If you go to church, do you dress up?

[ButterflyBlood]

I'm wondering if anyone still does. I remember only 10 years ago when I was in high school they would use "church clothes" as a standard for school events with more formal dress, but today that just seems odd. No one dresses up at the one I go to now, the pastor and all staff wear jeans, and yesterday I saw a lot of people in T-shirts and ripped jeans waving their arms, shaking and sometimes collapsing in tears. I didn't go to church in college but I do remember if I was ever near an auditorium where some church groups on campus met and I saw people entering or leaving they were never dressed any differently than if they were going to class.

As someone who hates dressing up, any tradition of doing so I'm happy to see go away.

[ZombieHorde]

1. My mother is a weekly church goer. When she goes to church on the east coast,

she dresses up, because that is the tradition. When she goes to church in Montana, she does not dress up, because that is the tradition.

She attends Catholic churches.

[xchrom]

2. Yes. But not in a shirt & tie kind of way.

Im a devout fashionista among other things.

& I have a strong penchant for BOHO.

[brendan120678]

3. I usually wear slacks and a polo...

or if it's really hot out, a polo and khaki-style shorts (cause our church is big and stone and not air conditioned).

In any case, I always have a collard shirt on. Is that dressing up? Some people dress much fancier than me, others dress much sloppier than me.

[Warpy]

4. I don't attend, but I see church crowds in this town on Sundays

and it seems to depend on the church. Some of the churches in the fancier part of town play dress up. The Quakers are extremely casual, as are the Unitarians. Storefront churches draw working people and street people and it's come as they are. The other mainstream churches seem to draw a mix of people who dress up and people who don't.

[northoftheborder]

5. Casual, but not jeans. Flat shoes. slacks or skirt.

I don't wear grungy clothes anywhere except at home. Church used to be a place where people dressed as nicely as they could. Customs change. I like the more casual tradition. I don't like skimpy, tattered clothes on kids, anywhere.

[Heavy Metal Dude]

6. An old pastor of mine once said...

..."If you want to know hot to dress properly for church, just dress so that you look like you want to be there." In my case that means a casual pair of slacks and no heavy metal t-shirt with ketchup stains all over it. LOL!

[ButterflyBlood]

16. Well in my case that does mean a T-shirt and ripped jeans

Since that's exactly how I dress going to places I want to be, like my favorite bars and music venues and all that.

[dmallind]

7. Not a churchgoer, but interestingly mirrors a recent discussion among opera fans

I'm not as young an opera fan as I was a couple decades ago (well duh - I mean relatively though) but at 42 I'm still on the youhger side. The divide seems to be about my age or a little younger in either bewailing or celebrating, but all are noting that the tradition of wearing formal wear (even to the point of formal dinner jackets/bow ties and gowns) is becoming less common. When I started going, very few operagoers outside the student standees eschewed ties and jackets. I always dressed less formally than the vast majority in business casual get up, but lately I am if anything on the dressier end of the crowd in the same attire. Personally I never saw the point of dressing up to sit in the dark and watch other people perform, so it's a bit funny to be viewed as a traditionalist because I don't wear jeans and a T shirt. (I'm not dressing up for the event incidentally - I am just more comfortable in khakis and a button down shirt - I go to sports bars in the same get-up). Only La Scala that I am aware of still has a dress code that requires dark jacket and tie.

At churches there is if anything less reason to dress up. Sure you can be seen more clearly then in the opera hall, but you also (probably!) go more often and (hopefully!) pay lss for the privilege. Churches would be dying out far faster if they charged three figures for a seat.

[murielm99]

9. Interesting.

My youngest used to have an antipathy toward dressing up. She was going to the opera with us, Lyric in Chicago. I told her no jeans at the opera. She complied without a complaint.

There were still some very dressy people there. I even saw some furs.

[frogmarch]

8. I don't go to church except for funerals

and weddings. For those occasions I usually wear dressy slacks and a blouse and blazer, with dressy low-heeled pumps, or dressy flats. If I were a regular church-goer I'd go dressy-casual too.

[dmallind]

11. oh yep the overdresers are still out there

I remember one MN Opera visit just a few years back - and this place is a couple of steps lower on the opera ladder than the Lyric. A woman was in full silk gown with fur stole and jewels, and her male partner was in long-tailed dinner jacket with white ruffle shirt and bow tie - with a silver-topped walking stick too. Somewhat funnily his jacket was red - a coat intended for formal hunting events rather than the theatre.

Haven't been to the Lyric for about three years but there was plenty of both formal gowns and jeans in evidence. Hopefully your daughter either didn't get mad or didn't notice the latter with all the opportunity to ogle the former - either from interest or humor depending on her approach to fashion.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Regular church I don't dress up much for. Nice-ish everyday clothes. Weddings and funerals

however, I dress up for.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Since I work at home, I rarely dress up except for church or

the opera or the Minnesota Orchestra or other such occasions.

I'm under a choir robe most of the time, but I do like to look nice at coffee hour or brunch afterwards.

[ButterflyBlood]

17. I can dress casually at my work, so I basically never dress up

I haven't in a year now. The time I did was my cousin's wedding and my mom bought me a "nice" shirt with buttons for it because she knew I wouldn't have anything besides T-shirts otherwise, lol.

[dtexdem]

13. Yes, of course: take off my PJs and put on jeans and shirt.

Just like when I go to work.

Of course, I go to work all the time but seldom go to church.

(And, yeah, I answered "no" to the poll question.)

[provis99]

14. me and the other three atheists who go to our church dress up.

The Elders of the church are a bunch of lazy, beer drinking slobs (the church is against alcohol; its an Associated Gospel denomination) who wear muscle shirts and Harley Davidson t shirts while in church. Ironic that the closeted atheists have more respect for the institution of Sunday services than the Elders do.

[AlecBGreen]

18. lol

:thumbsup:

[woodsprite]

15. It depends what I'll be doing during or after church

If I'm performing, I'll wear something nice like dress pants/top. Most of the time I wear jeans or khakis and a polo shirt or nice sweater. Hubby will wear dress pants and a shirt/tie. If we're serving communion, he'll add a jacket to that because every other guy serving communion has a jacket on. We (and our generation) probably dress down the most at church. It's a few families like us (in our 40s), then it bounces to the above 65 lot, where their major weekend activity is going to church and brunch.

[AlecBGreen]

19. just joined a church a year ago

Im not big on dressing up, usually cargo shorts and a collared shirt. I wear Chaco sandals everywhere and church is no exception. Its funny; we are a VERY conservative denomination but virtually everyone who attends is theologically (and some, politically) liberal. Its a good reminder not to pigeonhole people.

[onager]

20. Here's how they dress at one mega-church...

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/