HumanFlesh comments on Why Real Men Wear Pink - Less Wrong

51 Post author: Yvain 06 August 2009 07:39AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (154)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: HumanFlesh 06 August 2009 03:37:44PM 6 points [-]

Stereotypically feminine colors (e.g. pink and purple) for shirts and ties were popular among London's businessmen in 2002. Not long after that, lager louts and Essex wide boys took a shine to pink polo shirts -- typically worn with the collar popped. Eventually chavs, spides, neds, and scally lads began to collect pink shirts sold in market stalls.

Young men in New Jersey and other guido (AKA gino) habitats were seen wearing pink polo shirts in 2004. The fashion eventually trickled down to garden-variety North American dudebros.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 06 August 2009 03:45:27PM 2 points [-]

Pink polo shirts were in fashion in the 1980s. I was there.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 06 August 2009 07:38:41PM *  0 points [-]

Pink polo shirts were in fashion in the 1980s. I was there.

But did it have the same class transition?

It's also interesting that the color switched garments. The "lager louts" aren't going to look like businessmen if they wear polo shirts. Are they trying to? if not, why the same color?

Comment author: HumanFlesh 07 August 2009 01:26:00AM 7 points [-]

In London, there is a reasonable overlap between set businessmen and set lager louts.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 06 August 2009 10:42:15PM 1 point [-]

Didn't start with businessmen, unless you mean businessmen visiting Martha's Vinyard in the off-season. I don't know if lager louts, wide boys, chavs, spides, neds, and scally lads ever wore them. I hope none of those things are ethnic slurs.

Comment author: HumanFlesh 07 August 2009 07:49:22PM 1 point [-]

They're not ethnic slurs.

Comment author: therufs 18 November 2012 09:22:15PM 0 points [-]

I'm pretty sure some of them are class slurs, if you want to get down to nitty gritty.