him back to the store for some shorts because the ones he owns are frayed, torn and three sizes too big (he thinks if he tightens up his belt, they'll fit just fine!). Heaven lend me strength!

enderkin

As a representative of man (a repre-man-tative, if you will), I make my statements here.

1) Clothing + hole = clothing. If it's in a conspicuous location, it becomes indoor/inside clothing. If in an unassuming location, it remains clothing. Thus, all socks and underwear are usable despite your complaints. No questions.
2) You are not allowed to throw out a shirt, jacket, or pants without written approval. You do not know where that jacket has been (in a good sense), so consultation is a definite necessity. Throwing out any of the above without approval is asking for a furrowed brow at the very least.
3) What the hell are wrinkles?
4) Baggy clothing is clothing--there is no reason to hate based on size. Men are very accepting with clothing (as long as it isn't too tight / doesn't cramp our style). And man, are they useful. Example: I just put like, 40 coins, a cell phone, a wallet, two mechanical pencils, and the keys to my house and car in my left pocket. Can't do that with pants that 'fit'...
5) Why do you need a belt if your pants fit...?
6) We go to work to do work. Our contracts demand business casual, not hand-pressed fashion statements.
7) What is the point of spending 200 bucks on a clothing spree in a 'mall', when my current clothes are working right now? Just because they aren't as pretty, you want to throw them away? They're CLEAN and APPRECIATE ME for being ME. They always try to fit with who I am, not who I should be.
8) Cleanliness is next to godliness. And, men are just humble, I guess. Golly, I thought that was a good thing.
9) And here we all thought that what mattered was on the inside. Conflicting messages I see, hm ladies?
10) We want the sweatpants back, and that black sweater that you loaf around at home in. Yes, they're comfortable. That's why we buy them.

Questions for women in the defense of Men:
1) Why are your purses large enough to hide small children? Are you planning something?
2) Explain why pleather is better than leather. Don't you have any sympathy for pcows?
3) Those shoes cost me a week's salary. Why did you only wear them once?
4) Your mirrors make me feel self-conscious. Why so many...
5) Why care so much about how we dress? We're not doing our jobs any worse.

Marian

Even girls often don't iron at college.

My daughter lives in an older dorm where plugging in an iron in your room blows the fuses. The power is only good enough for ironing in the laundry room down in the dungeons of the basement.

Although she would never have considered wearing wrinkled clothing in public at home, at college she does it all the time.

When I was in college, the power was so inadequate that you couldn't use a hair dryer, either. So we went out with wrinkled clothing and wet hair.

As for the questions for women:

1) Our clothes often don't have pockets. We have to put our stuff somewhere. And you probably take advantage of the stuff in our purses. When you cut yourself or get a headache at work, don't you go to the nearest woman for a Band-Aid or some Advil? Men don't carry that sort of stuff. We do.

3) Women's shoes are often designed to be worn only with certain types of clothing. The sandals a woman would wear to the beach, the ones she would wear to a business-casual office, and the ones she would wear to a party are three entirely different types of shoes. Also, a lot of our shoes hurt, a concept beyond male comprehension. If we bought them to wear with a particular outfit and they hurt, we may never wear them again unless we wear that outfit again. (If it's a prom dress, that would be never.)

5) We are judged by how we dress to a far greater extent than you are. (When is the last time that a man was criticized for dressing "too sexy" at a business-casual office?) You should be judged at least a little bit.

wharfrat2

Shoot, I'm 51 and have no interest in how I dress. I don't own a suit and hope to go to my grave still saying that. I only buy khakis for work because everything matches them so I don't have to worry about what matches.

I do have to wear a shirt and tie to work most days so I try as much as possible to wear nothing but jeans and t-shirts or shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops at any time that I'm not at work. If I'm not at work, collars are strictly off limits. The only time I make exceptions to this are weddings and funerals.

enderkin

Man, I get judged for how large my posterior is constantly. I was in some films you see...


Just kidding. But as a note, I'm not actually asking those questions seriously. Men are simply more nonchalant as a whole than women.

I wish that people would acknowledge that I dress too sexy...=(

Marian

Wharfrat2, look around you at work. The female equivalent of your khakis is black pants. We own lots of them because almost everything goes with them. See how many of your female colleagues are wearing them on any given day.

But even if we are as disinterested in clothing as you are (and I happen to be very disinterested), we still have to make distinctions on a sexiness scale (is that blouse too low-cut for the office?) as well as a level-of-formality scale (whether or not our office outfits need to have jackets, whether or not jeans are appropriate for a particular occasion). You only have to deal with the formality issue. There really isn't a sexiness issue for men.

My husband doesn't own a suit, either. Techie types don't have to.