[groby_b]

Can we have opinions on our clothes without having to give every random person on the Internet a full justification?

Why yes, yes we can.

But, OK, let's answer it. The first answer is right in the fine article: Hip pockets lead to bad posture when sitting. They cause back pain.

The second answer is that if you dress for aesthetic instead of functional reasons, one of the very first concerns is silhouette. And if you care about that, you often care about the torso first, lines second, limbs third. (Note: Since it's an aesthetic judgment, it depends on your preferences)

Hip pockets ruin the look of the torso and lines from any angle except a pure frontal view. Worse, they ruin it for tight and loose fitting clothes (because for loose fit, hip pockets with anything of significant weight hangs awkwardly)

This pocket design addresses the first issue completely, and the second issue somewhat. (You'll still notice a change in the line especially on tight fit, but it's less noticeable because it's not affecting torso, and it's not at the end of limbs - which get more attention than the middle)

Maybe our list of maximes to follow should include "we must assume that people have a reason for what they do, and question somebody else's aesthetical judgment followed by an accusation that they're uninformed or unquestioning is not the best conversational gambit".

[bscphil]

> The second answer is that if you dress for aesthetic instead of functional reasons, one of the very first concerns is silhouette.

See, I think you've missed what everyone in this thread is trying to get at. The defense of cargo pants is based on a pretty simple dialectic:

· Who determines what is fashionable or "aesthetic"?

Mostly, the people who design, sell, and advertise clothes. And also, people who directly profit off of being fashionable.

· What metrics do they use to decide what they're going to call fashionable?

Mostly, whatever will allow them to change styles from year to year and sell as many products as possible and maintain their position at the top of the fashion world.

· Is it in our interests to buy into this system of fashion?

No! In fact this dialectic has shown that fashion is basically bullshit, and that it's not just morally neutral but good to resist! To try to come up with our own fashions based on what appeals to us personally or simply wearing whatever has the most utility.

For the record, I don't necessarily agree with this argument (I lean towards fashion-neutral), but I think this pattern of thinking is extremely common in hacker culture. While I'm cynical about how fashion is created, I don't wear cargo pants either, but that's because I find them much less comfortable than a straight (not slim) cut pair of jeans.

[dan-robertson]

I really struggle to believe that there’s some secret cabal of garment manufacturers conspiring to decide what modifications of their clothes will be desirable in the next season. One reason is that the industry is competitive and mostly full of low margins. If you collude with (some of) your competitors to sell the same thing then your market becomes both smaller and more competitive. Another is that fashion changes don’t necessarily benefit the companies who were previously doing well. I doubt that most of the jeans manufacturers would have wanted leggings to have become so popular, for example.

[vict00ms]

"Determine" isn't synonymous with "dictate". No cabalistic intrigue required.

[groby_b]

> See, I think you've missed what everyone in this thread is trying to get at.

Not really, no. "Aesthetic" is "concerned with beauty", not necessarily "beautiful". If you do care about beauty, you care about shape, texture, color.

> Who determines what is fashionable or "aesthetic"? These are two different things - the first one emerges as industry consensus, the second is your sense of beauty.

> What metrics do they use to decide what they're going to call fashionable?

Literally, I don't care. At all. The discussion wasn't about fashion. OP asked why people would consider hip pockets ugly. The answer was "people who prioritize beauty over function". There's no "they" who determine beauty. We have our own preferences.

My reply wasn't about fashion. It doesn't mention fashion with a single word. Neither does OP. And so I'm deeply amused to see that you think I didn't read closely enough.

[dragonwriter]

> Can we have opinions on our clothes without having to give every random person on the Internet a full justification?

If you phrase them as universals, thereby implicitly criticizing everyone who has different tastes, expect pushback from everyone whose tastes disagree.

If you phrase it as personal preference and accept the less dramatic expression that that supports, you’ll get less pushback.

If you phrase it as a universal and then have an offended response to the pushback because people should respect the difference in tastes, then, well, you've got a reasonable complaint but are directing it in the wrong direction.

