So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.
And both men and women changed their styles, Im not sure why they don’t mention that. No one wanted to be mistaken by a jacobin and have a bomb thrown at your lap. Women stopped imitating Marie Antoinette way before she was beheaded in the pangs of birth of the reign of terror
The obvious historical parallels are obvious because what generally happens is that chaos can only build up so much until the people rebel and kill everyone in power. That’s why the Egyptians mentioned “maat” (order) all the time, but there are some very good movies on this time period even on netflix
> And both men and women changed their styles
Maybe in France right after the revolution, but if I look at dresses today I see all that gaudiness in female dresses but not in male.
Since the ruling classes have been hammering the message that men are useless it's a normal cultural reaction for men to become more manly. Women instead have been told that sex sells and it does, so that's their cultural reaction to the problems of today.
At least for now; but as disorder keeps mounting, inflation rises, and so on, patience for the regimes falls, and more conservative fashions come back, which means the times for the ruling classes are frail and volatile.
the German revolutions of 1848–1849 for example came out of sparks that the French (and US) revolutions brought (as well as a good dose of Karl M).
Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.
So yeah, I'd argue that women and men do look at significantly different things when they make purchases.
Apparently not enough women actually want pockets to make that fashion financially worthwhile at scale?
Re Iran - you don’t think a man dressed out of line (eg drag) would be killed?
Also ...
> After Maryam Khatoon’s inquiry, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a legal opinion, known as a fatwa under Shi’a Islamic jurisprudence, asserting the permissibility of GAS [gender affirmation surgery] upon medical approval.
Trans women’s status in contemporary Iran: Misrecognition and the cultural politics of aberu
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634607231200552?i...
From the article:
> Shadi Amin, an Iranian-born activist, told The Sun that this homophobic Iranian regime is controlled by religious extremists who view being gay as an "illness". They believe that the only way it can be cured is by changing gender.
> "The government believes that if you are a gay man, your soul is that of a woman and you should change your body," Amin said.
> "We think this is a way [for them] to fight the existence of homosexual people because you change their body and you solve the problem.
> "The regime gives gay people two choices – to be arrested as a homosexual and risk punishment or even execution, or change your body."
> Government data shows that around 4000 gender reassignment surgeries are performed in Iran each year.
> Amin, however, claims that those numbers are actually much higher in reality.
> "They are trying to cleanse the country of homosexuals," she added.
> "They would rather carry out mass surgeries than executions because they know the world is watching them."
I find it so sad though, that gay men are forced to undergo reassignment in order to survive there, rather than be able to celebrate both being gay and their own masculinity - it's taking "being gay, a man who likes men" away from gay men, there.
If they really wanted there is nothing preventing them to wear men pants that are gender neutral. But they don't because they would lose much more than a few pockets. They do not really need them anyway because even the most rugged women will have some sort of handbag. Because it is one more fashion accessory to show off, because you can carry even more stuff than any pocket would allow and because this way, they don't have to choose between looking beautiful and being able to carry stuff. If anything, women carry around way more stuff than any man could in his pockets. On the other hand, men handbags are not a thing and not just because of fashion or social pressure, but because they are very likely to be asked to do things that require them to have mostly free movement (like carry stuff, hold doors, fix broken things, etc...). A friend once joked to me that he mostly wore strong jeans because he is highly likely to be asked to go down on his knees to fix whatever his wife (and other women) point at him.
If you look at one subset of men who derive power from looking beautiful/successful like salesmen, they also dress in a way that is not very practical for most daily activities. A suit has pockets, but mostly in name, they are very weak and shallow and leave disgracious bulges from whatever you are carrying that is not a small item like a simple key, forget about putting a modern smartphone in those pockets, it will not last long (in fact I have been scolded by women about how the stuff I was carrying in my suit pockets made me look bad and how I was ruining the suit). They do it, because just like women, they derive a good amount of power from dressing this way. The major difference is that this power exists only during their work so they very rarely dress this way outside of work, the little power advantage they would get in day-to-day life is not worth the trouble (and added cost). Women on the other hand benefit from this power throughout daily life even in their own home in some cases.
It is tiring to always hear about how women are victims of many choices they make themselves; precisely because they are capable of rationality just as well as men (the difference is mostly in usage), and those choices are generally about maximizing their profits.
Fast fashion isn't women exclusive, but the fashion cycle is so much shorter for women that the very notion of fashion being "fast" almost only makes sense for them *.
I actually wonder what fashion style a woman could get away with wearing for 10 years. It would probably need to be almost monotone, covering, and with little to no affordance. A white long straight skirt with a black or cream T shaped top ?
* There will be a non negligeable number of men also caring about fashion and follow a shorter cycle, but that's far from the norm.
Men tends to have less clothes but higher quality (and they wear a lot) while women tend to have thousands of clothes they wear once.
I can survive with 2-3 suits (in the 300-500 range, decent quality, but nothing crazy) in any major city in Europe and some shirts - which is what I did for years. Now, times are changing security wise and, while I would still wear a suit in London (it seems pretty common), I wouldn't in Paris - mainly because I've been attacked twice over 2 days of walking in Paris with a suit and I think wearing some baggy jumper would have meade me less of a target.
I have no clue about the states, but I'm sure there are no go area for suits there as well.
I think muggers just smell the money and vulnerability. Local people also get mugged /pickpocketed in some circumstances, but in general they have a distinctly different way of moving through the city that makes strangers stand out.
Yeah, on a bycicle moving at 50 km/h across lanes.
One the factor that made it easier to accept Paris closing a bunch of streets to cars was that it was already an utter chaos and cars where crawling at peak hours. Biking was an actual fast option, and people sure did get the message.
It could also just be that color attracts attention. With birds, it's often the male that's more colorful. See peafowl.
This was well before the invention of rip-proof or stain-proof fabrics.
Also the royal courts of Europe started becoming much less active, as the professional bureaucracy started forming which took care of routine decision making.
So the young noble man just back from his travels would have had far less opportunity to show off in formal settings to boot.
Quality, perhaps. Utility ? I don't know. Has a dress shirt more utility than a t-shirt, or a business suit more utility than a knitted cardigan ?
I think men still primarily aiming at looks and there's a lot of thoughts in the details, but not in the flamboyant and ultra expressive direction. I'd argue a lot of attention is paid to express restrain and non gay (in both the traditional and modern meaning) in so many ways, even at the cost of utility and comfort.
Women doesn't seem to want uniforms, they want to look different from each other, so you see a wide range of dress styles for women.
But most men don't wear suits anymore, or any sort of uniform. You seem to be trying to read this as something _innate_, but it is clearly fashion.
Eh, no. They choose them based on fashion; it's just that the fashion has changed (and continues to change; suits are generally in decline, say, and I suspect covid has dealt a mortal blow to the tie).
(At some point, popular culture seems to have decided that the Industrial Revolution was personally invented by Queen Victoria or something, and it gets moved about 50 years later, but in reality by the late 18th century it was well underway).