Dress Up or Dress Down?

This article in the Telegraph discusses the state of today's fashion. Have we lost the understanding and ability to dress up? While I found that the article focused too much on dressing up 'for your man,' I do think it's a legitimate question. Our standards for what was socially acceptable to wear in public have definitely changed. For example, students dressed up for class until the later part of the twentieth century. (Watch this video!) It was even mandatory to wear ties and blazers in law school. But now, anything and everything goes. Jeans used to be work clothes, worn only by the lower classes; now they sell for hundreds of dollars, and everyone, except maybe the Queen, wears them. Casual wear is by no means a horrible thing; it's easier to go out and have more fun when you're wearing converses instead of tottering high heels. But it does seem that every sense of formality and custom has fallen off the wayside. We substitute text messages for thank you notes, polos and khakis for three piece suits, and sporks for table manners. The end result? Nothing has meaning. It's all about convenience. So, resist becoming a flat paper soul and do something special. Comb the tangles out, and put your hair up in an elegant bun. Instead of telling your professor thank you for a letter of recommendation over the Internet, send him or her a sincere hand-written letter. And be sure to put your napkin in your lap.