Job Interviews

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:54:37 -0700 (PDT)

I'd say a cultural historian myself.

nope, everyone was doing it.

It is, but MBA that you are you should know what's being signalled...

Money, first and foremost. In an era when clothes were handmade and
banks didn't exist, you had your money in liquid and illiquid assets
same as now, but while illiquid was the same - land - liquid wasn't a
bank account, it was jewels.

Your reputation, your position in society, how much influence you
had, that was made up of many things, but being obviously wealthy
was part of it. Conspicuous consumption. If you didn't show it
off then people assumed you didn't have it. Massive loss of social
status and influence, in a world based on status and influence,
that's bad news.

Most fashions for men were about youth and strength too. They were
best on fit young bodies, and a lot of men had portraits painted
with them wearing some armour over the tight showoff gear to show
they were militarily able and so brave as well as strong and healthy.

A young man would wear his tight hose to show off his legs, his
short doublet cut to show his wide shoulders and narrow hips and
waist, his codpiece to make sure no one was in any doubt... Here
is a healthy fertile strong young man. If he had money he'd then
display same by wearing expensive fabrics and a lot of jewels.

You'd turn up in a doublet covered in pearls and gold embroidery
and everyone would know it was 4 months work by a very expensive
expert to produce that.

(Note how Tudor fashions changed from Henry VIII's youth when he
was a very fit muscular athlete to his middle age when he was fat
and ill. Don't look better than the king, especially that one....)

It's still important to dress well and expensively at the higher
levels of society. It's just that less is more nowadays. You wear
expensive but understated clothing to hint you have a lot more in the
bank. It's still a mating display and people still know they are
expensive clothes, and you still need a fit body to carry them off,
they just aren't as bright or flashy.

And the signals of health and athleticism aren't quite ias important
as they were in an age before modern medicine.

Same mating display, just using different signals.

Why it changed I'm not sure. Certainly religious trends had some
effect in the 17thC, but men still wore coloured fancy gear then,
Puritans or no, and it all came back with a rush at the Restoration.

Find images of men in the mid to late 1700s and look at the pastel
silks and satins, the make up, the wigs. And note the swords too,
duelling was extremely common at this time so don't think the guy
in the pink satin suit with the powdered face and the high heels
wouldn't shoot you or stab you, he would.

I expect the change to the sobriety of the 19thC was once more
culturally driven. You went from wild poncy Stuarts to the holding
pattern of William and Mary, and then you get a revolution in France
and a bunch of German kings in England. Religious changes everywhere,
the industrial revolution, slow change of power base from land to
manufacturing, rise of banks and shareholding, all sorts of stuff like
that changed the cultural markers men used to display their wealth and
status and value as marriage partners.


Zebee

 

A period of significant peacockery by both genders was the Regency, the
approximate period when George III was unfit to rule and a bit beyond,
say roughly 1810 to 1840 (Victoria was crowned in 1837). The term 'dandy'
was coined in this period and refers to a specific group of young
aristocratic males who spent a fortune on clothes. As opposed to, say,
the Bloods, another male grouping of the same era, who indulged in manly
sports such as boxing and cockfighting and showed off their muscular legs
in tight breeches and pantaloons.

You can date the suit from early in Victoria's reign too; the rise of the
suit almost exactly matching the inexorable decline of the land-owning
aristocracy, and the ascendancy of corporate culture.

 

http://seamonkey.ilias.ca/mailnewsfaq/Emoticons

 

Totally it is.

But aren't we sophistcated enough to have gone beyond that? And yeah,
it would be intriguing to find what social changes stopped the
frippery on the male over the last few centuries. Anyone know a good
anthropologist?

Kev

 

Useful words added.

 

Sounds like you've dodged a bullet there, Betty.

(At least that's how I'd view it).


BTH

 

As it turns out, not quite..... yet....

Got another call from my "inside source" today. It seems the "Golden Boy"
favoured by the Headmaster is not quite as golden as he had led them to
believe. The Betty Faction (i.e., the others on the panel), in the meantime,
has been lobbying the Headmaster to convince him that "well of COURSE she
wore protective gear on her ride-in ride-out interview - it would be
irresponsible of her to ride without protective gear - and of COURSE she
wouldn't be wearing it in the classroom, silly - it's not actually all that
comfortable to live and breathe in, you know!"

Numpty headmaster just may have been convinced to move beyond what was
apparently a terrible sticking point for him, and it appears I'm still in
with a chance. On the very PLUS side - if I _am_ offered the job (and it's
still very uncertain, although slightly more likely now), there will be
plenty of hierarchy/buffer between me and uber-conservative Headmaster.

betty, not too sure how I feel about all this,
but extremely gratified - totally blown away, in fact -
by the support of the Betty Faction on the panel.

 

I <heart> aus.moto

betty

 

Yay! Get it!

Fingers crossed.

Kev

 

You didn't even get near the Jacobite influences or even the Scott spill
over

 

Myeeh, it's a subtle distinction.

Naw MBA's are about how to make money or dispossess others of it, this
is well out there in the "utside interests" area ;-)
..snip.. solid dissertation on mating displays

OK, yes, money and physical prowess are certainly the mating displays
of the last few thousand years or so (give or take a millenia)

A bad guy to cross I'm thinking.

Mmm if the truth be known, they may be more subtle but they're still
there - the market for watches costing 50-100K didn't pause during the
GFC....

I think there's more to investigate here !

JL

 

Who are you and what have you done with Atec ?

JL

 

Yes, but how to use the little non ascii figures, others seem to be able
to do it.

 

ROTFLMAO !! Yeah right, when every second person has managed to get
beyond needing an imaginary friend you may have an argument !

JL

 

If you ever chat directly with me over cuppa with me you might discover
not all you read and fail to understand on the net is as you
misinterpreted it

 

Really?
Christ; sysadmins must be really crap at open-mike nights.

 

Slightly Crazed Asexual (apparently)

 

I Irrefutably Also Nookie Some Men.

(Holy shit;' we're uncovering a bit of a trend here!)

 

Yeah but you're only looking at the rich and famous (the ones preserved
for posterity).
In 200 years time today's males will be represented as wearing $500
shoes, $300 jeans, bling from ear-to-groin, make-up and hair-crap but
the vast majority are just normal the-minimum-fuss-you-can-get-away-with
dressers (as, I'm sure, the vast majority of every previous male
generation has been too).

 

BTH; you don't even need to reply to this one.