> > > But "no white after Labor Day" doesn't seem to have anything to do with asking participants of an occasion to show a level of respect for it by dressing to a level of formality. It's not tied to an occasion or situation, and it's not tied to a level of formality.
> >
> > I so don't get the difference.
>
> My last line there *is* the difference.
>
> The manager of a hotel having the rule "Dress formally at this hotel after 5pm" has a purpose: he is trying to establish a look and atmosphere at his hotel by requesting that his guests respect the hotel and the other patrons by conforming to a certain standard of decorum. It's not unlike asking participants of RinkChat to endeavor to spell correctly and be polite. The rule does not extend outside the public areas of the hotel: it is confined to a specific occasion.
>
> "No white after Labor Day" is not a rule that addresses a level of formality. It is not tied with a specific occasion or place. It is not dictated by an authority who should have the right to do so. It is not dictated out of a request to respect other participants on an occasion or at an event. It's just there, dictated by society in general, mandating blanket, blind, and gratuitous conformance to an arbitrary standard.
>
> It's a big, huge world of difference.

"Just there, dictated by society in general, mandating blanket, blind and gratuitous conformance to an arbitrary standard" is bad, but disliking the way kids dress at high school is not? You're being inconsistent here.

All social constructions are subjective to a level. Your hotel manager analogy makes sense within the framework of your argument, because it's a set rule by a specific person. Your personal dislike of the way way teens may dress (especially if they're not violating a school's dress code!) is an entirely subjective response based upon your own likes and dislikes. In other words, seems to me that you are applying your own fashion biases to other people, which is what your objection to fashion rules seemed to stem from in the first place.

The way I see it, all fashion is totally relative to the observer -- there's very little logic in the way we dress. It's simply a social custom. By suggesting that some fashion rules are objectively better or more appropriate than other rules doesn't make any sence to me. You said you'd rather have no rules than purposeless ones so far as social interactions are concerned, and I agree.

If anything, "don't wear white after Labour Day" has more of a purpose than "wear a tie in here." Not wearing white after Labour Day (an admittedly arbitrary deadline) serves the purpose koalamom mentioned -- easier to keep stuff clean. Wearing a tie is a fabricated social custom that appeared in the last few centuries and serves *no* purpose other than decoration. You may argue that it serves the purpose of showing respect to somebody or an institution, but we'd both probably agree that this is a pretty subjective thing. "Dressing appropriately" is not equivalent to being polite or courteous, because the way you dress does not necessarily impact your actions. Politeness and courtesy are principles that guide how we interact and greatly aide social interactions. It would be much harder to interact if we didn't know to be polite and not interrupt, but my clothes have little to no impact on my actual interactions with other people.

In other words, it is my contention that Sam's argument that some fashion rules can be objectively embraced while others cannot is invalid simply because all fashion rules are subjective. Objectively, the only fashion rule I can think of that makes sense in an objective manner is "wear clothing so far as it keeps you warm and protects your body from the elements." EVERYTHING else is an arbitrary social construction.

Stephen