Why Don’t People Dress Up to Go Out Anymore?

The informality that dominates in most public spaces today has been brewing for quite some time, our critic explains, and speaks to a broader cultural shift.

It’s not just at restaurants that the dress code has become more relaxed; it’s pretty much everywhere. People don’t dress up for the theater, the opera, work or travel. Sometimes airports look more like giant sleepover parties than transportation hubs. And it’s been that way for some time.

This lack of formality, or interest in occasion wear, has prompted some complaining, especially among those in the baby boomer generation who see it as an erosion of public standards. I think that the right way to look at it, however, is as an expression of a much larger and more significant social and cultural shift. One that has been taking place over decades and essentially says that we all have a right to dress as we want. It’s a shift that reflects the prioritization of the individual over the institution.

Linda Przybyszewski, an associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, wrote a whole book on the subject called (natch) “The Lost Art of Dress.” She traces the phenomenon back to the 1960s, when a generation of young people began questioning received rules and conventions. Before that, she said, rules of what to wear were actually a part of the home economics curriculum.

There were lectures about the difference between appearing in public, which required formal, covered-up dress with accessories like hats and gloves, and private (less formal) attire. As well as — and this is what you are talking about — the way to use clothing to differentiate between work time (more tailored, buttoned-up looks) and evening/fun time (color, more frivolity). Dressing up for events like the theater, or even going out to eat, was considered both a sign of respect for the performers or the chef and a way to have fun.

Ms. Przybyszewski even found a pamphlet from the 1950s published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture titled “How to Buy Shoes.”

Yes, the government used to get involved in determining public dress. Little wonder that when the antiwar protests of the ’60s broke out, they included a fashion revolt.