I think about clothes a lot. That might be weird to hear from a guy who spends most of his waking hours in secondhand workwear cutting brush and chasing goats, but it’s true. I organize my clothes according to the context in which I expect to wear them. I suspect most people do the same, though they may not have thought about it specifically that way. For me though, thinking about the categories (contexts) explicitly helps me to think about what clothes I need or want in a certain context, and to make better use of my time by having thought about it all at once, instead of dithering in front of a packed closet every time I switch from one context to another.

Work Wear

This is the work uniform you inhabit. It really doesn’t matter what it is. It is simply the functional clothing you are required to inhabit during work hours by social convention, job conditions, or health and safety regulations.

⊕Both Dickies and Carharrt make up-market streetwear lines available exclusively in Europe (because Americans wouldn’t buy that garbage). The Carharrt (Work in Progress) line is not even made by the company, but by a German licensing company. In both cases, the result is lower quality for much higher prices. Do not buy Dickies or Carharrt in Europe. You will be very sad. I cannot fully express my absolute disdain for the state of European workwear. Absolute garbage, the lot of it. Polyester trousers with the pockets sewn to the outside, boiler suits with the worst sewing I have ever seen, and knock-off American workwear brands made crappier and cheaper yet sold for 3 to 5 times the US price as “streetwear”. Absolutely no one has any idea what canvas duck cloth is, and finding hard-wearing work pants is an exercise in frustration. Particularly frustrating are unhelpful Germans who seem positively offended that someone wouldn’t worship at the plastic pouch pocketed altar of Strauss.

The only answer is to fly to the US once every 3-5 years with an empty suitcase and fill it with acceptable quality work wear and fly home. Timed correctly, the cost of the round trip flight is approximately the cost of two pairs of (fake) Carharrt work trousers.

Casual Wear

⊕Like the football Casuals and the working-class skinheads of yore, this is essentially my only chance to dress up and look nice, so I take it just about as seriously as they do. Smart, Clean, Tough - these are the watchwords of a proper “Bastard About Town” wardrobe. See Owen Harvey’s Skins and Suedes and the excellent site Terrace Fashion for the low-down This is what you prefer to wear when in public and not at work.

For many people, particularly those who work in the Air-Conditioned World, this is very casual, and amounts to cargo shorts and old t-shirts. For me, however, this is where I get to smarten up a bit and try to look nice. For me, like the folks in the sidebar, ‘Casual’ denotes the melding of sportswear with high fashion - the original “smart casual”. As such, this wardrobe for me is full of Stone Island and Barbour jackets; Merc, One True Saxon, and Ben Sherman shirts; Nudie, Norse projects, and Spoke trousers.

Lounge Wear

This is what you wear at home, whether relaxing with the family or entertaining close friends (other entertaining calls for your Casual Wear wardrobe to make an appearance).

This is where Europe has a decided advantage over the States. Lounge wear in the US tends to be either leftover t-shirts and cotton shorts or the province of people with a thousand dollars to spend on a pair of pajamas to watch TV in. But Europe has an endless glorious variety of track suits, athleisure clothing, house shoes, clogs, linen everything, and drawstring everything.

Perhaps contrasting the selections of Work Wear and Lounge Wear in the States and Europe will provide sociological insight into what is valued in each place, or more likely, in what is disdained…