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Spielberg, being Spielberg, can dress as he pleases. But that's the pint: Americans used to want to dress up. Wearing a suit was a privilege of adulthood; Spielberg's outfit looks like something his mother might have dressed him in fourth grade.
"Dress down" days, a phrase that first appeared in print barely five years ago, now affect, by some estimates, more than half of all U.S. office workers. Major banks, law firms and major companies lift the burden of neckties and nylons on employees in honor of the impending weekend; so does the Central Intelligence Agency.
As for worship, Americans, who long ago gave up wearing ties to church services are starting to treat socks as optional. "We have lost the ideal of adult self-respect, and we're dressing like rebellious children," remarks the fashion historian Anne Hollander. "When you go to church, or to the opera, you now have the idea that you do not need to express respect in your costume - that if you do, you somehow feel like one of the oppressed." Morticians are seeing more street clothes at funerals. Boston funeral director Arthur Hasiotis says families sometimes request casual burial wear for decedents who never put a tie around their necks while they were alive.
Comfort is the one unanswerable argument in favor of casual dressing. No one bothers putting on a suit or high heel to work at home, certainly. The other advantage of casual dress is that it is cheaper than suits. "Not having to wear nylons," an IBM worker in Atlanta told her boss, "is like getting a raise." Except, of course, for workers who may already have a closet full of suits, and find they now have to buy a bunch of sweaters as well. |
