"The other day i was walking down a crowded street here in San Francisco, and i saw a women in a faux Ramones style motorcycle jacket-it was shorter and boxier, more blue than black, and I immediately thought whoa thats some bullshit, fucking w a classic, not riding a motorcycle, def not a punk in any way, just a poseur. Then I look at myself in a store window: straight legged Japanese Repro jeans from the sixties, vintage warehouse tee shirt, black logger boots, old fashioned mascot glasses. And i thought what a judgmental bullshitter. Now i know what gatekeeping is... I'm wondering about how all of you feel about your clothing choices... Like, again, i've written this before, ideas about authenticity, costuming, gate keeping. I guess i only gate keep in my mind-i'm a very judgmental person, trying to get over it-i would never say anything about anyones clothes but i might think it..."
judgement

Dressing up is cool. The internet has broken down barriers of traditional dress and localized trends, but I find the conventional channels of entry to still be incredibly constricting. Clothing does not exist in a vaccuum, it has been political since its inception. And because of that sticking your head into /r/mfa or styleforum is a bit like wearing sandpaper undergarments. It's tolerable to a point, pleasurable even, but there's two persistent dimensions that constantly grate against your genitals. And especially so if you're American. It's not beaten over your head, but there's a definite stench that emanate from these communities, a set of presumptions everyone retains outside of fundamentals like color theory or silouettes: performative class and masculinity. It's never just been about covering your corpse with a rag.

The necktie has come down to us from the Roman occupation, when Roman soldiers, unused to the damp chilly English climate, constantly caught colds and developed pneumonia until they were issued a focale to wrap round their throats - and this eventually dwindled into the necktie.
Outrageously exaggerated fashions frequently follow in the wake of disasters such as war or plague In ancient Greece, after one decimating battle, women were instructed by the government to slit their clothing to the hip as an enticement to more frequent reproductive acts.
Fashions have been set by military victories. In 1477, when the Swiss routed the Duke of Burgundy at Nantes, the tattered victorious Swiss soldiers tore up the captured silk French banners to stuff their ragged shirts. It was this silk, protruding at every hole, which created ‘slashings'. Once launched, no amount of inconvenience matters, the new fashion is secure until driven out by the next wave. Staircases have been altered to permit passage of farthingales; and sedan-chairs have had apertures cut in their ceilings to allow tall feathered headdresses to be accommodated.

Clothing's significance as a societal hackle cuts across multiple civilizations throughout history. From regalia reserved for chiefs to starched ruffles and codpieces, its cultural use transcendental from exposure or modesty was everywhere. Outward indicators of class or even god-given validity was signalled through dress. While European peasants could only afford new linen farmwear twice a year prior to the industrial revolution, castle corner shitting aristocrats dressed themselves like OSHA FR demonstrations. Peacocking with your clothing was even interpreted as a direct challenge to royalty leading to restrictions on specific articles of clothing according to class.

A couple centuries later the conclusion to WWII reinvigorated domestic industry to a degree where American preoccupations of class gave way to cheap clothing. Peacocking gave way to a democratized and increasingly hegemonic style of dress, wool suits were traded for cardigans and t-shirts (Originally a US Navy undergarment). As anarchronistic as they may seem, denim jeans' enduring legacy was quite significant in an age of feigning class, one thoroughly repulsed by any callbacks to backwards rural life. And this trend of de-sacralizing clothing continued with globalization, stripping away hats and jackets from the collective expectation on how one should dress. Americans started to embrace classless dress as its own uniform, rejecting aspirational WASPyness and the rigid formalities of Europe.

After World War II the mass clothing industry so perfected its techniques, especially in the United States, that poverty began to disappear visually, if not in fact. When a boy's shirt, tolerably well made, could be bought for the price of three loaves of bread and the price of soap fell, it followed that rags and filth became the property of the inebriate or the deranged. Moreover, when factories provided lockers for their employees, work clothes were no longer seen on the streets of major cities. As a result, a presentable or possibly even stylish dress or suit might easily cover an empty stomach. In the words of Michael Harrington, "It almost seems as if the affluent society has given out costumes to the poor so that they would not offend the rest of society with the sight of rags." Democratization was such that it impressed even the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. On meeting Nelson Rockefeller, he noted with some amazement: "The biggest capitalist in the world wasn't dressed in cheap clothes, but I wouldn't say he was dressed elegantly either. He was dressed more or less like other Americans."

And with this gradual transition a new expectation of dress emerged, not one centered around performative class but the exact opposite. Today in the US deviating from the spheres of "casual" is often seen as pretentious, unneeded peacocking. Rarity and formality are almost interchangable, Wingtip oxfords might as well be opera pumps in how they're seen by sweatpants-wearing members of the public. This flavor of fashion collectivism in a country well-known for its individualistic selfishness is strange. And these presumptions definitely stifled my initial enjoyment in clothing.

