That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans. People living in the slums of India/Nigeria/Brazil are more likely to have a collared shirt and dress pants than an American going to work in an office.

This.

I see two things happening here: (1) American spending less on clothing and (2) Americans having less self-pride in their attire and presentation.

I've spent a fair amount of time in Latin American countries, and a real sure-fire way to identify tourists is to look for people poorly-dressed or those who look like they just don't care about how they look.

E.g., despite much of Mexico being quite hot, you will almost never see a local Mexican wearing shorts, even on beaches. Tee-shirts maybe but almost always a freshly-washed button-up shirt. (Or a swimsuit if they're swimming obviously.) This is true of other Latin countries too in my travels. It's really humbling to see.

It's not "self pride" its a bucking of the trend of what "looks good" .

It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits. Add in the marginal cost difference and I'd rather wear a tshirt. It's the market punishing the inefficiency of requiring your workers (or date) to dress in a certain manner when it adds no true value.

> It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits.

I think you prove my point (and it's not a bad thing!)

Sociology is interesting. A suit is traditionally a sign of "I invest in my clothes and therefore I have self-pride." (It's also a sign that you don't have to do hard/dirty labor.) It seems culturally America has decided that this is out-dated and are choosing to focus less on clothes as a sign of pride. This doesn't the pride isn't there, just that the ways of showing and seeing it have changed for some or most.

Some people will always think a tee-shirt or shorts look worse than a button-up and pants. It's a personal sentiment for sure.

If GP were heavily dependent on his/her job and in an environment where wearing suits is required, whether he/she likes suits would be completely irrelevant. Only because he/she apparently has a certain amount of power in their job (for example due to a sought-after skill like being a programmer) can this norm be overturned.

Over the decades, a suit has morphed from "I have power" to "I conform to the norm (and therefore I don't have power)" and with that change it is also apparent why people would want to not wear suits in an environment that traditionally required them.

I'm sure some people wear clothing to signal status, but that shouldn't be your primary reason for choosing one article of clothing over another. A man wearing pants and a button-up shirt looks objectively more appealing than a man in a t-shirt and shorts. Suits and business casual clothing are designed to accentuate the physical features of the person wearing them. The way the "V" of a button-up shirt opens up at the top - this frames the face and draws attention to it. A sport coat can broaden the shoulders and thin the waist. When a properly fitting suit or business casual outfit comes together in the right way, it makes the wearer look pleasing, not distracting, and not like they're trying to make some status statement. They just look nice.

>They just look nice.

Location may factor in here. They may look nice in NYC but they probably wish they could wear whatever they wanted (Zuckerberg) in Southern California.

Only lawyers and bankers dress fancy everyday here. And not even all bankers.

My view of suits has always been, "I work in a profession that requires me to wear this symbolic clothing."

I've avoided these kinds of careers because I want to be graded on my skill, not my ability to dress well. And suits are uncomfortable, and I like to be comfortable.

As a native of Scandinavia I too have experienced the trend of people claiming their right to be judged on skill rather than background or appearance. Here however, it is often argued that the right to be judged on skill and compatibility, and therefor being able to dress to ones own preferences is earned only when you have proven to be a) greatly over-qualified and b) of a high enough age and/or c) with an ethnicity, gender or other background factors that conform with the existing idea of what a professional in the specific field looks and acts like.

Yeah but when you think about it, you’re probably still working in an industry that frowns upon pajamas in the workplace. Just because it’s OK to not wear a suit doesn’t mean that people aren’t judging you.

FWIW I see a necktie as a fancy leash and collar (and it's just as comfortable to wear one). I'm nearly 30 and the only time I've worn my dumb suit is when going to a funeral.

I would wager you are probably overestimating your (and the average American tourist’s) ability to “look good” in a T-Shirt.

I was in Mexico last week near Cancun and observed exactly that. I always saw the locals with jeans and a nice shirt. There's no way I could do that in 85F weather.

Oftentimes when you buy local cloth you find out that they are comfortable for the weather. Long light jeans looking pants can protect you from sun and it is not more hot in them then in shorts. I have jeans for winter and jeans for summer and while they look very similar, their warmth is much different.

Yup yup I learned this in Australia. Bloody hot but I found keeping the sun off your skin actually kept me cooler despite wearing more layers. That and the added benefit of reduced UV or whatever else smashes you in the sunshine (I love the outdoors but tend to burn quickly in direct sunlight).

