B
Bruised_Reed
Guest
Amen!
- Status
C
CatholicSheila
Guest
My general rule is that if I wear it to work, then I can wear it to mass. I often go straight from work to mass on a Saturday night but this rule goes when I attend Sunday as well. Probably stricter on Sunday actually as Saturday is a very casual day at the office.
Generally that means jeans and sometimes a skirt. I’m a bigger girl so the jeans aren’t tight. A shirt that matches and is modest. Occasionally that means a t-shirt but not often as I generally don’t wear t-shirts. Shoes is anything but thongs. I’ll usually put on make up and a little jewelery on as well.
Whilst I don’t dress up for mass, I do attempt to at look nice.
Generally that means jeans and sometimes a skirt. I’m a bigger girl so the jeans aren’t tight. A shirt that matches and is modest. Occasionally that means a t-shirt but not often as I generally don’t wear t-shirts. Shoes is anything but thongs. I’ll usually put on make up and a little jewelery on as well.
Whilst I don’t dress up for mass, I do attempt to at look nice.
S
Stilldreamn
Guest
I wear my work/office clothing - so my garb runs between business casual to something a bit more formal depending on the weather. No jackets in hot weather but no bare arms either. My teenage and adult sons wear khakis with a dress shirt and tie. The only other clothes I have are really disreputable housework clothes 
L
LisaB
Guest
By casual I mean that people at that Mass are dressed casually, not that it’s an unimportant occasion.
See, I’m convinced that God doesn’t care what fabric my pants are made of when I present myself to Him, as long as they are modest and neat. Being modest, neat and clean is what shows respect in my view, not the fabric of a garment. I’ve heard the analogy of dressing up for other events in life, such as dinner with the President. Yes, I will dress up if it’s expected of me, but I would be doing it for other people at that event who care about these things and would otherwise feel offended or disrespected. I think God transcends beyond our clothing.
Y
Yeoman
Guest
“Business suits” are sometimes associated with King Edward, and are occasionally referred to as “Edwardian”.
Sports coats were originally for country gentlemen. Blazers, one thing we haven’t mentioned, came about as an attempt for more formal wear for a civilian ship’s crew on the occasion of some event which I’ve forgotten.
It is true that the history of them is not really well known. Included in that lost history is that, in the northern region of the country, buildings were pretty darned cool much of the winter, so wearing a suit also served as insulation in those months. This is pretty much no longer the case.
The stylish suits of the 70s were indeed hideous.
That’s pretty much true of any one style of formal wear, however. Take frock coats as an example. The style in the late 18th Century wasn’t the same as the mid 19th, etc.
Television newscasters also wear them a great deal. Sportscasters often wear at least coat and tie. Ministers of all types wear them, with many Protestant ministers wearing “business suits” varying from the conventional to the fanciful. Catholic and Orthodox Priests in North America also wear them, with a Roman Collar, rather than the Cassack, which is uncommon. What Priest wear is actually covered by some sort of regulation of the Church, which is why if you see a cleric wearing something like a tweed sports coat, he’s probably some sort of Protestant.
Real estate agents, at least in this part of the country, also seem to oddly wear suits. Generally that profession requires an atmosphere of success so realtors frequently wear quite expensive clothing and drive expensive cars, irrespective of how well they’re doing in reality.
Men getting married around here have gone from wearing suits in up into the 1960s to wearing tuxedos, sort of a reverse evolution of formal wear.
To take it one step further, there are two kids in the local high school who frequently wear them, just to wear them. One has a fantastic assortment of suits, ranging from an all white suit, to a red zoot suit. Interesting to see the clothing of rebellious youth become formal wear.
As noted above, in our part of the country men generally don’t wear suit or sports coats to a Catholic Mass and generally a Protestant congregation is much better dressed. But I’d dispute that there’s generally other more respected styles. I don’t think people are worshiping the clothing, but I would note that the only groups that seem to have an accepted alternative style of “good” clothing are: 1) ranchers, who hear usually have a nice set of clean clothing which doesn’t vary much in style from their regular clothing and 2) recent Hispanic immigrants, who for formal occasions dress much like ranchers but with a certain Mexican style (such as ornate belts). Indeed, when we had a Hispanic Mass I would occasionally attend it if the time was right for what I was doing and always noted that the men were universally well dressed and the women were universally very well dressed.
Y
Yeoman
Guest
I’d agree regarding your last statement (at least where I live). Indeed, where I live t-shirts and shorts aren’t uncommon in the summer.
Y
Yeoman
Guest
While that always strikes me as odd too, it was actually a Hip Trend some years ago, and remains not uncommon amongst the Hip.
Of course, if you are over 40, you probably ought not to be pushing for Hip.
Other things in this category, FWIW, include suits with sneakers, or sandels, both of which are sometimes affected by the Hip.
T
tomarin
Guest
I like how the Russian orthodox (or maybe they are Ukranian orthodox, I’m not sure) immigrants in my community dress for mass - tweed three-piece suits for the men, prim and proper outfits (jacket, scarf) for the women. Of course that’s definitely an Old World custom and not in vogue here; the Catholics in my parish seem content wearing polo shirts and members only-type jackets. I don’t think it means much ultimately because what is in your heart is most important – except insofar it signifies that this is a special event you are attending.
