simba

Son hates shopping. We tell him, if we buy his stuff it will be our taste. We don't want him to be odd ball in college. He does not care. Pants - jeans are no problem. It is only the tops.

(I think he picked up that habit from me. My wife buys stuff for me.)

bugmom

I wonder if there is a genetic basis for disinterest in fashion. I have zero, even negative interest in clothes. My Mom shopped outlets, but as far as I know never looked at Vogue. My S, a frosh, brought home an iron on spring break, that some guy in the dorm was getting rid of, but left it here because he didn't know how to use it. He did Prep up his wardrobe in the Fall, but the interest seems to have waned.

Novelisto

Also a man can wear the same suit 3 days in a week and nobody says a word. This is why jackets frequently came (or do they still?) with 2 pairs of pants. If a woman wore the same outfit 3 days out of 5, her manager would have a quiet word with her at some point. Or she'd show up on What Not To Wear.

Women's clothes also have greater variety than men's. There are wonderful shades, fabrics, fits 'n' flares....clothing is fun and the hunt for the 'right thing' can be very enjoyable. This goes back to the hunter/gatherer society. Women went out and searched for edibles, berries, fruits and the like. Women sorted through dozens of nearly-identical items to find the ones that wouldn't kill you. Men crouched in likely areas and waited for the meat to lumber by and then they leapt on it. They either killed dinner right then and there or went home empty-handed.

At any mall today, you can see the same processes. Women search tirelessly through racks of nearly-identical clothes or shoes to find the right thing. Men go in, make their 'kill' (Die, Dockers!) at once or go home empty-handed. If they could crouch in the middle of the store while the clothes went by on a conveyor belt, they'd probably buy more.

Okay, so this is tongue-in-cheek....but there's a certain validity there if you think about it!

simba

"Women's clothes also have greater variety than men's. There are wonderful shades, fabrics, fits 'n' flares....clothing is fun and the hunt for the 'right thing' can be very enjoyable."

That starts with when they are babies. On one business trip (son was very little then), I was sitting next to a buyer from a major dept. store in Houston. I asked him why the toddler boys clothes have a very little floor space and clothes are boring than toddler girls. His response, people don't care what their boys wear. A t-shirt and diaper is good enough for boys, but they love to dress up their little girls.

cangel

My son is atypical in that he is something of a clothes horse. He likes to dress up, always has, but he doesn't quite get the point about wrinkles. This makes for interesting dichotomies. He can't quite understand why he needs to let me know before a performance is due, and he needs his tuxedo pants, or why I wash the shirts, then send them to the cleaner to be pressed.
My fault, partly, I always hated ironing, and that was one of the first tasks to go.

mathmom

My son continues to wear khakis in college because he doesn't like jeans, or sweatpants or corderoys or anything else that might be fashionable. He will not wear shirts with buttons except under duress. He will not wear shirts with logos, unless they are computer companies. He's also okay with shirts with geek jokes. He wears short and long sleeved tees nearly all of them plain or perhaps with one stripe. Sneakers on his feet and he only wears thin black or gray gold toe socks and tevas in the summer.

TheAnalyst

Our S1 loves clothes--tends toward preppy style but also enjoys dressy--will chose a suit over khakis every time but may make it more casual by wearing the shirt open at the neck with no tie. He reads Esquire and other men's magazines to look at fashions. All clothes that need ironing go to the cleaners, a habit he picked up from his dad. He also has his little brother periodically deliver new clothes to college, taking other stuff home (easy drive and little brother gets to spend the night) since his closet at school is too small to accommodate the degree of variety he wants.

S2 usually goes for a grunge look rather than preppy, so wrinkled is good, but he is still quite particular about what he wears. If dressing up, he usually throws on a suit rather than khakis. The khakis get worn to play golf or sometimes for a restaurant where he isn't really dressing up but isn't allowed to wear his normal attire either. He has to dress up enough that it doesn't bother him but he won't spend a lot of time getting ready, unlike S1.

H is a clothes horse too, although he won't admit it, so both boys probably picked it up from him. I am a complete nonshopper and would fit right into the What Not to Wear episodes for every day attire. I made an effort for work, but H tells me I have zero sense of style so I guess that effort didn't really achieve ideal results.

garland

the latter description is certainly true of my H, (down to the Dockers) but it is for me, too. The older I get, the more I feel that shopping is a waste of precious time which I could be filling a million more fun ways (like reading a good book.) My entire family has pretty much zero interest in clothes, so at least there's no dissent.

srobin

I should rejoice. DS actually went with me today to shop for some new clothes for his summer course at the Univ. of Ala. and we did not have to buy the Garanimals

DonnaL

My son, entering college this fall, essentially wears two kinds of outer clothing: (1) t-shirts, and (2) blue jeans. He owns one pair of khakis and a couple of blue button-down shirts, worn only for college interviews. Add a few flannel shirts (never tucked in) worn on especially cold winter days, and you have his complete wardrobe, from approximately age 12 to date.

I have a feeling he'll fit right in at college.

I do not believe that he has ever held an iron in his hands in his entire life, and probably would have no idea how to use it.

Summer project for him: learn to do his own laundry.

Donna

Shrinkrap

My 15 y.o. son is way into his appearance; a "suburban ghetto" thing. Costs lots of money and he is willing to spend much of his own. He does his own laundry and "sorts" after one mishap. He doesn't like "lint", or when his blacks aren't black. He won't iron, but he runs them through the dryer every AM to get rid of wrinkles. He even has casual "shoes", basketball, indoor and outdoor soccer; all cost more than mine. Hair just "so" ( "waves" if you are familiar), matching body spray, body wash, and deoderant ("axe"). Is this a phase? His sister is strictly "old navy" and wrinkles are not a problem. If she would just take them out of the dryer and lay them flat...glad to hear this is ok in college.

marite

Khakis and a polo shirt are my S's idea of dressing up! Otherwise, he wears cargo pants that zip off at the knee and T-shirts that he either gets for free at some event of that he buys because he likes the message. The cargo pants and the khakis are bought by me, of course.

He went to an interview for a paid internship job a couple of months ago. I made him wear his Khaki pants and a shirt (borrowed from dad) and a tie (ditto) and a cashmere sweater (ditto) because he absolutely refused to wear a jacket (it has sat in his closet unworn since I bought it three years ago). He had his interview which went very well (will start work in a week) and came back saying he was overdressed and felt a bit ridiculous. Everyone in the company wore jeans and sneakers.

I may have lost the battle to get him to dress better.

EDIT: I looked at my closet after this. All my trousers are black.

overseas

Mine knows how to dress if necessary, but could care less about that stuff. Just stuff. Now GF has different ideas...

galoisien

Reading this thread, I must ask -- what is "good" fashion sense? Because what mostly everyone is describing here seems to be the standard!

Jolynne Smyth

OP--re: wrinkles--I think there are some brands of khakis that are supposed to 'not wrinkle' (or at least wrinkle very little)--maybe Dockers? Perhaps they make non-wrinkle shirts, too, then your son would be set.