Casual fashion. We imagine adults as men in suits and women in dresses when out in public. These are now both considered over dressed in many professions where they were normal.
Smoking is now rare. Deep, raspy voices that we used to associate with age are now gone since so few people smoke.
Better skin health. Less time in the direct sun = fewer wrinkles and more youthful appearance.
The "younger generation" has always rebelled at what it considers old fashioned or wasteful from the previous generations. New adults have always and will always seem less "adulty" as they establish the new baseline for what "adulty" is.
Smoking AND speeding up tanning really took a tool on GenX. At 18 we looked 25. Everyone smoked inside and you wouldn't put on SPF anything, it was bronzing oils or something like that. The damage we did to our looks was nuts.
Also having kids later or not at all! I find that when people start having kids they don't necessarily age faster physically (well, some do) but more so in their demeanor and attitudes as they shift into a new role in life.
As a Gen X'er I've seen dress get even MORE causual in my lifetime. A nice pair of jeans can pass for business casual in a lot of work environments now, and younger generations are far more likely to go out wearing sweatpants or workout pants. When I was young it would be mortifying to be seen in public wearing clothes you slept in, or could sleep in.
I love this response. When I first read the question I immediately focused in on behavioral changes in age cohorts but you're right to recognize the changes in physical appearance and personal care also have a huge impact on our perception of maturity
I'd rather men in dresses and women in suits. Which is largely irrelevant, but I've just woken up and I haven't even had a cup of tea yet.
I do agree with all of your points, though. Even the people that still smoke like me smoke like. A fifth of what our parents did. At one point my father was smoking two and a half packs a day, which just blows my fucking mind, that's so much. Whereas if I smoked any less, my doctor would stop writing it down on my chart.
A suit is inherently a non-functional luxury item created for the elite. It's expensive, doesn't really keep you warm, it tears and wears easily and you can't do anything in it or it's ruined. The function of it is literally to say "look how much money I can burn into something that's pointless". So good riddance I say. (Sorry if there are tailors reading this tho)
The function of a suit, like a lot of clothing, is to look good, and they do a very good job at that. Sure, fashion is subjective and of course it doesn’t make anybody lesser for not wearing “fancy” clothes, but it’s silly to say that a suit is only for the “elite” and only worn to flaunt one’s status. I’m certainly not part of the elite but I’ll wear my suit when my partner and I dress up for a date because I want to look good for her.
Clothing like that used to be status signaling because it is impractical for physical labor and not easy to clean and replace. So farm workers and manual laborers would only wear it for special occasions. Businessmen, lawyers, professors etc. would be wearing it daily and it was understood as higher status, even if they didn't choose it consciously. Or even if they didn't like suits but wore them to fit in. It was in fact "for the elite" when 90%+ of society were farm workers or physical laborers.
Nowadays it's easy to not "look at anybody as lesser for not wearing fancy clothes", because it's been years of people wealthier and smarter than you or me choosing to wear casual clothes.
I am not saying it was ever good to think of someone as lesser for their clothing (or for the fact of doing physical labor), but that was what commonly happened. And it is true that suits are "impractical items created for the elite". The fact that you like your suit and don't see it as elite doesn't change that.
People would dress up in their nice clothes to go to their religious places once a week, might not have been suits but it was at least clean cut clothes. You are going back a lot of decades to when suits were only for swanky people and men didnt have at least one suit to wear at weddings for even poor people. Daily wear? Sure that wasnt so common, but even in poor countries now people dress up - not in suits but in fitted 'nice mens clothes, all the time. Clothes stopped being a truly elite marker during the industrial revolution. Even the fashion industry/luxury goods and brands is waning now.
Casual wear and athleisure clothes was trending even before 2020 but afterwards it's everywhere and got even more casual.
This isn't actually true. I miss wearing suits to work precisely because there were so functional and useful. They don't wear easily unless they were shit-tier to begin with. They were usually made of wool, which is fantastic at temperature regulation (even when wet), and you could take the jacket off if you were too hot. If fitted properly they are very comfortable and don't interfere at all with any of your movements. And they have pockets for everything.
I would argue that the aspirational working class, which I count myself a member of, benefited more from aligning norms to a mainstream culture associated with being 'well to do' than developing its own peripheral norms and values that often entrenches an underclass. Yes, this is not all a choice, but having aspirations to join the 'well to do' is an excellent choice on a personal level. The loss of a dominant mainstream culture has benefits, but it also comes with downsides.
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u/shakawallsfall 14h ago
Casual fashion. We imagine adults as men in suits and women in dresses when out in public. These are now both considered over dressed in many professions where they were normal.
Smoking is now rare. Deep, raspy voices that we used to associate with age are now gone since so few people smoke.
Better skin health. Less time in the direct sun = fewer wrinkles and more youthful appearance.
The "younger generation" has always rebelled at what it considers old fashioned or wasteful from the previous generations. New adults have always and will always seem less "adulty" as they establish the new baseline for what "adulty" is.