W
Whipstock
Guest
It’s easier to rent a tux than a suit.
I don’t think someone wearing a suit or coat/tie is necessarily “much better dressed” than someone wearing other garb that is also suitable for attending Mass. They’re no doubt dressed differently, but that “much better” belief in this context is becoming increasingly archaic and decreasingly accurate.
“Respected?” By whom? What’s the gauge? Politics? Sales positions? I’m sure I’m being overly critical but in my own experiences at Mass, I am surprised at just how poorly the “suit/coat/tie” group do dress in so many instances.
I really don’t know what to think when someone who pairs a coat from a grey pinstriped suit with a pair of khakis and a pair of suede earth shoes along with a short sleeved shirt and a skinny tie judges someone wearing a nice pair of blue jeans and an appropriate shirt? It might be unique to my experience, but those that truly dress well would never judge while the aforementioned always seem fixated on whether someone has a tie on.
W
Whipstock
Guest
I really wish an optional “lay habit” of some sort existed for Catholics. Dress in shorts and a t-shirt if you like for the day. When you attend Mass you pull up, get your habit out of the trunk, slide into it and all is well.
B
beleg
Guest
I typically wear my normal clothes - khakis, a polo, and dress shoes. It’s simply what I feel the most comfortable wearing on a day to day basis, and it looks nice. Sometimes, I’ll wear a button-down.
When I cantor, I always wear a button-down and a tie, and almost always have a coat jacket, and when I don’t I’ve got a nice sweater.
I’m considering starting to to go to a TLM at a parish near my university, so I might start dressing nicer when I go over there, because I’ve heard that coats and ties are pretty much the standard at those Masses.
When I cantor, I always wear a button-down and a tie, and almost always have a coat jacket, and when I don’t I’ve got a nice sweater.
I’m considering starting to to go to a TLM at a parish near my university, so I might start dressing nicer when I go over there, because I’ve heard that coats and ties are pretty much the standard at those Masses.
B
babochka
Guest
Kind of like an abaya (the outer garment worn by Saudi women when they go out)? They often have rather fashionable western clothing on underneath.
Y
Yeoman
Guest
You may be over weighting my use of the term “respected”, and I agree that wearing clothing badly has an impact no mater what style. And as noted, where I live people don’t normally wear coat and tie to Mass.
But, a person shouldn’t foot themselves too much in regards to what general society, as opposed to attendants at Mass, think in regards to dress. People generally dress in uniform no matter what they do, and even people who work in environments in which they think they don’t, tend to, as the lack of formal dress is the uniform. Many people don’t realize it, but in reality people expect certain occupations to be dressed certain ways, and tend to be a bit shocked if they do not. Hence the myth, and it is one, that lawyers dress in suits everyday. They don’t, but people expect them to. People expect physicians to have scrubs. People expect the police to look a certain way. In the real world the standards are (currently) much relaxed, but mentally, they’re more than still a little there.
We may not wish to believe it, but having observed the reaction to dress in context over a couple of decades now, I know that this is true. I’ve heard bitter complaints, even in the rural West, when people meet professionals who do not dress according to expectation. I once observed when an aggressive female lawyer actually made it the topic of a motion to the Court about Court impropriety that the Court hadn’t levied a sanction against a lawyer who was also a rancher wearing black jeans, sport coats, and cowboy boots to Court (she was from the Mid West), and I heard a former Supreme Court justice from Montana complain about the same thing. The local Federal judge here once issued an order, while he was a state court judge, against attorneys wearing khakis in the courthouse. You can tell who will loose a criminal case just by looking at how the witnesses are dressed, because the party with the eccentric dress is going to loose no matter what as the jury, no matter how working class it may be, is going to take that into account. Part of the current debate about the militarization of the police is based on dress.
Here, I think its sometimes taken as aggressive just to note these things, but then there are people who also aggressively deny that there is any, or should be any, implied internal dress code. Whether there should be or not, there actually is one. We do send messages by how we dress. While I don’t dress formally in any sense at Mass, those who feel we should are essentially saying what we do at Mass is not a normal everyday thing, and we should somehow signify that by our external appearance. There is something to that. If older men wear ill fitting suits, they’re probably at least acknowledging that a bit more than a person who gives no thought at all to how they dress at Mass, and are giving at least equal thought to people who at least wear their “nice” clothes to Mass.
Having said this, I’m a violator of these rules, I guess. I generally hardly ever dress up for Mass. I never wear t-shirts to Mass, but I don’t wear them as outerwear hardly ever. And I avoid stuff that’s dirty or beat up, but that’s about it. That seems to be general rule in my area.
Y
Yeoman
Guest
Probably no doubt true, but that’s because there’s a market for it.
Most tuxedos look more than a little silly on people who tend to wear them maybe once or twice in a lifetime. But they were associated with wealth in the early 20th Century and have come on huge as wedding dress in recent decades. In the same period weddings as productions have grown in size and production values, so to speak.
