S/o Menswear who decided this?

Reality

Tue, May 16 2023, 12:07 pm

Addressing the hat issue: Jews were persecuted for the fact that our men folk wore a head-covering indoors. Many times Christians would knock a Jewish man's yamulke off his head to "show respect".

Secondly, as I have posted previously, traditionally, Jewish men wore two headcoverings during tefillah. That is why men drape their tallis over their head. For sefardic communities, all males over 13 have a tallis. Ashkenazim, the unmarried men have an issue, hence wearing a hat during davening.

Now, why the fedora? Name another hat men should wear? Men stopped wearing hats in the 60's. Kind of makes sense to wear what was the last style. Anyway, fedoras have made a come back and there are non-jewish men who wear it for style.

Reality

Tue, May 16 2023, 12:12 pm

amother OP wrote:

Firstly a colored shirt and any dark pants (even beige) would be just as dignified.

Secondly why do men need to dress like they are visiting dignitaries all the time while women don't? Are you always ready to greet a queen/ king?

Women are also expected to dress formally at all times. There are so many unwritten rules against being dressed casually.

amother

Hyacinth

Tue, May 16 2023, 12:12 pm

amother Floralwhite wrote:

I think because they are davening 3 times a day and talking to hashem - so makes sense to be wearing dignified clothing the whole day.

Colored shirt and dress pants are equally dignified. I work in the secular environment, dignified clothing worthy of interviews or meeting with leadership teams are black, shades of blue, beige with a subdued contrasting shirt. It is a rare individual who shows up dressed in black and white.

Also, dignified wear includes a tie.

And where does chassidim fall into all this. A long coat is not considered dignified wear. A bekitche is not considered dress wear for anyone nowadays. What about a shtreimel? It's not even considerd a form of attire by any sense of the word. Chassidim arent ealking around in dignified wear, they're dressed in costume attire - relics of the past.

Why have we assigned so much emphasis om articles of clothings and made it out to be essential to yiddishkeit?

amother

Hyacinth

Tue, May 16 2023, 12:15 pm

Reality wrote:

So why cant men just wear hats to daven, why is it needed to be worn elsewhere?

And why must it be a certain style (that needs to be costly of course)? Why cant a simple respectable hat be worn.

amother

Crocus

Tue, May 16 2023, 12:15 pm

Reality wrote:

By your logic, married men wouldn't wear hats at all, as they have no need for them.

This isn't about halacha. It's about copying the prevailing fashion of broader society and then getting frozen in place, and claiming that this fossilization somehow has religious value.

It's really important to distinguish social norms from halacha. If you want to dress in a certain way, to show that you identify with a certain lifestyle, no problem. But acknowledge that this is a team uniform, and not a religious requirement.

amother

DarkMagenta

Tue, May 16 2023, 12:40 pm

amother OP wrote:

The women don't necessarily wear formal clothing. It just needs to be modest.

Oh, come now. Just look at headcoverings. Specific groups wear or reject specific ones. If you wore a sparkly fringed headscarf tied gypsy-style, you'd be booted out of Williamsburg so fast your head would spin. In some communities you'd be ostracized for wearing a long curly wig, in others for wearing a wig at all, in others for wearing anything other than a wig, and in some you'd just be laughed at for wearing a short cap-style 'do instead of a shoulder-length or chin-length pageboy. In some places you'd be getting hate stares for wearing rose pink, sky blue or turquoise. Because, my friend, conformity is king. And in many communities, women do dress very formally. You won't see them wearing denim dresses, or sneakers on their feet, ever.

amother

Clear

Tue, May 16 2023, 12:45 pm

amother Hyacinth wrote:

We do the same for the women, albeit in a different time period. We decided that the 1960-1970s was the ideal tznius styles, and we use that as a baseline to measure everything that follows.

Except where we want to change up history, of course. We pretend that our parents didnt wear knee socks till age 12, and ignore that their skirts just barely covered their knees (have my Satmar Williamsburg parents wedding albums as evidence) and that little kids didn't wear short sleeves till about age 5-6. We vehemently deny that of course, and pretend that the new extremism is our long-held tradition.

It's so funny you're saying this. My MIL is neurotic with tznius. She (used to) make comments about my skirt length, show me to pull it down, wears sleeves down to her knuckles etc...

