Do you dress up to go out? Don’t you wish everyone did?

You know the feeling. You dress sharply for a special evening at a theater or fancy restaurant, and your date is just as classily clad.

You arrive. In you go. Everything looks great.

Then, you wind up sitting next to a group that seems to have gotten lost on the way to a demolition derby. Jeans, probably ripped, are the trousers of choice, along with ratty T-shirts and baseball caps that the gentlemen don’t doff.

It takes some of the glow off the evening, doesn’t it? Didn’t these people’s mothers teach them about the importance of dressing for an Occasion?

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Elisabeth Vincentelli carried on in a New York Post column about people who showed up at Broadway theaters and even the Metropolitan Opera in Crocs and cargo shorts.

Kristin Chenoweth

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She touched a nerve. A printout of her column ran two pages; the comments, pro and con, covered eight. She had defenders, who maintained that everyone can afford decent clothing, while critics slammed her as a snob.

«Style, low budget and comfort aren’t mutually exclusive,» Vincentelli wrote. «Keep that in mind if you’re older than 12.»

The universal decline in sartorial standards, even at funerals, is almost enough to make one wish that dress codes would make a comeback at high-end establishments, she wrote.

One of my heroes in the defender-of-standards category is George Rico, Commander’s Palace’s fondly remembered maître d’, who once turned away the members of Nine Inch Nails when the rockers showed up looking shabby. Chastened, they returned in snazzy Armani suits.

I’m not suggesting that people need to dress for an evening out as if they were heading to the Rex ball or dinner at Downton Abbey, although that’s a lovely notion. But grown-ups do need to pay attention to the importance of the event and dress accordingly, if only to make their company for the evening feel special.

Yes, it’s summer, and it’s hot and humid. But still. Make an effort, Vincentelli wrote.

«So while you can hold on to your crop tops and ratty band tees, you may also think twice about where and when you wear them,» Vincentelli wrote. «After all, if you dress better, you’ll feel better.»

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