> I started my career in a suit. I kid you not. That was 1959.

A generation or two earlier, you'd have had to dress up at least that well just to sit down at the dinner table in the evening. I don't know how folks from a hundred years ago had the patience for such cumbersome, unwieldy clothing, let alone all day every day with an additional change of clothing in the evening.

These things go in cycles, of course, but I don't see the pendulum swinging back the other way any time soon. Dress standards continue to weaken, and business casual chases off-duty fashions a step or two behind. That means in 10 or 20 years, the pants you wear to work won't have to go all the way up, and the shirts won't have to go all the way down. Probably off-duty clothes at that time will be entirely optional.

I'm all for casual clothes. Dressing to impress doesn't impress anybody I want to impress. (Although there are times and places for dressing up nicely as a show of respect.) But buying pre-shredded jeans -- never mind paying extra for them -- is downright idiotic. It was stupid back in the 80s, but kids don't learn fashion from their parents.

S "almost Howardesque here, but still a little too sarcastic" am