Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2021 August 21

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August 21

Men with suits and ties in old movies

In many/most of the movies made in the 1940s-1960s, when a scene is set in a private home, in the evening or on a weekend, the man of the house is always wearing a suit and tie. Maybe just sitting in an armchair reading the paper, with nowhere to go all day, but dressed for the office. Or sometimes we see him digging in his garden; he might hang his coat on a garden implement while he's being physical, but he still has his tie on, if perhaps loosened a little. When he's done he puts his coat back on and fixes his tie before re-entering the house.

Was this just a cinematic invention, or did men actually dress that way in those days, in the privacy of their own homes in their private hours? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:15, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

As far as I know, the only time my uncle did not wear his jacket, tie and waistcoat was in bed or in the bath. But yes, the jacket usually came off to dig the garden. And he had a separate jacket for smoking his pipe. (Admittedly, he was thought of as somewhat eccentric). Sorry to be anecdotal. But yes, suit-wearing-while-reading-the-paper seems ubiquitous for the middle-class family man in 1940a and and 1950s cinema. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:30, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Hence the Smoking jacket, which was not at all unusual in its day. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:03, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

(More anecdotage) Never mind "at home": here I am with my grandfather on Tynemouth beach, circa 1957, with him immaculately dressed in suit and tie. More recently, my late stepfather (1923-2017) invariably wore a jacket and tie until his very last months. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:12, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

People were a lot more formal in the old days. Look at pictures of baseball crowds in the first half of the 20th century and most of the men wore suit and tie. Someone once pointed this out to Joe DiMaggio, who was amused, and said the players weren't even aware of it - it was just the normal thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:05, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Don't forget upstanding collar-and-elbow rough 'n' tumble, back before barbaric heels and cartoonish babyfaces like The Sheepherders and The Bushwhackers started drawing the bloodthirsty sociopaths and impressionable younger crowd into the same convoluted "sports entertainment" big top/squared circle/media umbrella, respectively. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:28, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

And on the flip side, it's hard to imagine a modern masked wrestler with the modesty and integrity to refuse to strip for Jimmy Carter out of principle, or even when privately delighting his mother, as Mr. Wrestling II so easily and breezily got away with. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:40, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

To put it in context, I was born in 1949. As such, I grew up as culture shifted to having multiple shirts and pants. My parents resisted the change and just had Sunday clothes and every-other-day clothes. So, my dad had two pairs of pants, one jacket, and two shirts. He only had one pair of shoes. That is how it always was for him. The same with people on our block. They had one pair of clothes (and maybe Sunday clothes). If a man was working outside (we didn't have gardens or yards or anything like that), he would take off his shirt and tie and just wear his undershirt. So, if you were sitting around the house, you could sit in your underwear or in your clothes, which were the only set of clothes you had. I'm sure that the textile revolution hit other areas long before I was born, but in working class New York, it wasn't until the late 50s that people started having multiple pants and shirts to choose from. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 11:52, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Men used to dress pretty formally in British pubs too: [1] [2] 5.70.253.121 (talk) 14:19, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

• It's important to note that these films focus on middle- and upper-class people. You didn't, for example, find construction workers, day laborers, longshoremen, auto mechanics, etc. wearing waistcoats, suit coats, and ties on a daily basis. Here for example shows typical dress for construction workers in the 1930s. --Jayron32 15:24, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Although it was common for skilled workers to wear collar, tie and often a waistcoat, covered in the workshop by an apron, overalls or a brown coat. See this or this or this for example. My father was a navigational instrument maker and wore a tweed jacket and tie to work at the factory every day. Alansplodge (talk) 18:55, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

• Well, that's all interesting information. Thanks, everyone. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:02, 26 August 2021 (UTC)