I just saw a family album that has many pictures of when she was growing up (very chassidish). The necklines are v-neck, the sleeves barely coming down to the elbow, knee socks that don't go to the knees, dresses barely skimming the knee. She's a teenager in many of those pictures, almost married. So we're not talking about little girls here.
I made some sarcastic comments like oh my gosh sleeves till the elbow?? V-necks?? And she brushed it off saying some kind of thing like that's how everyone dressed then and the rest of the world dressed much worse comparatively or something like that.
I dropped it because there's no arguing with her.
But hello? Have you seen the way the world dresses today? Even my "non tznius" skirt that goes right below my knee and my 3/4 sleeves that goes right below my elbow is a thousand times better than the way anyone dresses today or what our grandparents wore not too many years ago...

shabbatiscoming

Tue, May 16 2023, 1:31 pm

Reality wrote:

Im sorry but the charedi/yeshivish hat that they all wearing is NOT a fedora. The yekim that I know where fedoras, but charedim? Its borselinos or other such hats with much bigger brims than any fedoras ive ever seen.

Reality

Tue, May 16 2023, 1:38 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

It's a fedora on steroids.

And smaller brims have been in style for quite a while.

Reality

Tue, May 16 2023, 1:43 pm

amother Crocus wrote:

It's not my logic. It's the reason why certain frum groups have certain modes of dress. Yes, it is taken to the extreme now but it doesn't mean that there isn't a halachic reason behind it. People are makpid to always wear a hat and jacket so they for sure have it when they daven. And married men still would need a hat for mincha and maariv.

amother

PlumPink

Tue, May 16 2023, 1:50 pm

Both the Chassdish and Yishvish modes of dress are consistent with the time periods and locations the movements became widespread. 1800s Russia and Poland and 1950s NYC. Small things evolve over time as style and taste come into play (like must have designer belts or spikes at the top of Strimels) as well as the development of certain regulations around dress. Tznuis is certainly modeled around what was considered proper dress in the 50 and 60, as that is when the ideas of community wide rules around modesty first came into fashion.

Ducking for tomatoes from people who believe tznuis rules are dioraisia.

shabbatiscoming

Tue, May 16 2023, 1:50 pm

Reality wrote:

It's a fedora on steroids.

And smaller brims have been in style for quite a while.

My point is that what the chstedim wear is NOT a fedora. And of coutse smaller brimmed hats have been in style for a while. For at least a hundred years, at least. But not what the charedim wear.

Reality

Tue, May 16 2023, 1:54 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

My point is that what the chstedim wear is NOT a fedora. And of coutse smaller brimmed hats have been in style for a while. For at least a hundred years, at least. But not what the charedim wear.

I don't know why you keep on saying chareidim don't wear fedoras. Chassidim have their own hats but yeshivish men wear fedoras.

Reality

Tue, May 16 2023, 1:57 pm

amother Hyacinth wrote:

So why cant men just wear hats to daven, why is it needed to be worn elsewhere?

And why must it be a certain style (that needs to be costly of course)? Why cant a simple respectable hat be worn.

Being costly? I agree, that's our sad culture. But men wear it all the time so they'll never be caught at a minyan without. Do people put an over emphasis? Oh for sure!

lamplighter

Tue, May 16 2023, 2:00 pm

I think at this point it's become more of a uniform, indicating what hashkafa or sect you belong to.
So let's say in Chabad (someone can correct me if I'm wrong) there is the yeshivah uniform, dark pants, white shirts, black hat. Some people continue to wear this dress code even beyond yeshiva and it is indicative of being in the klei kodesh field.

amother

Hyacinth

Tue, May 16 2023, 2:07 pm

lamplighter wrote:

Why is there a need to identify which hashkafah you belong to? There is the need to identify as Jews, but there is no need to identify yourself any further.

If anything, it serves to create a divide among us, when the Torah promotes achdus. We are all yidden, one group that equally serves Hashem. There is no need at all to walk around with an identification to which rebbe or which hashkafah you're affiliated with.

amother

Amaranthus

Tue, May 16 2023, 2:24 pm

lamplighter wrote:

Why iz this needed at all? Why do we gave to further and further divide ourselves as jews instead of things that bring more achdus.
My husband wears a black swade kippa for this reason. He isnt wearing a kippa do that he can be identified to his hashkafa but rather to show he is serving hashem.