Voluntary dress codes made menswear a marker of sophistication in the 2010s

Evidence

While retailers had long anchored their businesses around women’s seemingly insatiable interest in fashion, the early 2010s saw a surprising surge in menswear sales, even without a formal return to uniforms or dress codes. Dressing up remained voluntary, which gave clothing new significance as a marker of sophistication. In the aughts, European fast-fashion brands like H&M, Zara, and Topshop had served as gateways for middle-class youth to experiment with style. Now many of those same shoppers aspired to the real deal, seeking out higher-end options. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 398

Categorization

• XREF: Voluntary dress creating new status significance fits the reader’s interest in how the ‘blankness’ era re-encoded status once formal signaling collapsed.