Are shirts and jeans out of fashion?

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I went to a college course and other students were off with me a!most instantly and I sensed intuitively it was because I had a light blue cotton shirt on. All the other men had hoodies or t shirts.

So it seems men cannot dress even vaguely smart anymore to be in fashion?

I notice with a lot of young people (I'm 30) they even look at me a bit funny if I wear jeans because more or less all of them where I live have branded jogging pants from JD Sports or Adidas or Nike.

Jeans are never out of fashion.

No they're not.

Of course they're not out of fashion. I wear them. I see people in shirts and jeans all the time.
Then again, I know a lot of young lads do like to wear hoodies and tracksuit-type clothing. Maybe they're taken aback because they're not used to seeing another student dressed smartly. Even if it's not that, if they have issues with what you're wearing, they're the ones with the problem, not you.

I know I got some weird looks when I, a girl, wore flannel shirts, trousers and brogue shoes to college while a lot of other girls wore fashion tops and pencil skirts. I think I even overheard some girls in my year making homophobic remarks and assumptions about me. One time it used to really bother me but now I don't care. I just dress how I like.

And that's what you should do. Forget whatever anyone else thinks. Forget what's "in fashion" or "out of fashion". Just wear what you're most comfortable in.

Thanks for your reply but I don't find your advice helpful. I try to wear whatever I like but I find comnstant dirty looks and disapproval off people make me depressed. I feel I have little choice but to dress similar to other people, not because I share their taste, but because I am sensitive and negativity from people being directed at me a lot wears me out.

^^"Civilian camouflage" is the way I've often thought of it. I'm glad that I'm now well into middle-age - there's so much less pressure to be fashionable or trendy, and just about anything "practical" looking is considered acceptable.

I also think that there's often an element of "how" you wear clothes. I have terrible posture and walking gait, which I think can be exaggerated by certain kinds of clothing, or it exaggerates the cut of the clothes. Even if you put me in a tailor-made Saville Row suit, I'm pretty sure I still wouldn't look "smart".

I had overlooked the how one wears clothes. I have had a lot of disapproving looks when out of a weekend in a smart suit. I must have a Dickensian gait that looks unbecoming to such clothes or something!

When I was a kid my family were quite poor and unsophisticated. I wonder if because as a child I only wore t shirts (because they got bought for me from charity/thrift shops somehow I still only look right in those and not in shirts.

Well, then again, are you trying to fit in with people younger than you?

I used to overanalyze everything I wore, then finally decided f it, I'm wearing what feels good for me. Now, my motto is dress, and do everything else for that matter, to attract my tribe.

I don't think jeans will ever go out of style either.

Possibly because I have a young looking face. Then again since posting this topic I found out I have a double crown on my head. I had been growing my hair long but my mother held up a second mirror reflecting off the wall mirror and I saw that the hair at the back of my head becomes like a mop spilling out in different directions. So now I'm thinking it is probably my hair more than my clothes that irked people!

They're not out of fashion but the wrong combo on the wrong guy can make one look odd.
There can be a striking difference between clothes you like to wear/think look good and clothes that actually look good on you.

I've taken to finding comfort in clothes that do the latter. You should maybe try the same.

I'm youthful and tried for years to look older. It doesn't work.

Jeans are still pretty fashionable in the south. Lots of country songs mention wearing jeans.

It's also normal for people to freak out when you don't fit any specific stereotype. If you look young but don't dress or act young, it intimidates people. Followers are more comfortable with other followers. I intimidate others without trying just by being myself, but I don't give a s**t anymore.

That is so true. When I was (much, much!) younger, I played in punk bands (easier to be up on stage than in the audience for me.) I was forever being told that the punk scene was all about "being free to express yourself, free of the constraints of mainstream society", but those self same people would also accuse me of "dressing like someone's Dad" because I wasn't interested in studded leather, piercings, spiky/dyed hair etc. We even played a couple of gigs where most of the audience walked out before we'd even played a note, because we didn't "look like" a punk band (the disparaging heckles from some people in the audience made this abundantly clear!)

What about the fact the shirt was light blue? is that a good color for you? For me personally I look best in dark neutral colors perhaps with some hints of brightness here and there at most. But the colors orange and yellow look terrible on me for instance.

Also was it like a nice shirt with jeans, if so it also could have seemed kinda mis-matched, basically if you're wearing jeans you may want a more casual kind of shirt if the shirt is too formal with jeans that can be off-putting.

Very nice that you played in bands, I wanted to do that when I was younger and never got the chance, or sing in bands anyway! I noticed that about punk culture too though, it's about having a certain look to fit in. I have the exact same philosophical outlook on life as many punks, even though I have one small tattoo and the furthest I've gone outside the natural color spectrum is dying my hair blue black.

My big thing is I've noticed as a woman, if you take care of yourself and look attractive, it really throws off people when you're obviously smarter than them, and when you're not easily able to be molded into whatever they want you to be. And looking attractive is easy when you take care of your health, I'm saying this as someone who used to eat my emotions as a child and was therefore 30 kg overweight, and now I work in fitness. And I shouldn't feel like I have to beat myself with the ugly stick just so people don't think I'm dumb.

That, and as an expat living in Holland, a lot of people have the stereotype of us as not speaking a word of Dutch even after being here for years, and I speak fluent Dutch. I've even had people sometimes get angry at me when I want to speak to them in Dutch, because they think I'm insulting their ability to speak English. Even though lots of people complain about expats who are here for years and haven't learned Dutch, and I know a few expats who genuinely did try to learn it but gave up because people tend to switch to English as soon as they hear an accent.

I think any time you live outside your own country though, you become really aware of how people tend to stereotype, more than ever. I've met so many people who think they know everything about me (I'm American, and Southern at that, also an accent often stereotyped as not being intelligent, something I experienced moving around my own country when I was a child) based on what they saw on TV, I usually respond that's how the 1% lives. And then my niece told me half the time when she tells people about me living here, people say something about marijuana or Zwarte Piet. I don't know.

Basically, any stereotype where people expect you to be dumb, and you're not, throws people off. Probably in the same way that people scratch their heads when someone who fits the punk stereotype precisely on the outside turns out to be a very sweet person who is great with animals and children, although that's actually been a lot of punks I've known in my time.

No you shouldn't. Perhaps it's different in your country. In my country the stereotype is that intelligent people will take care of their health and eat sensibly while dumb people will be fat and lazy and will eat junkfood without thinking of the consequences.