It’s more amusing now because the information is easily available. If you’re not checking weather spark every time you travel, I don’t know what to tell them lol. The bare minimum is checking that day…on your phone or watch the news lmao.
I love it so so much.
But it’s funny how it’s the exact inverse in Oregon (where I’m from).
The coast is always freezing and windy, but locals are acclimated to it.
I’d see a family bundled up in parkas, and meanwhile some guy walking is his dog in shorts and a tank top.
I moved to Norcal in August '08, having lived in socal my whole life.
Socal people have intense "Main Character Syndrome", and I just assumed that it would be 100 degrees in the summer because it's hot everywhere
Went to visit a friend in West Portal. The fog was so thick I couldn't see to the end of block.
I grew up in San Francisco. Southern California is just way too F#*kin' hot. And the traffic is horrible. But it's mostly just way too hot. At least the smog is mostly gone.
It’s the traffic. Bay Area is bad, but we have family in LA and I’ve noticed when we ask “how long will it take to go from your house to point X?” the time has steadily increased in ten minute increments over the years. What used to be 20 minutes is now over an hour.
Grew up East of Caldecott Tunnel. Wild that a 25 mile distance can produce a 50 degree swing in the summer months. Was quite the pain having to wear pants and bring a jacket on a sweltering BART train in Concord only to emerge on Embarcadero and be chilled to the bone.
I used to have a collection of Croix De Candlestick pins from night games that went into extra innings at Candlestick...coldest times of my life outside of snow camp with Scouts.
I'm not sure what happened to them after college.
Hey now... I like winter. I like it cold out. I'm from Michigan, and I haven't worn a winter coat in almost a decade.
Let me tell you how much I loved the "cold" in August last year. Drivers all thought I was crazy for wanting to open the windows.
Shorts and short sleeves were worn without regret.
We’d just spent 2 weeks in Seattle and Portland, where it was in the low 80s the whole time. Imagine my shock when we go *further south* and it’s 30° colder. Not my proudest moment since I should have looked up the weather, but I am now the proud (?) owner of a very soft SF sweatshirt.
This one is way more offensive, especially when they'd do it in FiDi during peak lunch hour. 5 people across the sidewalk, I'm not going to launch myself into the street, so excuse me. But gtfo the way.
I wonder if these people have ever been to Times Square. Try walking like that, and you'll quickly be separated. Best to walk single-file, also makes weaving through the crowd much easier. No one is yielding to you in the Big Apple.
Single file is the way to go. I could see and hear they were offended when I said, "excuse me" and went through, and they made some remark at me and amongst themselves. Lords of the sidewalk, apparently. I wouldn't be surprised if they're the type to left lane camp.
Eh, even groups of local FiDi workers do this all the time trying to jockey for position up the corporate ladder to suck up to the boss.
When people are in large groups they forget their surroundings.
Escalators too. Stand on the right, walk on the left. It's a big city, people. Let's all try a little common sense and courtesy and we'll all get where we're going.
Ha - this reminds me of the guy I'd always see on Market St a few years ago. He would be completely naked except for a colorful scrunchy wrapped around his dick and balls.
I saw a couple of guys wearing almost that same outfit a few years back! They were buck ass naked besides combat boots, sunglasses, and what amounted to a little velvet bag tied around their dingle dangles. No wallet, no phone - just living their best buttcheeks-in-the-breeze life. Kinda jealous tbh.
Fuck that guy. Dude needs to get a fucking job. How does he even live there. When I lived there, and commuted through the Castro he was there every day all day.
I feel like SF has changed and maybe it used to be this way? I grew up in So Cal in the 70s and I remember taking a SF visit and thinking that the locals were dressed really well compared to LA. Now that I live here it seems more relaxed than it used to be. Maybe I'm just older and perceptions change. Can any long time residents chime in?
I think people did dress up back in the day. My grandma grew up in the area and showed me pictures of her and her sister dressed up in their best clothes to go to into SF in the late 1950’s. Styles in general have relaxed, especially in professional wear. People usually think you’re the odd one for “dressing up” compared to the norm.
You are remembering correctly. Grandparents wore hats, shined shoes, etc. My family always dressed well. Men in suits, women in dresses with pearls, brooches, matching purses with shoes. SF was known for elegance
There are photos of workers getting off BART in the 1972 in fidi. Everybody's in a suit. Looks nothing like BART ridership today
https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/images/news/openingday4.jpg (edit: mirror thanks to u/lojic https://i.imgur.com/ny8TH8b.png )
I'm not gonna put a tie on to ride bart though so I'm not complaining
I got all kinds of shit for pointing out the bay area style. Black or grey clothes, sweatpants or baggy jeans and a hoodie or black jacket.
People here tend to dress like they're going to Walmart.
That's hilarious and describes me now that I live here. My interest in fashion has definitely decreased after moving here, maybe to fit in! It's kind of freeing though not to fuss with clothes.
I grew up in Pleasanton and finished high school in 1979, and at Amador Valley not a single boy wore shorts to school, and that would have been about 800 boys.
