Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
Here in the US Southwest, with our quirky-to-nonexistent dress codes, it's somewhat like that.

There are men, including millionaires and celebrities, who wear the classic Hollywood black t-shirt + blue jeans for all occasions. Alone it's everyday office dress. With a sport coat it passes for things where many men are in suits. With a tuxedo jacket it passes for formal attire.

Ditto "Western Wear" where a man might wear the same cowboy boots, boot-cut jeans, and cowboy hat to any occasion whatever. The only concession to formality might be the addition of a bolo tie.
Those bizarre “interpretations” of men’s formal dress seen so often at the Academy Awards look absolutely ridiculous to me.

And, my tough-as-nails father in law—Olympic Gold Medalist (Helsinki, 400 meter relay) was one tough Texas cowboy as well. Back when multiple myeloma was typically fatal within 2 years he survived 20. He went to LA to be a wide receiver for the Rams, but wisely diverted to a long career as a cowboy stuntman. He left LA as soon as he stopped doing cinematic bar fights and celebrity horseman stunts and returned to a quiet life raising longhorns west of Ft. Worth. At his funeral, I think there were only 2 people “outfitted” with Y Chromosomes not who were not topped off by Stetsons in the church service—and, as I recall, they stayed ON during the service. Just a few months earlier, I had provided a Piper for the funeral service of the woman who’d been my wife’s substitute mom when her parents were off to Utah, MT, Idaho, or wheeever for extended movie shoots. Dean had so many Stetsons in their original retail cartons that they lined the walls of his living room the way some of us might deploy wallpaper. I didn’t even dream of interrupting the “down on the Brazos” tenor of HIS graveside celebration of life with drones from the pipes, which, fittingly was topped off by his 22 yo son (he was 92 when he succumbed) ATTEMPTING to brand his coffin at graveside with the logo displayed by his ranch gate and his cattle. The branding iron was heated by a gas generator, which labored loudly, but couldn’t get the iron hot enough to defile Dean’s coffin.