“If Fate had given us an innate sense of style, she wouldn’t have made us businesspeople. We may be able to invent rationales for ungodly mergers, but style? We need guidance,” Stanley Bing writes for Fortune.
“We generally end up adopting whatever uniform is in fashion given the business we’re in, the locale, the weather. For us, it’s all received wisdom. Put us in a Snuggie, we don’t care. It’s business. It’s not personal,” Bing writes. “Except, wait. It is personal! Intensely personal! We’re not just cogs in some machine! We are a human being! But what kind? It’s hard to say.”
Bing writes, “Stylistic options have accumulated over the years, and none seems to have primacy at this time. Each was established by a titan who defined a certain look that has survived and found a home in the way we live now.”
“No discussion of seminal influences can exclude the man who codified the black T-shirt. I am speaking, in the reverential tones due the Mozart of our age, of Steve Jobs. Before Steve, the idea of sporting underwear to work was a pipe dream,” Bing writes. “Today, unless I have a show meeting of some kind, I always consider donning a crisp black T and slacks/sports jacket combo. It’s a look that says business, even big business, is just another part of life. I like to think that sometimes, even if it’s completely bogus.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Can a long-sleeved mock turtleneck really be called a “T-shirt,” much less “underwear?”
If you need to pigeonhole….
Where I come from, t-shirt is DEFINITELY not underwear.
Still, a lot to be said about Jobs influence on the world; apparently, even in the field of business attire (as remote from our technology field as one could possibly get).
Since when has Steve worn a T-Shirt? And since when has a T-Shirt been underwear?
I have to wear underwear otherwise my pipe falls out.
Comment from: Dirty Pierre le Punk
I have to wear underwear otherwise my pipe falls out.
LMAO!
Misleading story tittle…
There was me getting excited about Apple/Nike releasing some sort of performance underwear with bluetooth connectivity, ahh back to to the little blue pill instead.
Heh… He said, “pipe.”
Until Clark Gable took off his shirt and was sporting a t-shirt, back in some film in the 30s set in the Yukon, undershirt wearing was uncommon. Afterward, sales boomed.
MDN …
Yes
4.7 less syllables
Short “Code” Fast
Cold White Kitty
BC
I believe it was Sonny Crockett who popularized the t-shirt with sport jacket and slacks look.
Apparently this guy has never heard of Hugh Heffner.
“We are a human being!”
This guy writes for Fortune…
These writers really should just work on Apple computers / iPhones and experience the joy of the technology, instead of dithering about underwear. Sheeesh.
@ Deus Ex Technica,
I don’t think Hefner has been out of his jammies for three decades; they just periodically pull them down to change his Depends.
@Dirty Pierre le Punk
LOL!! Loved your post.
I wouldn’t be able to sleep wearing a mock T. Without realizing the similarity to Jobs’ uniform, I myself have long favored black t-shirts (long or short-sleeved) with jeans- and belt. People joke about my “uniform.” Maybe we creative types are comforted by such…
“LOL!! Loved your post.”
He calls it a “pipe”.
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Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Most of you are too young to remember, but T-Shirts started out their life as underwear. You wear one under a shirt. It was considered uncouth to wear a T-Shirt out in public.
Unfortunately, the general slovenly appearance of most people these days makes people think that somehow T-Shirts have always been outerwear, which they haven’t.
Polo shirts or Golf Shirts bridge that gap. They’re T-Shirts with collars, meant to be worn on the outside.
And hey, in another 40 years, I’ll be a senior and retire and be able to cry about the ol’ days.
This sounds like a guy looking for affirmation after being busted for wearing a Dead shirt to work.
“And hey, in another 40 years, I’ll be a senior and retire and be able to cry about the ol’ days.”
Until then, you’ll just have to revel in the extreme self-esteem the young people of today have.
Of course T-shirts are not underwear.
I attend weddings and funerals in my Tuxedo T-Shirt.
Quite stylin’.
Maybe ah just grew up in the stix in sum smahll tahwn in the northwest, but ah was at least 20 yers ol’ before ah even knew what “shirtsleves” ment. Up herr, if ya got yer nipples cover’d, yer dressed!
ApplePi And hey, in another 40 years, I’ll be a senior and retire and be able to cry about the ol’ days.
Sounds like you are well on your way now!
Here, let me get your cane..
@NHL
At least get a clip on tie!