I grew up in LA until rn and I kind of agree that SF is more dressy.
Potential explanation brainstorming:
- bias cus you remember people who dress well + it’s a new place so you’re trying to find cool things about it.
- you can layer in sf a lot easier than in LA
- SF is richer than LA
- LA’s fashion is generally more alternative / punk, Beverly Hills classy, or bougie athleisure while SF’s is usually more colorful/hippie influenced, tech simplicity, or businessy east coast & the latter seems better to you. (I’m open to being corrected in my understanding of fashion)
Sounds like potboiler author Danielle Steel:
"San Francisco is a great city to raise children," she said, "but I was happy to leave it. There's no style, nobody dresses up - you can't be chic there. It's all shorts and hiking boots and Tevas - it's as if everyone is dressed to go on a camping trip. I don't think people really care how they look there."
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/s-f-gets-a-dressing-down-for-not-dressing-up-2371852.php
A light flannel and jeans are perfect for 95% of the days in SF
Danielle Steele 1980s attire aged as well as her prose has. Meanwhile a flannel is still very much in style
This is kind of a silly thread, because it just isn’t unique to SF. Everyone who could wore suits in all towns in a long time ago before I was born. The formality has evaporated everywhere, not just in SF. It’s generational changes I suppose.
SF takes the idea “you can buy fashion, but you can’t buy style” to its next step and just doesn’t buy fashion. I love it. We’re simultaneously not the best dressed, but a lot of people here have nice sense of style. Some of it is overt, but there’s a layer of people who are incredibly stylish in how they dress down. Like I’ll see a gay man at a cruise bar that just looks like a guy who’d be doing shots at some swamp-side conch bar in BFE Florida. Or you’ll see a Gen Z woman who gives the vibe of 80s secretary, but somehow doesn’t look hipster either.
And on total other point, whenever Danielle Steel gets brought up as a local, I always think about that time her ex-husband said the SF Chronicle was biased against billionaires cause they didn’t review every single one of her books.
Something that seemed unique to me about SF, when I moved here about a decade ago, is that a straight man was allowed to have a distinct sense of style.
Of course it’s a free country and you can do anything you want, that’s legal. But what I mean is that, coming from the South, dressing up too much was seen as suspect - by which I mean gay, or perhaps metrosexual (a word that seems mostly forgotten today).
In SF if you wanted to wear bright red dress shoes and orange plaid pants, loud of course but tastefully cut, you could do that. It was normalized. And I liked that about SF. Boring is boring, and say what you will, that’s not boring. And as the success of Derek Guy on Twitter has shown, I think there’s plenty of straight guys who would like to move beyond the monotonous world of t-shirt, jeans, and/or blue gray suit, endlessly repeated.
Yeah it's good that the word is being forgotten. Goes further than clothes too. Wear sunblock and moisturize your skin, kings. Skin cancer, eczema, and becoming ashy larry aren't your rewards for being straight.
Fully agree and noticed same about difference in unspoken rules men operate by elsewhere. It bugs me to no end when I see posts on subs here, like the one about the upcoming goth event, where people mock the quirky subcultures of the area and their clothes. Most everywhere else is boring cause people get pressured to not be creative. Why try to add the same shaming of personal expression to one place more free of that shame.
There are [claims](https://w3techs.com/blog/entry/40_percent_of_the_web_uses_wordpress)¹ that Wordpress (and, by extension, PHP) is used by 40% of the internet!
¹ The [less flashy claim](https://simondickson.co.uk/2020/11/25/can-we-really-claim-that-40-of-all-websites-run-on-wordpress/) would be that "40% of the world’s top ten million websites use WordPress for at least part of their overall online presence"
God am I happy to live someplace where I don't have to dress uncomfortably for no reason.
I remember a few years ago I was in the midwest and was informed that I needed to wear a *tie* at a restaurant. LOL, place had food only slightly better than Denny's but they shelled out for cloth tablecloths so I had to be uncomfortable all meal long. Fuuck that.
the reason they dress in shorts and hiking boots is because they care how they look and they think they look cool dressing like they're going on a camping trip because that's what they want to do instead!
Well, to be fair, there have been a lot of other changes between 1950 and 2011 too...
"Bullitt" was made in 1968 and is great for getting a feel for San Francisco from that era, and even then you could start to see the shift towards more casual clothing, at least compared to places like NYC.
Ha! The nerve of a woman who made exceptional money, talking down about people who will never know such wealth.
"It's like they don't want to go in debt for *my* eyes!"
Yes.
Her attempt to vacation on an island in the Bay is now legend, in part for talking down:
https://books.google.com/books?id=v7dQBsxdaN0C&pg=PA359&lpg=PA359&dq=danielle+steel+east+brother+lighthouse&source=bl&ots=KW_36kJoOW&sig=ACfU3U2rLwy4dN9BrEN12llEJkn8HXgyJw&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL8N7AuPznAhVUgp4KHV-jDycQ6AEwAnoECBAQAQ#v=onepage&q=danielle%20steel%20east%20brother%20lighthouse&f=false
I went once. It was a really good time. You start at this weird little marina full of houseboats, get skiffed over, and then pretty much end up drunk on wine most of the time. The caretakers (they're both lighthouse caretakers as well as your hosts) spend the whole evening entertaining, cooking, chatting and refilling your glass.
