Work Wear: Where Fashion’s Favorite Pieces Came From
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Labor Day is always the first Monday in September and it is in recognition of “the social and economic achievements of American workers.” (Source.)
How many of us can say we were consciously aware of that? Even given the name of the day? It got me thinking about how we take a lot of those achievements for granted, along with the day itself. I mean, some people ironically still work.
Beyond that, a lot of our favorite styles come straight from the bodies of workers. So without further ado, here are some fantastic fashions that came from laborers themselves.
(And maybe next time you wear any of them, you can spare some silent gratitude their way.)
Boiler Suits
The boiler suit’s origins are quite similar to their namesake: the men who maintained coal-fired boilers wore these to protect themselves. They are, after all, perfect for protection: rough materials, no gaps in the garment, long pocket in the front for tool storage, etc.
They are also fantastic one-piece fashion statements. Of course, like other borrowed pieces, you have to be willing to work with the lack of fit (or, if you’re very attached, tailor it to you) and to roll up your sleeves quite literally.
At this past year’s Met Gala, we got a taste of this performative workwear in action with Riz Ahmed’s workmen’s look. Whether or not it commented successfully on the Gilded Age’s treatment of laborers is another conversation entirely.
Mechanic Shirts
You’ve seen these. Likely on the backs of rebel teens from movies set in the 60s. Or in your local vintage store, waiting for someone to take up the name Earl once more.
The fun in these shirts is imagining who these people once were and taking up their name as a badge of legitimacy. Oh you have a $60 t-shirt? I have Earl’s shirt.
The origins of these shirts are rather obvious as well: automobile workers wore these, embroidered with their company logo as well as their name, and the style spread to other professions with uniforms. It’s a classic look that bled into the rebellious counter-culture and then, of course, into fashion.
The Flat Cap
(You may be more familiar with its popular name, the Newsboy Cap.)
This headwear goes as far back as 14th century England and it really hit the ground running when parliament passed a law in 1571 to protect their oh-so-precious wool trade, decreeing that all non-noblemen over six wear wool caps on Sundays and on holidays, lest they pay a fine.
You can imagine it became a popular look (quite forcibly) and the flat cap became The Look of all non-nobles. What’s more, in the19th and 20th centuries, it became a working-class signifier.
With the working class in decline since the mid-20th century, the cap has found its home in the middle-class and sometimes the upper class, despite its peasant origins.
Some Implications
I could very easily point out the rather uncomfortable prospect of higher fashion’s love of “playing dress-up” as working class people, akin to the perspective a lot of people have of Marie Antoinette’s infamous peasant-play in her Hameau de la reine, though this is disputed by the staff over at Chateau de Versailles.
Perhaps it’s the romanticism of the struggle, when you’re a safe enough distance from the reality of struggling. Or maybe it’s a more sinister mockery of the working-class lifestyle, rendering it a mere costume to don one day and strip the next.
Can it read like respect, as a heightening of a lower station to higher eyes? In the hands of the everyman, it plays as sartorial invention. In the hands of a corporate fashion machine, it comes with a stench more foul.