On more recent trips I've been trying to adopt more local customs including not wearing shorts. It's actually not that bad - if you choose lighter fabrics and don't lay around in the sun on the beach you may not mind pants. Added benefit of sun protection too.

Then there are locals who wear heavy black-cotton pants and poly-blend long-sleeve button-up shirts while walking around the asphalt streets on hot-humid days. They make me want to pass out :)

I think most of ^^ are actually corporate dress-codes (plus perhaps lack of resources to buy non-work clothes) but I've not had reason to strike up a conversation about that.

I think you are exactly right, that are really adaptations the we make both learn and make over time in different climates.

I lived in central Africa for four years after growing up in New England. Adjusting to the climate was partly just a matter of time there, but also learning the unwritten rules. For example, if I met a friend on the street, we would not even think of starting to chat in direct sunlight, we would always look for some shade first. I also learned to walk much more slowly and really minimize the heat that my body was generating.

Vice versa, I have now lived in Vermont for twenty years and every year I am amazed how I start looking in my closet for a jacket the first evening that it hits 40 degrees, and yet the same temperature in February means my kids are wearing shorts and t-shirts to school that day and I am grilling steaks in flip-flops.

This definitely isn't true in Brazil. Brazil is at least as casual as the US.

That's interesting. Maybe even more-so (at least for me) since Brazil is a latin-american country but one with Portuguese roots as opposed to Spanish. I don't know if the different types of colonialism hundreds of years ago can really account for pants-vs-shorts but it's fun to play with the idea.

Is a vertical row of buttons the dividing line between caring about appearance and not caring about appearance? Or can we say that as a society we decide what is acceptable to wear in public? If it's socially acceptable to wear shorts and a t shirt, and I wear nice, clean shorts and a t shirt, your conclusion is that I don't care about how I look? That's some serious mental gymnastics. You could reasonably say that I look like I have different clothing preferences.

Downvoting because I think you took my comment in poor-faith. I didn't say wearing shorts means you don't care how you look - imho shorts look fine when it's customary. I said that wearing pants despite shorts being a possibility does show how much you care.

So, as you said, shorts are customary in the US but not in Mexico.... how does that translate into less self-pride in the US? That is just a different custom of dress. Are you arguing that 'self-pride' is measured by how uncomfortable you make yourself?

I don't follow the logic.

I'm probably bringing my own US biases in, but I think objectively that more comfortable => less pride in appearance. Not less pride overall just pride in appearance.

(You're not a bad person because you only wear cargo shorts! You just don't value your appearance as much as somebody who always wears suits.)

I'd love to learn of (and maybe live in) a culture that thinks elastic-waist sweatpants show a sense of pride rather than somebody who (for the moment) is choosing comfort over appearance.

I just don't see that making sense. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I've never seen a person in a suit and thought they must have extra "pride" in their appearance. I mean, anyone can look decent in a (tailored) suit. It's easy. it's a standard corporate outfit because you don't have to think too hard about it. If anything I assume suit wearers don't have enough confidence to pull of a more individualistic look competently.

Meanwhile I see some of the pics from r/streetwear, and those folks have pride! Sweatpants and all, I can appreciate that there is an actual aesthetic there and that their outfits fit their body types and daily needs (especially for techwear).

Nothing makes comfort or lack of traditional formality unstylish in itself, other than biases and cultural gatekeeping at least. Dirty clothes are lazy of course, but so long as your clothes actually fit you and are clean + coordinated, its possible to have pride in your style and be comfy. Even if suit afficianados sneer, if you like it and others like it, you can be proud.

People are almost avoiding your point on purpose. Are they really that obtuse? Haha.

I think his point is making a big assumption that replies are bucking - dressing more traditionally formal != pride in appearance. In fact, as the sibling comment to yours points out - that's not the case at all. Being individualistic, whether that's in a stylish suit or an outfit from /r/streetwear, shows pride in one's appearance. I see a man in a printed tshirt and a man in a boring, unexciting button down equally as far as "pride in appearance" goes

It's all subjective for sure. What I find interesting is that some cultures show a preference for clothes that are (imho) somewhat objectively less comfortable. Pants in humid climates. Suits at all. The history behind why things became the norm is interesting. This article shows how America is changing. This isn't a bad or good thing - it's just an interesting thing.

