Apr 30, 2018 3 min read

It’s a well-known fact that you can spot American tourists worldwide by their shiny white tennis shoes. Or shorts. Or sweatsuits. While there’s nothing wrong with casual dress, everyone’s definition of “casual” is different. Dockers and polo shirts at the office on Fridays is fine. But wearing torn denim short-shorts and a sexually suggestive T-shirt to church is not. Nor is wearing flip-flops – even rhinestone-bedecked ones – to the White House, as a member of the Northwestern University championship women’s lacrosse team did in 2005.

About a year ago, fashion mavens declared it perfectly fine for men or women to wear “onesies” – something that looks astoundingly inappropriate on anyone older than Maggie Simpson. A friend spotted a woman in the checkout line at a local store wearing a Snuggie – officially described by its marketers as “the blanket with sleeves.” Yeah, Americans love casual.

Having neither lived abroad nor traveled extensively, I have no firm idea of what people in other countries choose for casual attire. But my overall sense from what I’ve seen is even when they dress sloppily, foreigners have a better sense of style than Americans.

But it’s interesting foreigners apparently want to dress like Americans. The website LifeintheUSA .com, which also explains etiquette and such things as dating and relationships, goes to great lengths to explain how this can be accomplished.

“In America, your clothing – whether business or casual – should always be clean, ironed, and neatly worn. Both men and women in business wear suits, meaning the jacket is of the same material and matches the trousers or skirt. Shoes are well maintained and shined. Women wear nylon stockings of appropriate color for the season. Men wear neckties, and many women wear some kind of neatly tied scarf with a suit.”

The website carries the date 2014, but I believe they based this advice on video footage from Eisenhower’s 1956 inauguration. At any rate, this guidance must seem particularly flawed once emigres get 300 feet beyond their port of entry.

Sadly, there are signs the “American casual” approach to fashion is spreading. A New Zealand movie theater announced on Facebook recently that customers will no longer be permitted inside the complex if they arrive wearing pajamas, bathrobes, onesies or muck-caked Wellington boots. “It is not the vibe or environment we want to encourage here at Hawera Cinemas,” read the Facebook post.

Sorry, but theaters began asking for this type of behavior when they started providing tilt-back lounge chairs.

Call it the recline and fall of Western civilization.