I try not to wear jeans and a t-shirt, and there is a specific reason for this. Now, I live in a place where the summers get to 115+, I work from home, I engage in things like running or gardening, and hence I do “dress down” occasionally. But in making a conscious effort to dress in a manner less evocative of the inner city slums I am trying to make a statement about what I think a human is what they ought to aim at. This is not due to some kind of ostentatious vanity, what a society wears is important to how they view themselves so much so that in the Middle Ages there were rules on which classes could and could not wear certain materials because it denoted their place in the social class that they had a duty towards. If a human being is made in the image of God, and if they are aiming at not merely expressing who they are, but are rather seeking to conform themselves to an objective standard of virtue, then dressing in a way that seeks to better oneself is rational. If, on the other hand, we are merely nominalistic individuals, with no ties to divinity or virtue ethics, then it stands to reason that each should express themselves not in a manner that ties into anything transcendent, and the good, the true, and the beautiful are merely social concepts. Indeed, to even try and better one’s self, to aim at something beyond your native impulses, is anathema to this modern worldview. The lie here is a gnostic one. That the physical has nothing to do this the essence of a thing. In Christianity the person is a body and soul composite, the physical means something, and this is best illustrated in Christ’s incarnation. The Word took on flesh.
I’m not trying to be a snob about this. In one sense it doesn’t really matter, but it’s obvious that people in the West once dressed in a manner that approximates something more dignified, and the question we ought to ponder is, “why did that change, and does that change really make us any better as a people?”
These are my great, great, grandparents:
They were by no means wealthy. She works as a house cleaner for a certain Vaughn family and he for the American car and Foundry running a noisy machine, and yet they dressed like this (probably not to work, but still…). I’m a part of several Facebook groups in which people share old photographs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It seemed everyone tried to dress with something of grace and style. Even the poor wore suits, albeit patched and mended.
Now here is a picture of an average Walmart goer (more or less):
Some might claim this is a victory of proletariat freedom over and against an oppressive system of societal values. But for those who have eyes for beauty and a heart that cares for people participating in the “Good Life,” something has gone dramatically amiss.
Of course, this post will only make sense if you believe that the “Good Life” exists, that truth is knowable, and that values reflect more than one’s personal feelings about things. Expressions change and tastes shift, but if there is not some kind of objective ideal of the beautiful then all mortality and standards of art–of which fashion is one–are only personal preferences. If you can’t believe there is a philosophical difference (because you’ve let modernity rob you of the transcendent), then let the experience of beauty, as Plato speaks of in the Symposium, drive you to an understanding of the True.
My goal is not to effect change by going back in time a hundred and ten years, but to wear styles that are acceptable today while presenting a vision of a man that is aiming at the essence of things. I might not have perfect taste. My sister-in-law always looks dubiously at my choice of shoes, but at the end of the line, what you wear does reflect how you think about yourself so let’s raise the stands of dress in modern America. It’s a tall order, but it begins with you. Dress-up!
Reflective Wanderer 