Some counters to the comfortable / looking good tradeoff - it's not that simple:

- higher quality, tailored suits are much more comfortable than simple ones, (or even jeans really) and look slightly better

- good kilts look great and are more comfortable to wear than any trousers

- humid climates are usually sunny - it's sometimes easier to wear a really light long sleeve / trousers to keep the sun away from skin

- very humid climates, like Singapore are so warm people just try to stay inside and almost every place has AC set to ~19°C, so either you're well dressed, or you're cold

- look at some pictures of people in Melbourne - casual style there can look way better than suits

> That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans.

This is a non-sequitur: all of gp's points apply to people in the US. Cost of living, rate of change of income, fashion/dressing culture and price of clothes (absolute, and relative to income) are very different between countries - so I do not see the point of comparing at all.

"Dress better" is also subjective.

I'm from Nigeria and the idea that the poor among us dress well is news to me. If anything, dressings standards have fallen year in year for the past decade. People simply do not have disposable income.

They might all have a suit but do they have "more" outfits than Americans?

Probably fewer "outfits" (count of pants or shirts).

But in my travels the outfits are all of quality (highest that the person could afford or find) and they are all very clean.

I had an hour-long conversation with a Guatemalan woman about how she hand-washes her whole family's shirts and pants every day because they each only have two sets - one for today and one for tomorrow. She took great pride in how well-dressed and clean her family was despite them not having the resources for many clothes, a washing machine, or the luxury of not having to do hard, dirty work on a regular basis.

The article mentions that despite prices going down, not up, people are still buying fewer clothes. Not sure if they are counting skus or expenditure, my guess is expenditure, so if prices per article are going down (H&M vs Levi's), then of course total spending on clothing will go down, even while consumption remains the same.

In any case, to me it means less waste.

It seems to me that this inexpensive clothing is of very poor quality, and that quality has been declining over time.

The problem is if I can go to H&M and buy 15 T-shirts for around $100, why would I buy 2 or 3 nicer T-shirts that will last about the same amount of time if I cycle the cheapo 15 shirts properly?

It may be better for the environment?

Sounds more likely, and the causality of the effects GP observed may also be transitive through tightened finances. For example, more businesses could be encouraging/allowing more casual dress, in part, because they know they're not paying enough to expect their employees to wear more formal attire. So rather than spending habits being driven by workplace norms, workplace norms are likely driven by workers' ability to spend.

If anything, there are a lot of people in fairly low-paid customer-facing jobs who are still some of the ones dressing up most consistently.

Bingo. In a capitalist society, the better explanation is almost always an economic one. It boggles my mind that so many people find it difficult to understand this simple concept.

Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation. Add this to the reduced welfare state, and you have the perfect recipe for this situation.

Why did the "experiences" (travel, dining out) and "digital media" (software, media purchases, data plans) grow substantially, as the article mentions?

This is more a question of replacing some expenses than a real expansion in wages. For example, dining out is a necessity in the modern family because women are required to work in order to survive. This was not the case up to the 70s and even into the 80s. And online purchases are just replacing previous purchases like CDs, DVDs, movie theaters, cable, fixed phone line, etc., that have been eliminated by technology or made expensive for current budgets.

> Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation.

The US CPI does account for those, and the CPI changes are the "official" inflation rate.

Yes, rents are certainly included in CPI. For me, it's more a question of weighting. When it's not uncommon to find people spending 50% of their income on rent, are rents being appropriately weighted in the CPI?

The article seems to operate on a different premise. In sentence 2, "At a time when the economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are rebounding and consumers are eager to buy..."

Do you think they're looking at the wrong economic data?

As always, depends on how this data is being measured.

Unemployment is low, but the labor force participation rate is also low. Are the jobs good quality?

Wages are rebounding? I haven’t seen any evidence of this. There’s many people asking if the Phillips curve even works any more. If there had been any uptick in wages it’s a very recent uptick and hardly a trend yet.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect that you (or most other people) would not personally see any evidence of wage growth if it's happening.

In essence, if there's a 2% growth in average real wages (which would be a major change), then it generally would happen with, say, 80% of people experiencing no change or even a decrease (i.e. nominal growth slower than inflation), and a 20% minority, usually disproportionally concentrated in particular industries and locations, experiencing a significant (e.g. 10%) growth. And, this growth often is associated with a change in position, level or industry - most of the impact is not by the same job paying more, but by slightly less people working the low-paying job and by slightly more people working the high paying job.

