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Interesting shoe viewpoint, it rather begs the question of who patented patent leather, if formal wear is to be discussed?
Colin_the_Bald-
Not sure if I’m expressing a viewpoint, tbh, other than what is and isn’t formal clothing is entirely dependent on the culture of a group/society, and it’s a bit of a moot point to judge it from the outside, even if it is as seemingly ridiculous as trump’s America’s take on presentable and formal attire.
I mentioned brogued shoes because, in the context of fashion lending itself to limitless pedantics, brogued leather shoes are an example of originally informal attire that has become widely accepted as at least semi-formal, but that a pedant could judge a social group that considers those shoes as formal wear. I’m not saying that Nick_h. was doing this, to be clear.
Muc-ed-off
Yeah but fashion lends itself to ever increasing pendantics, especially on liminal issues like what constitutes formal wear. If a group only wears polos on formal occasions, then that makes it formal wear, at least for that cultural group.
A similar phenomenon happens with shiny brogued leather shoes. They’re marketed as dress shoes and many people use them as formal wear, even as wedding attire, possibly thinking that the additional complexity of pretty geometric patterns must mean a more elegant and refined shoe. However, brogued shoes were originally developed for manual labourers to keep their feet ventilated and cool on the job, and the highest quality shoes are made of single cut leather pieces with no decoration at all. Does that mean people are mistakenly using brogued shoes as formal wear, or have brogued shoes become formal wear for those groups?