When I married some 20 years ago, pretty much everyone married in the location their bride was from. I know about one exception, and in that case the family of the bride was scattered all over so the couple picked a location they liked, but within a day’s travel for most of the guests. Men were wearing tuxedos already (we wore mourning coats in mine, a type of tuxedo), but my wife had paid for her own dress, which was pretty common in this area at that time.
Now we see a lot of “destination” weddings and expensive weddings. When a family member of mine recently married, with her father being somewhat poor, she picked Hawaii, a major financial outlay for anyone, let alone for somebody with immediate financial concerns. But this is sort of common. My point being the spread of tuxedos doesn’t have much to do with the lack of suits or even sports coats, so much as it does with how much of a production weddings have become, ironically in an age when they meaning of marriage is often lost.
This comment was in connection with Protestant congregations.
This may vary by region, but I’ll stick by my statement, and this has frankly always been true in this region.
The hallmark of Catholics here, which at one time had a lot of rural poor in the pews, is that no matter what, they were there every Sunday. That’s probably where their pride in attendance could be found, not in their dress. And this trend has generally continued. Even in this era of declining attendance, Catholic churches have a strong core of parishioners who don’t regard attendance as optional. Perhaps because of that, they don’t dress up. And that may be to their credit.
Protestants generally do regard attendance as optional, but quite frankly they are, and always have been, better dressed. The only way to dispute that would be to maintain that there’s no difference in dress at all that a person should recognize, but hardly anyone thinks that.
I’ve seen (albeit not recently) teenagers at Mass with t-shirts that were more than a little suggestive in their messages. They were oblivious to that, which may actually be somewhat to their credit in an odd sort of way. You aren’t going to see teenagers at a Protestant service with t-shirts at all. We can claim that this isn’t a difference in standards, but it is. The question really would be, does it matter (although I think wearing a t-shirt with a suggestive message should be a no go)?
Y
Yeoman
Guest
Wouldn’t that kind of cut against your argument that standards of dress don’t mean much? That’s be a wholly unique form of dress just for Catholics, which I’m pretty sure most Catholics wouldn’t like, no matter how they normally dress for Mass.
Actually, what you note probably explains in part why Catholics, at least here, aren’t really dress up. In a region where people work about five days out of six, often on Sundays people are going right to some activity after Mass (I’ve always been amazed by people who have a routine of a leisurely breakfast after church, for example, as that just doesn’t fit the conditions I find myself in usually). Given that, people dress accordingly.
Y
Yeoman
Guest
Isn’t that due to some societal or even religious rule?
We did used to have some rules that applied to dress, although they were few. Off hand, what I recall is that women were supposed to have head coverings. That rule fell out of use mid 20th Century but it stayed in Canon Law, I think, until the 1980s when it was removed as the conditions that had given rise to the rule were deemed to have changed. By that time, hardly any woman observed it, and when we see it observed today, it tends to send a message about that person’s views (which is fine).
Priests are still subject to rules on how they dress, but they’ve changed many times over the centuries. One I can think of that’s relatively recently changed also concerns hats, as Priests were required to wear black hats, (normally fedoras) while outdoors up until the mid 20th Century.
T
Tigg
Guest
I can attest to this. When we lived in the South, in a small college town, the “poor” mountain folk were generally scandalized by the only Catholic church in town in which Mass attendees wore blue jeans and tees, which were considered to be “work clothes.” They, OTOH, no matter how poor they were, always dressed in their Sunday clothes. You could tell some of the white shirts and trousers worn by the kids were hand-me-downs and the cuffs did not always reach the wrists, but the women always wore skirts and even in the sweltering heat, the men wore dress shirts which had been nicely ironed. LOL - they actually looked like they were going to church, after all, they were going to “God’s house!”
How about teenagers carrying the gifts to the altar wearing short shorts and a black shirt with a white skull on the back and lettering that reads “No Fear.” This was in the “big” city in a rather affluent neighborhood, so yes, it does matter and what we often times witness are glaring examples of how little parental and spiritual guidance is given.
A
andrewstx
Guest
I always wear white cotton diabetic socks for everything since I am diabetic with Nueropathy (damage to nerves). Nylon and other synthetics have always made me uncomfortable. And since I was a body builder in the past I can’t get over-the-calf socks over my calfs.
Sometimes you have to wear what you can and let fashion and convention go to the devil.
Another conventional thing I never understood was neckties, cravats. I wore them before I had a stroke. But now I can’t tie one. I absolutely refuse to wear a “clip on tie”.
Y
Yeoman
Guest
Ties are a very odd piece of clothing. Its interesting how widespread in the world they became, due to western influence, as they’re truly worthless and if you ponder them, odd.
W
Whipstock
Guest
Nope. If the lay habit was indeed extremely simple/frugal it would short-circuit a lot of the perceived problems about not dressing up for Mass. Everyone would be uniformly simple. Of course that wouldn’t last because there no doubt would be some who sould spend thousands on embellishing their simple habits and then judging others.
- Status