Clothing can change but people don't

An old friend blurted out on Facebook the other day that in Week 5 of working from home, he has gotten tired of wearing jeans.

"I can't believe I just wrote those words," he added, with tongue clearly planted firmly in cheek. "Jeans are the garment that defined my generation. Yet I find myself longing for the soft embrace of navy blue or charcoal gray. Perhaps with some pinstripes."

My friend is a lawyer of considerable accomplishment in Manhattan. You can understand how being out of uniform would be unsettling both to him and to those who know him — like seeing a priest in an aloha shirt or a rocker in a blazer. Who are you if you don't look like you?

The novel coronavirus has changed our lives in a lot of ways, the clothes we wear likely among the least important of those. But like the celebrities who are posting photos showing us their unkempt hair and gray roots, this turn away from our usual public presence offers us a chance to redefine ourselves in a way that's perhaps a bit more genuine.

Or maybe we'll all just adopt some new pretenses. I caught myself grabbing a black crewneck pullover from a drawer the other day before a Zoom meeting, and I know it's because once when I was wearing it a woman told me I looked like a movie director. Yeah, cool: Me and Scorsese. That's apparently who I wanted to be to the folks on the other end of the call.

Not that it's a good idea to totally disregard the social conventions represented in our clothing. This week police in Taneytown, a Maryland community of a few thousand people not far from the Gettysburg battlefield, issued a statement reminding residents to wear pants when checking their mailboxes. "You know who you are," the cops warned ominously.

Well, you may say, if who you are is somebody who hangs around the house in your boxers, why shouldn't you saunter to the end of your very own driveway with a proud display of your kneecaps? Assuming, that is, you're not a flasher showing us more.

But social norms play a big role in determining what we choose to wear and what others consider acceptable. When my older brother went to college, students at that school were allowed to wear shorts to class only once a year, on what was called Bermuda Day. By the time I got to the same campus just a few years later, cutoff jeans were our everyday habit (it was a warm climate). Now — and I confess that I find this strange — some college students wear pajama bottoms to class.

Or they did, anyway, before COVID-19 closed campuses. With professors showing up only on computers, probably even more students are learning in pajamas. No harm, no foul.

Rex Smith is Times Union editor-at-large. Contact him at rsmith@timesunion.com.

Sociologists tell us that clothing isn't just a practical way to protect vulnerable flesh; it's more a key way we establish our identity and convey it to others. If we're emotionally healthy enough to reveal an identity that's genuine, the clothes we choose to wear will reflect the real you and me.

If, though, keeping your job hinges on a favorable view of your identity among millions of people — like, if you're a big time politician — you may be ever so careful about how you dress.

When Mario Cuomo was governor, he always wore a jacket and tie with a starched shirt if he was going to be seen in public or photographed — the real view, you had to think, of a disciplined man who was not known to relax. His son Andrew, the current governor, is more likely to costume himself for the occasion: a suit for most workdays, but khakis and a polo shirt emblazoned with the state seal, and a bomber jacket, on occasions when a governor might want to be seen as getting down to dirty work for the people. Premeditated, perhaps, but there's some authenticity to it. The guy used to drive a tow truck, you know.

So how do we explain Donald Trump's overlong red ties? It was his trademark long before his rallies sold red MAGA hats, and before red-versus-blue was the color scheme of the Republican/Democratic divide (which only dates to Election Day 2000).

In fact, red ties were a power statement in the 1980s world of real estate, which Trump hoped to dominate, bankruptcies notwithstanding; they claimed, "I'm potent." This week, Trump was wearing his red power tie as he asserted, "When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total."

That's not true under our Constitution, but Trump apparently thought better of the bullying, anyway; this crisis demands tough decisions from real leaders. So 24 hours later, the man in the red tie punted the responsibility to the nation's governors.

The tie, of course, actually signifies nothing. It's just an article of clothing, and only humans change clothes. A tiger, you know, can't change its stripes.

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