Similarly, reading thread after thread on /fa/ about "whether __ is suitable to wear under __ circumstances" makes me truly appreciate being in Japan. Those are too feminine, that's teetering into cosplay, all those qualifiers floating around are something I don't have to worry about anymore. The pathetic preoccupation with performing masculinity is ever-present in the online fashion forum, concentrating if it's populated by boomers. Debates over effeminacy, jinoistic little "made in america" croutons strewn over the sides alongside gas station dick pill ads, there's less meticulous judgement on a coroner's autopsy table. And there's no better thermometer than marketers shuffling under transnational corporations, the activities of collectives literally paid to find out how human beings act. Products for American markets often need to be "masculinized" in order to appeal to insecure burger sensibilities, manifesting into something as simple as a name change. And this trend cuts across hobbies, markets, and product lines. The utterly pornographic Nissan Fairlady series of the 70's turned into the Datsun Z. The Canon Kiss of 35mm fame was localized as the Canon Rebel. I'm surprised the marketers didn't just add flame decals to save some time. Or making Kirby scowl on every box cover? How utterly puerile. It's no wonder nothing followed the death of the suit, nothing could compare in raw masculine emanations. Maybe a codpiece adorned with flame decals?

But I'm guilty of all this judgement myself, I remember chuckling at effeminate pseudo-men wearing pastel capris back when I dressed like a Sears catalog model. Outward judgement precipitated into inward judgement. Without gatekeeping too hard, your enjoyment of clothing is often tied to your ability to ignore those immediate messages. Looking past the binaries of formality and masculinity, disregarding those connotations because they're hopelessly boring within the possibilities of putting together an outfit. Now I resemble a Star Wars extra on hot days. Who gives a shit. Traditional menswear will always be baffling to me though. Formality adheres to a set of rather rigid rules on color and fit: it's a uniform with little latitude for fear of looking non-traditional. No wonder every quirky 20-something pairs their grey suit with retina-cauterizing neon socks and handkerchiefs. Just seems like two converging ideas fighting for attention.

before (2017) after (2019)
workwear/military surplus
Fast-fashion lookbooks are probably the best example of the artificiality that has much of the fashion industry by the gooch: selling volume, presenting lifestyles, it's a meaningless, commercialized pursuit. The arrangement is to be expected as an essential commodity, one that bumps shoulders with food and water. And perhaps my sacralization of plant corpses that we hang off our bodies is an overreaction. But while mainstream attention on sustainability and ethical consumption have passed over food in the 2000's, it lies latent within the world of clothing. Every few months there's a horrendous stream of news coming from Asia strewn across your screen like terrible little croutons. Multinationals point fingers at other competitors' sweatshops and shrug. The system is terrible, but to an acceptable degree.

Workwear around 2010 championed ethical consumption: Know where your garment was sewn, where the fabric was milled, where the staples were grown. Here's Takehiro, he was a NEET for 3 years after college, loves fishing by Enoshima, cheats on his wife of 8 years on the weekends, and sews your jeans in Okayama. But while transparency produces enough bravery to drop triple digits on clothing, it doesn't tackle the underlying issue: An informed consumer in the US buying garments shipped from Japan made by Egyptian textiles is not an ethical consumer.

Inmates at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute produce denim clothing to both supply its internal needs, and to sell online. The jeans and coats are distributed on a prehistoric website with the same dry, burecreatic, almost sanitory language like a DMV form. The phrases "reducing taxpayer costs" and "paying for their own incarceration costs" belt-tightening attitude now sits uncomfortably alongside facts about venal judges shuttling people towards for-profit prisons. As it so happens, the 1682-bed prison is the city of Pendleton´s fourth largest employer. For-profit prison being the most depressing word salad since "silicone woman" or "reddit poweruser."

The website doesn't mention inmates are paid around $4 to 5 dollars a day for their work, much less that this is a desirable job within the prison. It isn't hard to see why considering the alternatives. Penal labor is an enduring institution in the US, the 13th amendment upholding it explicitly. Your favorite companies have taken advantage of prisoners being paid decimaled wages, even through an ongoing pandemic.

Prison Blues presented a dilemma to many workwear adherents. Legitimacy is one of the draws of workwear, and here was a source of US-made denim garments at inordinately inexpensive prices. Some forum users, no doubt acclimated to spending many times that on their superficial hobby, decried what ideologically violated a genre that championed union labor. Others didn't care.

The alternatives are similarly bleak. Multinational companies like H &M and Uniqlo have no pride like small-scale Workwear manufacturers or budgetary motives like local governments. They'll fabricate the trends and choose their suppliers according to what's most cost-effective to them. As long as they turn a profit anything under the current system is justifiable, whether it's subcontracted sweatshops with little oversight, destroying unsold garments, or using fabric made by slaves.

On the other hand, old military garments were purpose-built with an exact demographic and exact role. Within this, it's the specialized garments that really catch my attention. Mechanized troops, Paratroopers, Mountain troops, Arctic troops, they all have a different set of stipulations that neccessitate divergent design decisions. Mountain troops with double-breasted parkas, ski-ready square-toed boots, pass-through pockets, and lots of wool, all emphasizing retention and insulation. The designs are unapologetically pragmatic, unmolested by the aching libido of global capitalism. Shame about what they were used for.

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Cosplay