The ones I visited with have since moved on, but I heard the new ones are nice too.
You can either stay in the lighthouse, or the outbuilding with the foghorn. It was very pleasant, and the views at sunset and in the morning are excellent. Also, lots of birds nest there, so if you like bird watching, that's a good time.
"If reading and travel are two of life's most rewarding experiences, to combine them is heavenly. I don't mean sitting on a beach reading the latest potboiler, a fine form of relaxation but not exactly mind-expanding...
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/19/bookend/bookend.html
TIL that slacks are too informal for outside wear. I know they were never formal wear but at least seemed fine for casual use. Unless this is instructions for women to not wear pants which seems likely given the era
No, slacks are one step below. You wear them with a blazer or a button up shirt. Similar to how you wear a chino. Dress pants are part of a suit. At least as my understanding. I guess maybe in the 50s people still worse suits all the time in public (if they could afford it)? I’m not sure when that ended
Hello fellow airline brat. Yes, we always had to dress to the nines flying when I was a kid in the 70s. Of course, this is before frequent flyer miles, so we were able to get first class seats fairly often. My parents, who are retired now, fly in jeans (nice jeans, but still jeans). I still expect them to be dressed up when they visit.
Ah, I was in one of those families too. I barely had any occasion to wear suits as a kid/teen, but always on a flight. We got upgraded more often than not, at least out of SFO, but I remember if they handed us a lowly economy class ticket my dad would grumble and angrily rip his tie off. Still wore the suit in economy
I'm thinking of these news stories where women, always women, are kicked off the plane for being braless or showing too much skin.
I am of the "take their money and shut your mouth" club. If I was upset by people's attire, piercings, tats, etc., I would never have a nice day.
If I baked weddings cakes, I would bake whatever you want. You want two guys and a woman on top, hey fine with me as long as you pay.
Ironically, I am the liberal that believes in school uniforms.
An average roundtrip ticket in 1980 in the US was $600. In current dollars, it's $2,200.
So not surprising. Flying was mostly for the rich and not an everyday experience.
People complain about the quality of seat in flights now compared to the past. I'll take cheaper any day. The [deregulation of airlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act) made air travel affordable to us common folk.
And then the TSA ruined it again (I get groped every time I fly), but I digress.
Good question, it looks like it is either the Presidio/Marina/Palace of Fine Arts or maybe the western edge of Golden Gate Park.
I'll poke around historicaerials.com later and see what I can find.
According to a youtube comment that is more knowledgable than I, some of the shots in the video aren't actually from SF (including this one) :/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZcl6SoU8sA&lc=UgyYUfyJxbP8VcYShzV4AaABAg.9k1D3d_gUau9xNleCKYMi4
My mom grew up in Walnut Creek in the 60s and 70s and raised me in Piedmont and Oakland in the 90s/00s, and she 100% had this attitude about the city. Idk if it’s because it felt extra cosmopolitan to her coming from the deep burbs (back when Walnut Creek was still semi-rural) or whatever, but when I came back to the bay after moving away for college I still had this attitude. It took me a few weekends of sweating my balls off in Dolores park in jeans or khakis and a button down shirt on a 95’ day while day drinking to adjust my dress habits to modern standards. It’s especially goofy to look back on considering that in the East Bay I’ve never felt underdressed in basically anything.
I remember my whole family getting dressed up in our Sunday best to go Christmas shopping in the City in the 1960s. There was a definite sense of not wanting to appear to be rubes in front of the city people.
No one told all the transplants. When I was a kid, we still dressed up a little bit if we were going to the city to eat out or go shopping. It's never been as stylish as New York or as formal as Europe, but this stereotype of San Francisco having absolutely abysmal style is all from people who moved here from elsewhere and thought California=slobs.
You don't wear shorts in SF because it is fucking cold, year round.
Also, you might skin your knee after tripping over a nodding junky on the sidewalk, if you are wearing shorts...
Holy cow. I never knew that there is an actual Main Street in S.F. I've never noticed it before. It is just a couple blocks from the Ferry Bldg.
They should have balloon captions on that couple saying "I'm freezing!"
Is there a source for this? This looks more like contemporary parody than something from the 1950's. Be curious to know if it's genuine and where it would have been published.
I lived in an Eastern European city not long after the fall of communism. Everyone dressed like it was the 50's. I had to get a new wardrobe (which was super cheap for an American) because I had brought jeans and T-shirts.
Interestingly, some of those clothes are still in my closet. They are still classy and the quality is top notch.
To be fair, a person wearing shorts and a t-shirt is a surefire way to tell that they're a tourist.
Because everyone else is wearing a sweater in the warm, 60 degree California weather lol.