So no matter if real growth is happening or not, personal evidence of the majority would not, could not show it unless it's on a very long timescale or the growth is sudden and rapid - you have to look at the aggregates to see if it's happening.

If wage growth is constrained to such a small portion of the economy, then how could it lead to runaway inflation like they fear? Couldn't they just push those jobs to areas of the country that haven't been experiencing the growth?

In short term wage growth, only a minority notices it. In long term wage growth, it's not the same minority every year, so a much larger part (though not all) experience it.

In essence, if the aggregate growth looks like "Yay 2%! Yay 2%! Ugh -2%! Yay 2%! Yay 2%! Yay 2%! Yay 2%!" as having growth almost every year, then the median individual would see the exact same environment as "Nothing :( Yay 10%! Nothing :( Ugh -10% :( Nothing :( Nothing :( Yay 10%!" as having growth very rarely - and connected (and attributed!) to something meaningful they did, not the overall growth.

But they do mention other categories growing. If clothing is semi-discretionary, travel and eating out seem like completely discretionary categories, first ones on the chopping block when the money is tight:

> Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities—what’s routinely lumped together as “experiences”—which have grown to 18 percent of purchases. Technology alone, including data charges and media content, accounts for 3.4 percent of spending. That now tops all clothing and footwear expenditures.

Anecdotally I don't think they're too off-base on travel and experiences. Airports seem busier and even with an increased number of flights the airlines generally run at higher capacity (although some of it could be explained by post-9/11/2001 slump).

This economic shift also affects the insulated, higher-class Americans by making noticeable changes on culture. In most roles, a nice suit at the office now suggests arrogance or even distrust. Instead, we venerate the "hoodie and t-shirt" CEO.

>In most roles, a nice suit at the office now suggests arrogance or even distrust. Instead, we venerate the "hoodie and t-shirt" CEO.

This is definitely not the case outside of tech, and generally not the case for firms headquartered outside the major US West Coast cities. My line of work exposes me to the senior leadership of major US and global firms across the US in a wide spread of industries (tech, energy, pharma, medicine, industrial suppliers, consumer goods, automotive), and there is an almost universal expectation that middle managers and above will be dressed in business casual attire, with one's clothing becoming increasingly formal the closer one is to the top of the management pecking order.

In the US we venerate our working class and, well, the business class kind of earned their reputation.

Labor in working overalls is salt of the earth type. Senior exec in a suit is an empty suit. When labor makes a bad decision it only affects that person. When an exec makes a bad decision they are usually the ones not affected.

The hoodie CEO is GenX/Millenials attempt to get not appear as the empty suit. To announce that they are from working class even if they are not.

People don't have the money to spend on clothing, but can spend it on experiences and travel? Either one of those seems like a free money purchase, with clothing being less of one.

I don't disagree with your assertion that wages have been stagnant and that cost of living is increasing (which should be obvious as more people == fewer resources) but even from my own anecdotal experience as somebody who is paid very well I buy fewer clothes than I used to. I buy nice clothes, but the clothes I have are clothes that don't go out of style, or even if they do I just don't care. Maybe more Americans feel this way as well?

And as others have mentioned, the work place is fortunately becoming more casual with respect to dress. I work in finance and even here we wear t-shirts and jeans. There's no reason for me to buy 10 shirts from Brooks Brothers, 3 suits, ties, dress shoes, sweaters to go with the shirts, etc. as my casual clothes are also what I wear to work.

Maybe more people are spending less on "brands" like Burberry and more on H&M or lifestyle brands (Arcteryx/Patagonia/NF) or basic colors/styles that don't require you to repurchase?

I think your “facts” are more nuanced and complicated than you might be suggesting.

Consumer prices have been declining since 1979 and non-wage benefits have been increasing. Suggesting clothes purchases are declining because wages are stagnant is logically flawed because we would expect declines in similarly elastic goods as well. But we aren’t seeing that. Consumer purchasing is growing, consumer confidence is up — pretty much the opposite of what you’re implying.

The workplace however, as the parent comment suggests, is changing.

http://reason.com/archives/2016/01/19/cost-of-living-vs-wage...

> non-wage benefits have been increasing

This is codeword to say that gains are going to people of high net worth. Most of the population still survives on wages (excepts for the ones out of work). So what you're saying doesn't disprove the fact that for most people income is going down, adjusted for inflation and for costs that don't appear on inflation statistics (housing, health care).

The non-wage benefit that's increasing the fastest is probably health care benefits, which is likely mostly captured by the middle class, not high net worth individuals.

