It has infiltrated every hour of the day and every space from the boardroom to the classroom to the courtroom.Īmericans dress casual. Americans’ quest for a low-key style has stomped on entire industries: millinery, hosiery, eveningwear, fur, and the list goes on. But as the century progressed, casual came to encompass everything from worker’s garb (jeans and lumberman jackets) to army uniforms (again with the khakis). A hundred years ago, the closest thing to casual was sportswear-knitted golf dresses, tweed blazers, and oxford shoes. It is the opposite of confined.Īs Americans, our casual style uniformly stresses comfort and practicality-two words that have gotten little attention in the history of fashion but have transformed how we live. For me, casual is not the opposite of formal. While my Clergerie-clad best friend chased down taxis and potential husbands in 3-inch heels, I chose cowboy boots and a pair of overalls that same friend said made me look like an oversized baby. By my mid-20s, I realized I no longer wanted to pry my 6-foot-tall body into uncomfortable clothes and stay in them for hours. As a teen, I scoffed at the wrinkled khakis of my high-school colleagues and scoured the thrift stores of central Pennsylvania in search of the most non-casual clothes I could find-wasp-waist wool dresses, opera gloves, and evening bags. I happen to own 17 pairs of sweatpants, but I am a convert to casual. As a professor, I teach seminars on material culture and direct graduate students as they research and curate costume exhibitions, but my bread-and-butter as a scholar is the “why” and “when” our sartorial standards went from collared to comfortable.
I study casual dress as worn by the Black Panthers and by Princeton undergraduates. I study casual dress as it evolved on the beaches of Miami. I study one of the most profound cultural changes of the 20th century: the rise of casual dress.
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