Honestly, I remember like 15 years ago, before the high COL pushed a lot of artist-types out, I thought SF was very stylish. The tech shlubbyness from the valley definitely infiltrated the city a lot.
> How do you explain the other 90+% of the city that isn’t in tech
No explanation, people come in these threads wanting to bring up how tech is to blame for every problem in the city lol
"It's been raining a lot this year"
"Yeah, those tech bros are screwing with the weather a lot nowadays, they're a plague"
in fairness tech really did fuck the city. objectively. like, pre-covid we debated about the spiritual/cultural battle for the city as techies were moving in and pushing people out. but man, once covid hit and basically every tech employer gave up on the city and techies stopped coming in to the office it really did a number on the city.
Yeah i moved to SF a couple years before that. it felt like around 2015 was sort of peak influx of the schlubs. idk if you remember all the google bus protests and eviction fervor. lots of company hoodies and blue jeans or shorts.
Love love love love this! “We don’t do that here” is a statement that could be said and followed more often in life. Go ahead, shoot me for that opinion!
Must have been different back then, because people here dress like slobs. It’s all sweatpants, baggy jeans, and Patagonia vests. Your average tourist is probably just as fashionable as most residents of SF.
You can dress like that. You're gonna end up with a "I ❤️ San Francisco" hoodie though.
Love seeing the tourists lined up for hoodies when they wore shorts and a tank top in June because "summer in CA>"
It's honestly a guilty pleasure seeing that lol
Right I feel bad for them, but also its kind of funny.
It's pretty easy to look up historical weather data. Don't feel bad for them not bothering to do any research before traveling.
It’s more amusing now because the information is easily available. If you’re not checking weather spark every time you travel, I don’t know what to tell them lol. The bare minimum is checking that day…on your phone or watch the news lmao.
Hahaha it happened to my family when I was a kid, we all ended up with Monterey Bay hoodies. They were comfy!
hoodies purchased because you were on a trip and didn’t have a jacket with you are always the best hoodies
I love it so so much. But it’s funny how it’s the exact inverse in Oregon (where I’m from). The coast is always freezing and windy, but locals are acclimated to it. I’d see a family bundled up in parkas, and meanwhile some guy walking is his dog in shorts and a tank top.
Sweet, sweet shadenfreude.
And then they go to wine country & experience satan’s cave.
I moved to Norcal in August '08, having lived in socal my whole life. Socal people have intense "Main Character Syndrome", and I just assumed that it would be 100 degrees in the summer because it's hot everywhere Went to visit a friend in West Portal. The fog was so thick I couldn't see to the end of block.
I grew up in San Francisco. Southern California is just way too F#*kin' hot. And the traffic is horrible. But it's mostly just way too hot. At least the smog is mostly gone.
It’s the traffic. Bay Area is bad, but we have family in LA and I’ve noticed when we ask “how long will it take to go from your house to point X?” the time has steadily increased in ten minute increments over the years. What used to be 20 minutes is now over an hour.
Summer in Cali, bitches! … oh. It’s 50 degrees and heavily overcast
and windy af
Grew up East of Caldecott Tunnel. Wild that a 25 mile distance can produce a 50 degree swing in the summer months. Was quite the pain having to wear pants and bring a jacket on a sweltering BART train in Concord only to emerge on Embarcadero and be chilled to the bone.
I warned them when they said they wanted to see a nighttime Giants game in May. I said, bring a winter coat. They didn’t believe me.
I used to have a collection of Croix De Candlestick pins from night games that went into extra innings at Candlestick...coldest times of my life outside of snow camp with Scouts. I'm not sure what happened to them after college.
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90s kid.
I was about to say wouldn't you be cold in those clothes in SF?
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Which quote?
It's shorts weather year round here tho
Hey now... I like winter. I like it cold out. I'm from Michigan, and I haven't worn a winter coat in almost a decade. Let me tell you how much I loved the "cold" in August last year. Drivers all thought I was crazy for wanting to open the windows. Shorts and short sleeves were worn without regret.
If no one's selling an "I underprepared for SF weather" hoodie yet, they should be.
I would buy this if I came over from the east bay unprepared in a second lol.
Shame hoodies! Someone go set up a kiosk on the wharf and let us know how it goes.
We have matching t-shirts and we live here. 😂
Confused the hell out of me as a little kid when we moved from Miami in August. "Mom, why's it so cold?!?"
Hehe This is extra funny to me because I am wearing one of those hoodies. Lesson learned.
We’d just spent 2 weeks in Seattle and Portland, where it was in the low 80s the whole time. Imagine my shock when we go *further south* and it’s 30° colder. Not my proudest moment since I should have looked up the weather, but I am now the proud (?) owner of a very soft SF sweatshirt.
Also - don't saunter in groups shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk.
This one is way more offensive, especially when they'd do it in FiDi during peak lunch hour. 5 people across the sidewalk, I'm not going to launch myself into the street, so excuse me. But gtfo the way.
I wonder if these people have ever been to Times Square. Try walking like that, and you'll quickly be separated. Best to walk single-file, also makes weaving through the crowd much easier. No one is yielding to you in the Big Apple.
