It’s that time of year, Labor Day weekend. School is about to start back up, the football season will soon be fully underway and an irrelevant rule seems to pop into conversations more often, that no-wearing-white-after-Labor-Day rule.
Yes, we did say irrelevant because, to put it simply, it’s outdated and false! People who tend to wear white after Labor Day end up looking fashion forward rather than a fashion foul.
Seriously, white after Labor Day has provided some of the best fashion moments for decades. Coco Chanel made white a year-round must-have in her wardrobe as far back as the 1920s and Michelle Obama danced in a floor-length white gown at the inaugural ball in 2009.
While some still adhere to the rule, even Emily Post, the 19th century queen of proper etiquette and manners, has given the okay for wearing white after Labor Day in her 2004 manners bible. I mean, the latest addition to the rule came in the 1960s, so no wonder it’s outdated! So where did this silly little rule come from? Well, no one quite seems to know its exact origin, but there are a few fun theories to throw around.
The first is the most logical, so we may as well get it out of the way. After all, it’s almost become common sense. How many times can someone grimace when they see you wearing black when you’re planning on going outside, right? “You’re going to be so hot!” they’ll say, fanning themselves just imagining it.
Dark colors, black especially, attract sunlight and, consequently, heat, meaning that, on the other hand, white is our best friend in the summer. White is light, so we wear white in the summer to keep cool. Thus, when the cooler weather starts to come back, it’s time to break out those dark colors again because we don’t need to avoid the sunlight and heat quite as much.
This was particularly true back in the day when people wore heavier, formal clothing all year round. Really, there was no avoiding the heat and the sweat, but white clothes helped tremendously since it was lighter than other colors. We can barely imagine what it would be like without air conditioning, let alone having to wear full-length, long-sleeved dresses in the middle of the summer. Oh, we’d be staying away from dark colors like they were the plague.
Others, however, believe that the rule has a different beginning and is more related to class than temperature. In the early 20th century, white became the go-to look for Americans who were wealthy enough to leave their drab city homes and head to warmer climates for a few months at a time. The working man in decades like the 1930s was always seen wearing darker clothes. This, however, could tie the two origins together, couldn’t it? The rich could leave their homes for warmer vacation spots, thus rich enough to buy a new wardrobe they would buy clothes suited for warmer weather, meaning lighter colors and white to beat the heat. Hmm…
But even if it wasn’t temperature connected, the white outfits were synonymous with wealthier individuals. But the older society families became concerned about the fashion of the nouveau riche and thus established a complex code of fashion rules to keep them separate, like “no white after Labor Day.” By the 1950s, this code became legitimate rules. The old-money could protect and identify them from the upward-moving new-money.
Very interesting, we agree, since it sounds like a couple of high school cliques using fashion as their weapon. But still, more theories surround the beginning of the rule that everyone knows but no one actually needs to follow.
Another fascinating theory concerns the socialites and high fashion magazines based in New York. Considering I’m an East Coaster myself, I never considered the effect of seasons since they’re just a part of life. But seasons could have played a pivotal role in the reasoning behind the outdated rule.
While white is nice for summer – we have already covered this reasoning due to temperature – the cold weather, heavy rain, mud and even snow that comes with the cooler seasons could easily dirty our favorite white pieces. The New York editors understood this mentality and implemented it in the pages of the magazines that set the tone for the country. New York was trend-setting and when they stopped putting white on the models, people were encouraged to stop wearing white themselves.
But perhaps our favorite reasoning for the rule comes from Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, as she cleverly states, “Very rarely is there actually a functional reason for a fashion rule.”
Oh, we believe that. Functional is certainly not the first word thought of when fashion is on the brain. That’s definitely true of today’s times which could be why the rule has seen such a steady decline in how well-followed it is. From the runways to the shoes girls wear to high school, something doesn’t have to be functional to be fashionable.
So whether you want to wear white clothes, bags, denim, coats and even shoes, just about everyone agrees nowadays that we’re in the clear to do so. And if you meet someone that doesn’t? Well, just heed the advice of actress and fashionista Rachel Bilson, “Forget the old rules. I love white all year round. It’s cooler to wear it when you aren’t supposed to.”
Want to work your way into white post-Labor Day? Or just try out a color that can compliment almost anyone’s skin tone? Try “winter white,” more of a cream color, and even pair it with darker colors. It’s a warmer color and totally escapes the rule under all conditions and origins. But don’t ask us why! That’s probably even more convoluted than the reasoning behind the rule in the first place.
