Clothes by Will Stanton

I'm not going to talk about the $10,000 gowns that some wealthy women wear nor the $2,000 suits that some well-healed men wear. I also am not going to talk about the way I dress. I don't have a GQ figure, and I don't wear GQ clothes. Instead, I'm going to talk some about the clothes that many young people wear and contrast that with my own generation.

I was sitting in a restaurant, and the young waitress came up to my table. I noted that she was wearing jeans that were so tight that the waistline was bound to cut off blood circulation. Doctors have warned women about that. She wore them so low that her plump tummy hung out over the jean-tops and below the tight blouse that came down just below her breasts. I suppose that she considered showing off a bare tummy was sexy. Some testosterone-agitated boys and aging men probably found her appearance titillating, but I wondered how this peculiar clothing style had come about and why girls choose to dress that way at work.

Ironically, girls' wearing very tight clothes is in marked contrast with boys' baggy apparel for a long time now. While seated at the table at the very same restaurant, a teenage boy came in. He probably weighed all of 110 pounds, but his shirt was so huge that it could have fit a man who weighed 250 and stood a foot taller. Even more silly was that he was wearing his jeans literally below his butt, or more accurately, where his butt should be; for this young kid didn't have any butt, hips, or waist. At least his boxer shorts covered that area. His pants were so ridiculously baggy that two boys could have worn them at the same time. I hope that he realized that, if he tried to rip off a 711, there would be no way of his outrunning a cop. Those baggy pants undoubtedly would become tangled up around his legs, tripping him.

Shorts and swim suits are not comfortably and practically short anymore. They hang half way down the calf. Are males' bare thighs now considered to be too shocking to see? They aren't for women. Trying to swim in those things is like having a drag-line attached to the legs. Where did this idea come from, and why has this bizarre style lasted so long?

Boys and girls certainly did not dress that way when I was young. Of course, I grew up in an era that is roundly satirized in the movie “Pleasantville.” That biting satire portrayed life in the 1950s and '60s as “black-and-white, overly conservative, restrictive, unimaginative.” There is some truth to that; however, I have to admit that I viewed the clothes that young people wore then to be appealing. Girls did wear slacks or shorts on occasion, but they also often wore cotton dresses that reached just down to below the knee which, I thought, enhanced their femininity. I thought the girls attractive in either case, even without having their tummies hanging out or the tops of their thighs showing.

Boys once wore shirts and T-shirts that naturally fit their form and did not hang down below their butts. They also tended to wear form-fitting slacks and jeans, pants not so baggy as to make Charlie Chaplain’s trousers look tailor-made in contrast. Their pants still could be sexy enough, even with keeping them up around their waistlines. Most boys chose pants that were somewhat loose but not so floppy as to obscure the wearers' gender, as many girls and some of the boys were quick to note. 

I do admit that a few of the boys I knew in school wore pants so tight that one could tell whether or not they were circumcised. That certainly was true with Randy, the very sexy kid whose pants appeared to be in danger of cutting him in half or exploding apart at one particularly revealing seam, which I actually saw happen on one occasion. That sort of thing tended to draw attention. He was a school-band member, and I was amused to learn that, when the band went on over-night tours, some band members argued as to who would have the privilege of sharing a motel room with Randy. I have no evidence as to whether just his appearance fostered such controversy or other factors contributed to his popularity.

It appears to me that, at some point in America's history of clothing styles, arbitrators of taste chose to affect a reversal for the younger consumer. Modesty no longer is a factor in designing clothes for females. From bathing suits to ball gowns, young women can choose to expose as much skin as they dare. As for young guys, especially teens, the goal appears to be to camouflage the physical form as much as possible. Have clothes-makers concluded that the male form is too titillating or even obscene? I don't necessarily advocate returning to Randy's style of pants that were so tight as to potentially emasculate the wearer, but I do maintain that the return to more sensible, form-fitting clothes for males is long overdue. Let's get rid of bagginess once and for all.

© 01 September 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.