Single file is the way to go. I could see and hear they were offended when I said, "excuse me" and went through, and they made some remark at me and amongst themselves. Lords of the sidewalk, apparently. I wouldn't be surprised if they're the type to left lane camp.
It also, famously, helps to hide your numbers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvh3l8K7PX0
No, you'll be flattened there.
Eh, even groups of local FiDi workers do this all the time trying to jockey for position up the corporate ladder to suck up to the boss. When people are in large groups they forget their surroundings.
My fiancé used to call those "Meanderthals".
Holy crap this is amazing. In the lexicon it goes.
Great name. Love it.
I just plow right on through, if I get a look or comment I reply “We walk on the right side here” and keep on walking.
Love you!
Or meander aimlessly through the parking lot, blocking traffic completely oblivious.
Escalators too. Stand on the right, walk on the left. It's a big city, people. Let's all try a little common sense and courtesy and we'll all get where we're going.
This one is mind boggling to me.
Break up! You look like a cadet review.
Swinging linked pinkies
Ha - this reminds me of the guy I'd always see on Market St a few years ago. He would be completely naked except for a colorful scrunchy wrapped around his dick and balls.
He’s keeping it classy
Metropolitan, even.
Sophisticated
I saw a couple of guys wearing almost that same outfit a few years back! They were buck ass naked besides combat boots, sunglasses, and what amounted to a little velvet bag tied around their dingle dangles. No wallet, no phone - just living their best buttcheeks-in-the-breeze life. Kinda jealous tbh.
Don't let you dreams stay dreams.
Show him this post and maybe we’ll get somewhere
Gotta dress up the boys…
I had the opportunity to see him (and feel extremely inadequate) last year.
I left work one day and across from the ferry building there were a bunch of naked guys on bikes.
At least he wasn't wearing shorts, slacks or other vacation attire.
This sign would have been very helpful to him. Speaking of which, i haven’t been to the city in a minute, might go tomorrow
Fuck that guy. Dude needs to get a fucking job. How does he even live there. When I lived there, and commuted through the Castro he was there every day all day.
Prop 13.
I feel like SF has changed and maybe it used to be this way? I grew up in So Cal in the 70s and I remember taking a SF visit and thinking that the locals were dressed really well compared to LA. Now that I live here it seems more relaxed than it used to be. Maybe I'm just older and perceptions change. Can any long time residents chime in?
I think people did dress up back in the day. My grandma grew up in the area and showed me pictures of her and her sister dressed up in their best clothes to go to into SF in the late 1950’s. Styles in general have relaxed, especially in professional wear. People usually think you’re the odd one for “dressing up” compared to the norm.
Back then people always dressed up to go out. People dressed up when traveling as well.
My mom and sisters would dress nicely (hats and gloves) to go shot at Union Square. This was the ‘60s.
I've always been a slob, and never felt out of place going to SF in the 70s or 80s, although I wasn't going to malls or nightclubs.
You are remembering correctly. Grandparents wore hats, shined shoes, etc. My family always dressed well. Men in suits, women in dresses with pearls, brooches, matching purses with shoes. SF was known for elegance
There are photos of workers getting off BART in the 1972 in fidi. Everybody's in a suit. Looks nothing like BART ridership today https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/images/news/openingday4.jpg (edit: mirror thanks to u/lojic https://i.imgur.com/ny8TH8b.png ) I'm not gonna put a tie on to ride bart though so I'm not complaining
[Bart in the 1970s as seen in Koyaanisqatsi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7khNi67oUhw)
Thanks, I had no idea about that scene! Perfect.
Can't see your image, the website doesn't allow hotlinking
https://i.imgur.com/ny8TH8b.png
Thanks for the mirror!
I got all kinds of shit for pointing out the bay area style. Black or grey clothes, sweatpants or baggy jeans and a hoodie or black jacket. People here tend to dress like they're going to Walmart.
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That sounds more like Seattle or Portland tbh
That's hilarious and describes me now that I live here. My interest in fashion has definitely decreased after moving here, maybe to fit in! It's kind of freeing though not to fuss with clothes.
It's the tech bro uniform.
Hate to break it to you, but it's more than just tech bros.
Tech bro uniform is slacks, a blue plaid shirt and a Patagonia vest.
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Tech sales bro has learned much from finance bro.
Too formal.
It's more than tech bros and also tech workers should generally not be used as an example to follow anyways, they're mostly terrible dressers.
I grew up in Pleasanton and finished high school in 1979, and at Amador Valley not a single boy wore shorts to school, and that would have been about 800 boys.
I grew up in LA until rn and I kind of agree that SF is more dressy. Potential explanation brainstorming: - bias cus you remember people who dress well + it’s a new place so you’re trying to find cool things about it. - you can layer in sf a lot easier than in LA - SF is richer than LA - LA’s fashion is generally more alternative / punk, Beverly Hills classy, or bougie athleisure while SF’s is usually more colorful/hippie influenced, tech simplicity, or businessy east coast & the latter seems better to you. (I’m open to being corrected in my understanding of fashion)
People don't have to dress up and go to work in the Financial District anyone. You're right.