This is a benefit that cannot be accessed as disposable income, so we are back to square one. It is just a transfer of wealth from most companies to the health care sector, masked as a benefit to workers.

> non-wage benefits have been increasing.

I strongly suspect this is predominantly out of control healthcare, and the non-wage benefits stat doesn't even capture the full 'tax' on shifted out-of-pocket healthcare costs via plan terms like higher copays.

Wages are not increasing and that’s all that matters. Just because there’s significant inflation in healthcare doesn’t mean I’m better off — it’s all price inflation that is eaten by my employer. Compared to five years ago, I am not better off even though my employer is paying 2x for my insurance.

You're explanation is not less complicated and far from the simplest, a much simpler explanation is clothes are simply cheaper.

Dunno if that's true or not, but I suspect it is just from my experience. "Fast fashion" has really taken off.

Yes, with the invasion of cheap Chinese (and alike) stuff, I calculated that you can can dressed with about 3% of the minimal wage in my country (where income is a bit below the one in the USA).

People don't have the time to spend on clothing.

This is going to sound a bit arrogant, but a person has only room for so many decisions for a day before they get burned for the day. This is why i prefer to pick a random tshirt, wear same sneakers etc every day (they are clean, yes). I tend to grab food from the same truck, at the same time - i do not think about it.

Doesn't sound arrogant at all. People are pressed for time, and the costs of spending time on clothing outweigh the benefits for many.

Isn't the simplest explanation that clothing simply costs less than it did before?

Wages have not been stagnant, in fact they have shown strong enough growth to raise scares of inflation.

I think focusing on the changing workplace as an influencer of clothing purchasing habits is spot on.

That's refuted by the increases in US consumer spending while clothing expenditures are simultaneously falling.

You'll need to support your claims about the second item. Saying it, does not make it so.

Real disposable income is at an all-time high. Personal consumption expenditures are at an all-time high.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCE

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96

Americans are also spending less each year on soda. It's not because incomes are plunging 7% per year and they can't afford Coca Cola.

I mean, my statements are pretty well documented at this point.

1) After adjusting for inflation, wages have fallen and rents have increased. They've been increasing at a pace of roughly 3% above inflation/year: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/new-census-data-show-rising-rents-...

Additionally, people aren't saving money like they use to. In fact, the savings rate is currently the lowest its been...ever: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

This is made obvious by the fact that the amount of actual dollars Americans have saved is also at the lowest point in history: https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-american-savings-statis...

Not sure what you're trying to show with your charts. Real DPI is merely a measure of dollars left over after taxes. Several issues with the Real DPI measurement: 1) it tells you nothing about the median household. 2) The inflation adjustments are optimistic -- who honestly believes inflation is less than 2%. 3) It doesn't change the fact that most of that after-tax income is going straight to either housing or healthcare.

> After adjusting for inflation, wages have fallen and rents have increased. They've been increasing at a pace of roughly 3% above inflation/year:

Where in that link does it say per year? The text and the chart show a 4% rise above inflation total from 2007 to 2015. That rate of rise is in line with the numbers from last year[1] that show housing as a whole rose somewhere between 0.5% and 1% more than overall inflation.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/mobile/consumer-price-inde...

I wonder what is counted as soda. I've noticed, among my ageing peer group, people are switching en mass to flavored carbonated water (seltzer). Of course, that might just be due to age, but I've also noticed that more store space seems to be dedicated to these beverages, again, might just be because I'm buying them now, thus noticing.

Talking about total spending misses the income gap.

The median consumer has real impact even as the wealthy consumers have an ever larger impact on the averages.

Consider housing, people that make 10x as much rarely spend 10x as much on their home as excess becomes useless. Similarly, some people spend a lot of disposable income on clothing, but plenty of rich people don't care about clothing and spend relatively little.

Inflation includes a measure of wages. If wages don't change, inflation won't move much.

CPI does not include wages.

That's consumer price index, which is only one measure of inflation.

Agree, I think the income and wealth gap are bigger contributors to many of the shifts in consumer habits. Some is due to experiences and stuff you can take pictures of being in vogue, but given the opportunity, people will choose to show status. They just can't afford to since they have less now.

I wish there were stats showing different segments of the market, but in a simple observation, look at the declining results of mid market retailers (even online). You have luxury doing okay, like Nordstroms, but nothing else until you get to the much lower priced brands.