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To: Logophile
And the whole "I just want to be comfortable" mantra doesn't resonate with me; clothes that fit are comfortable clothes

Not necessarily. A surprisingly large number of people are hypersensitive to certain fabrics and textures. The medical term for it is "tactile defensiveness", which seems to be a misnomer to me; "tactile hypersensitivity" would be a more accurate term for it.

It is often associated with ADHD, Asperger's etc, and some autistic kids have it *really bad*. However, ADHD and mild-Asperger types are far more numerous in the population, and when we say that certain clothes, certain fabrics, etc, just don't feel right on our skin, we are NOT KIDDING. For those of us who have this condition, clothes that are made of certain fabrics are just torment to wear, even if they "fit" perfectly.

As it happens, by perverse fate, in our culture most of the "formal" clothes just so happen to be the most uncomfortable, so we are often accused of "dressing down" for some ideological motive, or due to just plain laziness, when we are actually driven to make our clothing choices by purely physical, neurological considerations instead. If things were reversed -- if jeans, soft flannels, etc, were considered "formal", we'd be accused of being "hoity-toity" for dressing "UP" all the time!

514 posted on 03/10/2005 12:22:30 AM PST by Rytwyng (we're here, we're Huguenots, get used to us)
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To: Rytwyng
As it happens, by perverse fate, in our culture most of the "formal" clothes just so happen to be the most uncomfortable

I used to hate wearing a suit and tie – until I rebelled against the Kerryites and their usual made of dress. Until a few months before the election I usually wore jeans and T-shirt or Dockers and polo shirt for formal. My hair was past my shoulders and my beard was mid-chest.
I was accused of being a Hanoi John supporter!
I bought a few shirts that actually fit my neck, ties, slacks and sports jackets. I cut my hair and trimmed my beard. My neck is 18 ½” but most cheap shirts that fit my shoulders have about a 16” neck. I wonder why they hurt? I discovered that with a proper fitting collar the necktie doesn’t strangle me.
537 posted on 03/10/2005 7:15:49 AM PST by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.)
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