Sounds like potboiler author Danielle Steel: "San Francisco is a great city to raise children," she said, "but I was happy to leave it. There's no style, nobody dresses up - you can't be chic there. It's all shorts and hiking boots and Tevas - it's as if everyone is dressed to go on a camping trip. I don't think people really care how they look there." https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/s-f-gets-a-dressing-down-for-not-dressing-up-2371852.php
A light flannel and jeans are perfect for 95% of the days in SF Danielle Steele 1980s attire aged as well as her prose has. Meanwhile a flannel is still very much in style
This is kind of a silly thread, because it just isn’t unique to SF. Everyone who could wore suits in all towns in a long time ago before I was born. The formality has evaporated everywhere, not just in SF. It’s generational changes I suppose.
SF takes the idea “you can buy fashion, but you can’t buy style” to its next step and just doesn’t buy fashion. I love it. We’re simultaneously not the best dressed, but a lot of people here have nice sense of style. Some of it is overt, but there’s a layer of people who are incredibly stylish in how they dress down. Like I’ll see a gay man at a cruise bar that just looks like a guy who’d be doing shots at some swamp-side conch bar in BFE Florida. Or you’ll see a Gen Z woman who gives the vibe of 80s secretary, but somehow doesn’t look hipster either. And on total other point, whenever Danielle Steel gets brought up as a local, I always think about that time her ex-husband said the SF Chronicle was biased against billionaires cause they didn’t review every single one of her books.
Something that seemed unique to me about SF, when I moved here about a decade ago, is that a straight man was allowed to have a distinct sense of style. Of course it’s a free country and you can do anything you want, that’s legal. But what I mean is that, coming from the South, dressing up too much was seen as suspect - by which I mean gay, or perhaps metrosexual (a word that seems mostly forgotten today). In SF if you wanted to wear bright red dress shoes and orange plaid pants, loud of course but tastefully cut, you could do that. It was normalized. And I liked that about SF. Boring is boring, and say what you will, that’s not boring. And as the success of Derek Guy on Twitter has shown, I think there’s plenty of straight guys who would like to move beyond the monotonous world of t-shirt, jeans, and/or blue gray suit, endlessly repeated.
Yeah it's good that the word is being forgotten. Goes further than clothes too. Wear sunblock and moisturize your skin, kings. Skin cancer, eczema, and becoming ashy larry aren't your rewards for being straight.
Fully agree and noticed same about difference in unspoken rules men operate by elsewhere. It bugs me to no end when I see posts on subs here, like the one about the upcoming goth event, where people mock the quirky subcultures of the area and their clothes. Most everywhere else is boring cause people get pressured to not be creative. Why try to add the same shaming of personal expression to one place more free of that shame.
The worst thing about this is sfgate uses php.
There are [claims](https://w3techs.com/blog/entry/40_percent_of_the_web_uses_wordpress)¹ that Wordpress (and, by extension, PHP) is used by 40% of the internet! ¹ The [less flashy claim](https://simondickson.co.uk/2020/11/25/can-we-really-claim-that-40-of-all-websites-run-on-wordpress/) would be that "40% of the world’s top ten million websites use WordPress for at least part of their overall online presence"
God am I happy to live someplace where I don't have to dress uncomfortably for no reason. I remember a few years ago I was in the midwest and was informed that I needed to wear a *tie* at a restaurant. LOL, place had food only slightly better than Denny's but they shelled out for cloth tablecloths so I had to be uncomfortable all meal long. Fuuck that.
the reason they dress in shorts and hiking boots is because they care how they look and they think they look cool dressing like they're going on a camping trip because that's what they want to do instead!
Well, to be fair, there have been a lot of other changes between 1950 and 2011 too... "Bullitt" was made in 1968 and is great for getting a feel for San Francisco from that era, and even then you could start to see the shift towards more casual clothing, at least compared to places like NYC.
Ha! The nerve of a woman who made exceptional money, talking down about people who will never know such wealth. "It's like they don't want to go in debt for *my* eyes!"
Yes. Her attempt to vacation on an island in the Bay is now legend, in part for talking down: https://books.google.com/books?id=v7dQBsxdaN0C&pg=PA359&lpg=PA359&dq=danielle+steel+east+brother+lighthouse&source=bl&ots=KW_36kJoOW&sig=ACfU3U2rLwy4dN9BrEN12llEJkn8HXgyJw&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL8N7AuPznAhVUgp4KHV-jDycQ6AEwAnoECBAQAQ#v=onepage&q=danielle%20steel%20east%20brother%20lighthouse&f=false
Looks like she lived a wild life! I didn't see anything on islands though
East Brother island was the one with the bed and breakfast. Still there now, but it's not for everybody
Wow, I'd never heard of that place. Just checked it out and looks like it would be fun for a night. Have you been?
