I recently read a post of Torsten, asking us what kind of music we hear, then I realized that could be an interesting topic to talk about the kind of clothes we use. :idea:
Do you take into account your spouse’s opinion when you choose clothes?
Do you prefer formal or casual clothes?in which cases?
Is there a special color that you prefer to wear? when?
Do you like jeans?
How often do you buy new clothes?
Cris
Hi Cristina,
Your question about clothes is very interesting. I don’t buy clothes that often, and while I like to dress up, I do so relatively rarely as more casual garments are easier to keep clean and are more comfortable and practical in everyday-use. I prefer dark colours, and I dislike jeans. I won’t let other people influence me when it comes to my choice of clothes: I stubbornly stick to what I like.
Hi Cristina,
Thanks for choosing this topic to talk about. I think different people have different likes, perhaps there are some similarities. However, one man’s meat is another man’s poison :lol: . Most of the time, we have got different tastes about the clothes.
At my age of 19, I prefer wearing casual clothes like loose shirts or T-shirts. And I also like wearing loose jeans from time to time. But when there is a formal occasion, I guess I should wear formal clothes according to my tradition.
I don’t have a spouse, so I don’t have anyone to give me an opinion about how I dress.
I was raised in jeans, so they are what I almost always wear in daily life, when I have a choice. (In the US, jeans were always just very strong, practical pants that would not wear out quickly, so I find it strange when people in other countries think of them as a fashion item.)
I have so few events requiring formal clothes that I actually don’t own any. If I need a suit for some event, I have to go out and buy it. After that one time, I usually can’t wear it again, because my body changes shape so often (usually my shoulders get too big for the suit).
I don’t wear any particular type of color, but I prefer solid-colored shirts, rather than shirts with patterns.
I often get my shoes at an industrial shoe store.
The strangest thing is how my clothes look on me. At one company where I worked, I wore more or less the same kind of clothes my male coworkers did, but people used to remark on my “proletarian” look. They meant that I dressed like the workers in communist propaganda posters from the 1930s. This was strange, because I was wearing the same kind of cotton shirts and ordinary cotton slacks that anybody else wore at the company, and no one thought the other people looked like “proletarians”.
Hi Jamie,
You wrote:
How common are events where a tuxedo is required in the United States in general? What about events where you’re supposed to wear a full evening dress? And, is it possible to rent a suit where you live?
American men usually have only two or three events in their whole lives that require a tuxedo. Their senior prom in high school (if they even go to it), their wedding, and if they are the best man at someone else’s wedding. That’s it. For these events, they rent tuxedos. It’s very rare to buy them.
I never wear an evening dress, because I’m a man.
The thing is that I don’t even own a suit. I almost never need one. It’s possible to rent tuxedos, but not suits. So when I need a suit, I buy one.
Jamie,
You wrote:
‘Evening dress’ in this context refers to a certain kind of suit worn by a man. Sometimes ‘white tie’ is used instead of ‘full evening dress’ or ‘evening dress’ in invitations.
My teen-age son always uses for tuxedo just slangy expression ‘penguin suit’. 
Hi Tamara
It seems to me I’ve heard that term used in the US, too. 
Hi Cris
I love jeans and can even wear them to work sometimes. My dress code is definitely influenced by others. Since I work at various different companies and in various different departments (from the board room to the assembly line), my choice of clothing can vary quite a bit from day to day. It’s tailored to the customer. If I’m doing a translation at home, I could theoretically even work in my “birthday suit” or PJs (sort of like Dilbert). 
:lol:
I used to be a real clotheshorse, but my spending on clothes has definitely slowed down considerably. (I’ve noticed that a lot of the old stuff has come back into fashion again. :lol:)
Hi Jamie
It is indeed a relief to hear that you’ve never sported an evening dress. :lol: The “industrial shoe store” intrigues me since I’m not quite sure I know what sort of shoe store that is. It sounds like an adventure, though.
Amy
An evening dress is the same thing as an evening gown. Wikipedia claims it means “white tie”, but I don’t think that’s what people normal understand by it, and certainly not if an article is used before the expression.
You can see pictures of evening dresses here:
sungboutiquela.com/index.php
and here:
therosedress.com/dresses/dresses-pg5.html
It’s just a store that has various types of shoes for industrial work. There are shoes that won’t slip on oil, steel-toed boots, etc. There are shoes for managers that look just like regular dress shoes, except that they’re almost bombproof and last about 15 years. This is why I like them.
My favorite industrial shoe store is called Knapp’s Shoes. Back when East Germany was communist, I was sending a gift to someone there, and remembering how useful people in the Soviet Bloc countries found sturdy plastic bags, I put the gift in a bag from Knapp’s before I packed it in the box. Then I realized that any merchandise this man carried while shopping would be in a bag emblazoned with big, red, communist block letters proclaiming it was [color=red]KNAPP (i.e., hard to get).
Jamie,
You wrote:
I’d rather say that the word has two meanings, out of which one is more common.
Well, I think it’s more a question of what native speakers associate with the term evening dress. Obviously it’s what women wear when they dress up to go out.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEFL listening lectures: A university lecture in Biology[YSaerTTEW443543]
Is that in Sterling Heights? :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Well, they must have moved since the last time I was there. They used to be in Eastpointe, right across the border from Detroit.
See how long their shoes last?
As for my preferences I like wearing jeans with T-shirts. I like to wear fashionable and original clothes as well.But my attire varies according to the situation (formal and informal) As for colours, I adore white and pink tints 
Hi Torsten,
You wrote:
If an invitation states that you should wear a ‘full evening dress’ it does not mean that men should show up in dresses but in suits of a certain kind (‘white tie’ can also be used instead of ‘full evening dress’). I think that the fact that Jamie does associate ‘full evening dress’ with something else has to do with the fact that it’s very uncommon to dress up like that in the US (and in many other countries).
Wrong. It’s an indication that such an invitation would call for “full evening attire”. At best, the expression “full evening dress” is confusing, as you can see if you search Google with it in quotation marks.
Besides this, you didn’t write “full evening dress”, but “[color=red]a full evening dress”, which indisputably means an evening gown, and not white tie.
Ms Google finds approximately 25 instances (!) for “a full evening dress”.
Looking at these massive results :roll: , just over a third refer to a woman’s formal dress, about a third use the expression as an adjective (e.g., “a full evening dress sporran”), a few results were bad translations, a few were websites in non-English speaking countries and one website didn’t actually use the article “a”.
I’m starting to think “Englishuser” comes from another planet and that the name should be altered to “Englishabuser”.
Maybe Englishuser was referring to this definition of white tie and full evening dress which shows a picture of a man dressed in a black suit and a white tie.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEFL listening lectures: A lecture from a social sciences class (2)[YSaerTTEW443543]