[KozmoNau7]

As a complete antithesis to this point of view, I like the silhouette that work/service pants give me. When paired with a good polo shirt, it gives off the confident vibe that I know perfectly well where I'm going and what I'm doing and that there's no need to interrupt me for whatever reasons, because I'm probably doing something important. I've never had so few religious people/coupon hawkers annoy me on the street and so many people decide to ask me for directions over everyone else in crowded streets before I started dressing like this.

Obviously the broad-shouldered build, full beard, glasses and balding head help sell the appearance.

Fashion is only for people who need other people to tell them what to wear.

[halostatue]

What you’re wearing is _still_ fashion. It’s based on a different aesthetic.

[KozmoNau7]

I do not think you would find a single person who would call it fashionable. I don't dress based on aesthetics, I dress based on practicality and comfort. How it happens to look is a consequence, not a goal.

Form follows function. I don't wear boots because I think they look good, I wear them because they're comfortable to walk around in for a whole day and last much longer than regular shoes.

I don't wear polo shirts because they look good, I wear them because they're comfortable and because the collar is practical to avoid sunburn on my neck. They also tend to last longer than t-shirts.

I don't wear work pants because they look good, I wear them because they're comfortable, last longer than regular pants and because they have a bunch of practical pockets.

The end result may be that I do fit a certain type of look, but that is incidental and was never the goal in itself.

Fashion trends are pointless and destructive. They herd us into cheaply made fast fashion and is a great factor in our willfull destruction of the environment.

[halostatue]

Fashion and fast fashion are different things. I dress fairly practically as well. Even in work wear, there is fashion involved — although some of the changes in fashion may be driven by practical or safety considerations much more than appearance, appearance still makes a difference.

For each of the things that you’ve mentioned (boots are comfortable and last longer, etc) that you attribute as “form following function”, each of the functions may be fit by alternative forms.

You say you wear boots: what type? Even within steel-toed work boots there’s several different styles and fashions, and colour makes a difference. I did a quick search and on “Boot Barn”, there are 611 styles of steel-toed work shoes. For “style”, you have: 202 pull-on style, 172 lace-up (137 6" and 80 8"); 66 cowboy; 30 high/low top; 28 logger; 20 hiking; 19 roper; 19 wedge; 16 slip-on; 16 work sneaker; 10 driving shoe; 9 authentic; 7 Chukka; 7 Oxfords… You have work shoes that are heavily rubberized for electrical hazards; you have anti-slip.

You picked a style of boots that you _liked_. You may have had functional reasons for picking boots in the first place, but whether you want to admit it or not, you picked a particular _fashion_.

When you buy polo shirts (which I don’t wear because they look _awful_ on me, and they’re not at all comfortable), do you have colours and/or brands that you buy regularly? You might buy Lacoste brand entirely because you’ve found their quality good, or maybe you buy Hilfigger (or do you buy an entirely different brand because both Lacoste and Hilfigger are too “fashion”, so you’ve chosen the “anti-fashion” fashion brand?). Do you always buy the same two or three colours of polo shirts? You’re following a fashion.

Fashion is what people _do_. It’s not this amorphous thing. What is fashionable this year is not fashionable next year. Sometimes this is driven by fashion designers, but more often than not, a “fashion trend” takes two to ten years to catch on and become popular enough to become a “trend”. (Was punk a fashion trend? No, but it spawned at least three or four fashion trends out of it as people started to follow the scene and then age out of it.)

So dude, what you wear _is_ your fashion. You may not think that it’s fashionable, but you’re choosing your look based on an aesthetic that you believe you inhabit _whether you think so or not_. Otherwise, you’d have chosen an entirely _different_ look based on the same functional requirements you stated.

[KozmoNau7]

Of course there are multiple possible forms to the same function, and even the workers segment is subject to silly whims of fashion. However, a set of basic practical and durable work pants generally looks the same now as they did 20 years ago, and will probably look about the same 20 years from now.

If you buy from the fashion-adjacent brands, some of which have also introduced streetwear collections, of course they will reflect some trends. If you buy from brands that purely make work clothes, practicality still comes first, because if they don't last, they just lost a repeat customer. The main drivers in that segment are durability and comfort, not looks.