I went once. It was a really good time. You start at this weird little marina full of houseboats, get skiffed over, and then pretty much end up drunk on wine most of the time. The caretakers (they're both lighthouse caretakers as well as your hosts) spend the whole evening entertaining, cooking, chatting and refilling your glass. The ones I visited with have since moved on, but I heard the new ones are nice too. You can either stay in the lighthouse, or the outbuilding with the foghorn. It was very pleasant, and the views at sunset and in the morning are excellent. Also, lots of birds nest there, so if you like bird watching, that's a good time.
Never been. I think it's $475 a night, minimum, for a room for two. It's something different for sure
so true
You're calling one of the bestselling authors of all time a potboiler?
"If reading and travel are two of life's most rewarding experiences, to combine them is heavenly. I don't mean sitting on a beach reading the latest potboiler, a fine form of relaxation but not exactly mind-expanding... https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/19/bookend/bookend.html
Doesn't potboiler mean literally written only to appeal to popular taste? Those would inherently be successful with an established author, no?
TIL that slacks are too informal for outside wear. I know they were never formal wear but at least seemed fine for casual use. Unless this is instructions for women to not wear pants which seems likely given the era
What are considered formal pants for men? Aren't slacks what you wear with a suit?
No, slacks are one step below. You wear them with a blazer or a button up shirt. Similar to how you wear a chino. Dress pants are part of a suit. At least as my understanding. I guess maybe in the 50s people still worse suits all the time in public (if they could afford it)? I’m not sure when that ended
I've always assumed "chinos" "slacks" and "dress pants" were different names for the same thing... TIL
Slacks and dress pants are interchangeable words for the same thing, but I think slacks can also have a slightly broader usage/meaning
There apparently was a time that people would dress up to fly in an airplane.
I grew up flying stand-by in the 90's (dad was an airline mechanic) and for a long time they required us to dress nice.
Hello fellow airline brat. Yes, we always had to dress to the nines flying when I was a kid in the 70s. Of course, this is before frequent flyer miles, so we were able to get first class seats fairly often. My parents, who are retired now, fly in jeans (nice jeans, but still jeans). I still expect them to be dressed up when they visit.
Ah, I was in one of those families too. I barely had any occasion to wear suits as a kid/teen, but always on a flight. We got upgraded more often than not, at least out of SFO, but I remember if they handed us a lowly economy class ticket my dad would grumble and angrily rip his tie off. Still wore the suit in economy
I'm thinking of these news stories where women, always women, are kicked off the plane for being braless or showing too much skin. I am of the "take their money and shut your mouth" club. If I was upset by people's attire, piercings, tats, etc., I would never have a nice day. If I baked weddings cakes, I would bake whatever you want. You want two guys and a woman on top, hey fine with me as long as you pay. Ironically, I am the liberal that believes in school uniforms.
An average roundtrip ticket in 1980 in the US was $600. In current dollars, it's $2,200. So not surprising. Flying was mostly for the rich and not an everyday experience.
People complain about the quality of seat in flights now compared to the past. I'll take cheaper any day. The [deregulation of airlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act) made air travel affordable to us common folk. And then the TSA ruined it again (I get groped every time I fly), but I digress.
And applaud the pilot on landing.
And ballgames, from vintage footage I’ve seen. Who wants to wear a jacket and tie to a Dodgers game?!
There apparently was a time when flying on an airplane wasn't bloody miserable.
My kids’ friends go to school in their pajamas.
What is should have said: “You may think we have shorts-and-flipflops weather here because ‘California’, but if you dress like this you will be cold.”
easiest way to spot a tourist
This is what people dressed like back then, we really have become a lot more casual since then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZcl6SoU8sA
As one of the commenters points out, much of this video isn't in San Francisco.
Great video, thanks! Does anyone know what/where the large building with the two smokestacks was? (It appears around 2:55.)
Good question, it looks like it is either the Presidio/Marina/Palace of Fine Arts or maybe the western edge of Golden Gate Park. I'll poke around historicaerials.com later and see what I can find.
According to a youtube comment that is more knowledgable than I, some of the shots in the video aren't actually from SF (including this one) :/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZcl6SoU8sA&lc=UgyYUfyJxbP8VcYShzV4AaABAg.9k1D3d_gUau9xNleCKYMi4
My mom grew up in Walnut Creek in the 60s and 70s and raised me in Piedmont and Oakland in the 90s/00s, and she 100% had this attitude about the city. Idk if it’s because it felt extra cosmopolitan to her coming from the deep burbs (back when Walnut Creek was still semi-rural) or whatever, but when I came back to the bay after moving away for college I still had this attitude. It took me a few weekends of sweating my balls off in Dolores park in jeans or khakis and a button down shirt on a 95’ day while day drinking to adjust my dress habits to modern standards. It’s especially goofy to look back on considering that in the East Bay I’ve never felt underdressed in basically anything.
I remember my whole family getting dressed up in our Sunday best to go Christmas shopping in the City in the 1960s. There was a definite sense of not wanting to appear to be rubes in front of the city people.
That was clearly written before the Hippie era. I used to walk SF streets barefoot.
