Thank you historian for your well thought out analysis.
I think it was a valuable analysis, yes. But I also think that it does not really support anything you've said thus far.
Well, I wasn’t making a comprehensive philosophical argument on *fashion* per se, but responding to various posts. Looking back over the thread briefly I see that I took some to task for mixing up arguments about filthy, slovenly attire vs. “fashionable” attire and equating them, wondered why *fashionable* was so important that “clean , neat mended” wasn’t enough, slammed that stupid linked article full of vapid anonymous people “lamenting” their peers for preferring practicality at work over aesthetics, slammed a former colleague for wearing costumes while teaching, called BS on some of the claims about visual psychology that didn’t take context into account, and, I see, plumped for “neutrals” as being practical conference wear---while, also making the point no one had: the assumption how I or anyone else dresses for work determines how they dress everywhere.
But, whiling away the afternoon, I thought about who I see (and have seen in two careers) and how clothing played into their professional persona. I don’t know if it “supports” random responses to the points made in the thread at a given moment. At best you can say is that the thread made me *think* a bit more about some categories of Goffian “presentation of self” vis a vis clothing. At worst, it’s a response to what I read right before I posted it.
Obviously, I’m a denizen of category 2---subconsciously picking up the local norm and adapting as appropriate within personal interests and background and only noticing the appearance of my colleagues when they have wandered far, far off the rails.
When they do that, frankly, I usually laugh.