Generally I just try to avoid clothes with obviously tacked-on flair and garish design elements. That means I mostly buy straight forward work pants and shirts, polos/t-shirts with no logos (or minimal logos for polos, they're hard to find without the traditional little logo on them), and boots/shoes in subdued or clean classic designs. I like the Norwegian M77 military boots because they're affordable, comfortable and super durable, and because they don't scream "look at me I'm so tacticool!", unlike a lot of newer designs. They've been made unchanged since 1977, and they obviously got it right.

Is it fashion or anti-fashion? I don't know, I just don't want to be a walking billboard for silly trends.

I've had this discussion a number of times, and I guess it really bugs people that not everyone cares obsessively about fashion and outward appearance as they do.

Just stop buying trends. Buy sustainable and long-lasting. Repair when things break. Keep the same things for as long as possible instead of buying something new all the time. Frequent thrift shops.

[halostatue]

> I've had this discussion a number of times, and I guess it really bugs people that not everyone cares obsessively about fashion and outward appearance as they do.

If that’s what you got from what I said, then either I’ve failed to make what I’m saying clear or you’ve misinterpreted what I’ve said. I don’t actually care how you dress. As a lot of people are fond of saying—words have meanings. And what _you_ define as “fashion” is a small (but vocal and visible) subset of what the word “fashion” means. Sadly, even if one is trying to buck trends…you’re participating in a trend of bucking trends.

You are describing a fashion—a trend even—that resonates with a certain number of people.

I am also amused that you recommend visiting thrift shops. Fashion “leaders” tend to make their own clothing, visit thrift shops (because often they are poor artists trying to make their own way and can’t afford or don’t like the current fast fashion trends), and combine clothing in ways that (sometimes) eventually becomes a fashionable trend.

(Consider the pre-ripped jeans trend. This wasn’t caused by some “Fashion Overlord” deciding that this would be some year’s fashion. People who became fashionable wore their jeans into the ground and looked good in them. Other people couldn't/didn’t want to rip their jeans or wear them into the ground like that, but felt that having ripped jeans gave them some sort of fashion credibility…so it became something that mattered in fast fashion. But it started from someone who didn’t decide to make a fashion statement as such anyway.)

[msla]

> Can we have opinions on our clothes without having to give every random person on the Internet a full justification?

Yes, which is why I'm suspicious of people who make dictates and maxims about fashion.

My point is that those maxims were created by people who have an obvious incentive to sell you more things, and having you supplement pants with carrying bags would benefit them.

We must also take unconscious racism and classism into account when judging the fashion dictates of others: "Big pockets make it look like you work for a living! We must therefore shun big pockets!" is not exactly value-neutral.

Also:

> Hip pockets lead to bad posture when sitting. They cause back pain.

Good thing we're not talking about hip pockets, but pockets farther down the leg.

[ordu]

> We must also take unconscious racism and classism into account when judging the fashion dictates of others: "Big pockets make it look like you work for a living! We must therefore shun big pockets!" is not exactly value-neutral.

No, we must not. The only thing fashion miss is ideological foundations, then it'd take just one more step for it to make following fashion mandatory for everyone with legal repercussions for not following fashion trends enough.

There are different reasons to dislike big pockets. Different people have different reasons. If some people have racist between their reasons to dislike baggy pants, it doesn't mean that to dislike baggy pants is equal to be a racist. If the most stupid person in the world believes that sky is blue, it doesn't mean, that sky is green.

[tsimionescu]

Well, there are actually many countries with legal repercussions for following the wrong fashion, especially for women. Even in Europe and the USA, many kinds of clothes we wear today would have likely been considered indecent and could have gotten the police involved, if worn on the streets 100 or so years ago.

[IggleSniggle]

> > > awful hip pocket bulges

> > Who says they're awful? Why do they say that?

> > We must be informed and skeptical consumers.

> Hip pockets lead to bad posture when sitting. They cause back pain.

Actually, we are talking about hip pockets.