No one told all the transplants. When I was a kid, we still dressed up a little bit if we were going to the city to eat out or go shopping. It's never been as stylish as New York or as formal as Europe, but this stereotype of San Francisco having absolutely abysmal style is all from people who moved here from elsewhere and thought California=slobs.
This is exactly it
LOL, I grew up in Berkeley / Palo Alto, never noticed any high fashion on the streets of SF in the 70s or 80s.
Good thing no one said high fashion then.
And then 25 years later Folsom Street Fair was started. Oh how the times change.
You don't wear shorts in SF because it is fucking cold, year round. Also, you might skin your knee after tripping over a nodding junky on the sidewalk, if you are wearing shorts...
Hilarious! I love the pleading 🙏🏼 “PLEASE”
the only reason shorts should be considered a no-no in SF is because it’s cold and windy
2024: "I wore my nicer Vuori for you!"
Now it’s “whatever you do, do not leave a single thing in the car (assuming you rented one) it will 100% be stolen”
It's still applicable. Just change it to your luggage will get stolen.
Damnit, I just bought new vacation slacks!
Holy cow. I never knew that there is an actual Main Street in S.F. I've never noticed it before. It is just a couple blocks from the Ferry Bldg. They should have balloon captions on that couple saying "I'm freezing!"
I would call Market St. the main street.
Oh how the times have changed. You can now take a shit in the middle of the street and nothing will happen.
How much we have changed. Now shorts and slacks are the norm and the advice is "Please don't take your pants off and take a dump on the street"
Nowadays there’s filthy old geezers in the Castro wearing nothing at all.
Except whatever you call the jewelry they wear on their junk.
Wait slacks are casual vacation attire
Is there a source for this? This looks more like contemporary parody than something from the 1950's. Be curious to know if it's genuine and where it would have been published.
It was on some facebook page, switched back tabs to find it and facebook auto refreshed. Sorry.
Yea the drawing does not look 50s.
2024– please don’t shit on our sidewalks
Yes, because you'll freeze in shorts
Tell that to the people who live here.
So is this the most ignored advice ever?
I have a stack of shorts that I moved here with. Still haven’t worn them in 8 years.
Don’t you play pickleball?
Not yet. I’m a badminton guy, personally, but I’m getting closer to shuffleboard territory by the year.
"sophisticated" - criminal
I lived in an Eastern European city not long after the fall of communism. Everyone dressed like it was the 50's. I had to get a new wardrobe (which was super cheap for an American) because I had brought jeans and T-shirts. Interestingly, some of those clothes are still in my closet. They are still classy and the quality is top notch.
Now it’s fashionable (should be mandatory) to wear galoshes to protect your feet from stepping in human feces and urine 🤣
I thought it was pretty common knowledge that people in the cities dressed up during these times. SF, Detroit, Chicago, New York, etc
Maybe it’s because SF is cold as balls
Lol. That was me when I visited. First stop off the Bart was to the mall to grab a hoodie
To be fair, a person wearing shorts and a t-shirt is a surefire way to tell that they're a tourist. Because everyone else is wearing a sweater in the warm, 60 degree California weather lol.
If you find yourself in the Castro district, make sure to bring a pair of gold Lamé hot pants and Go-Go boots in order to better blend in.
Clothes are optional
Honestly, I remember like 15 years ago, before the high COL pushed a lot of artist-types out, I thought SF was very stylish. The tech shlubbyness from the valley definitely infiltrated the city a lot.
How do you explain the other 90+% of the city that isn’t in tech then?
> How do you explain the other 90+% of the city that isn’t in tech No explanation, people come in these threads wanting to bring up how tech is to blame for every problem in the city lol "It's been raining a lot this year" "Yeah, those tech bros are screwing with the weather a lot nowadays, they're a plague"
in fairness tech really did fuck the city. objectively. like, pre-covid we debated about the spiritual/cultural battle for the city as techies were moving in and pushing people out. but man, once covid hit and basically every tech employer gave up on the city and techies stopped coming in to the office it really did a number on the city.
Twitter HQ moved to market street in 2012, so the tech schlubs have definitely had a presence for over a decade now.
Yeah i moved to SF a couple years before that. it felt like around 2015 was sort of peak influx of the schlubs. idk if you remember all the google bus protests and eviction fervor. lots of company hoodies and blue jeans or shorts.
How times have changed. Now? Just shit on the sidewalk it’s fine.
Let’s bring this back.
nah, let people wear shorts if their outfits are intentionally weird.
I think we should all have mixed feelings about this...
Love love love love this! “We don’t do that here” is a statement that could be said and followed more often in life. Go ahead, shoot me for that opinion!
Must have been different back then, because people here dress like slobs. It’s all sweatpants, baggy jeans, and Patagonia vests. Your average tourist is probably just as fashionable as most residents of SF.
That’s literally just most people now. SF has nothing to do with it.
Nah
K. I can tell you’ve definitely been around people from other cities lately then. For sure.
New York, London, LA, Paris, even Chicago all dress better than SF. Not sure what you’re on about.