The Impetus of 90’s Etiquette Era?

On a flight from New York to Paris, the etiquette authority Letitia Baldrige found herself seated next to a nearly nude dude from California. “Bared to the waist, he was,” she said. “The flight attendants didn't say one thing. He was a surfer, very suntanned, and I must say he had a great body.” Contributing to the decline in decorum, in Ms. Baldrige's view, is a growing folksiness in the corporate culture. “Companies are telling employees to first-name everyone, to forget about deference to age and rank,” she said. “All of a sudden, it's not only the C.E.O., but the clergyman and the schoolteacher who are being called Joe. It's spreading like wildfire.”

Informality Reigns, And Good Manners Get a Bad Name – Was this the impetus for the eventual “1990’s Etiquette Era”?

THE pleasure of your company is requested in a new age of informality. Do not bother to R.S.V.P. Do not get done up in black tie. The mood just now is one of casualness in dress, in manners, on all fronts.

This is the time of the artfully unmade bed (rise, take up your downy duvet and toss it); the carry-out dinner; the telephone solicitor who calls at all hours and addresses you by your first name.

A date for the movies and Chinese food nowadays does not necessarily mean two distinct activities. Not in the age of informality. And not in New York, where any number of moviegoers are capable of eating Sichuan from a carton while following the action on the screen. The pros use chopsticks.

Q. Is the informality of the 1990’s anything like the informality of the 60’s?

A. No. Women wore T-shirts and no bras in the 60’s. Today it’s bras and no shirts.

In keeping with the new informality, affluent urbanites who once drove around town in BMW’s have switched to Jeep Cherokees and Ford Explorers. “It feels right now,” said Steven Meier, a Manhattan lawyer who travels to meetings in his trusty Explorer dressed in a sports jacket and khakis.

A blue suit with a Giorgio Armani label hangs in his office closet “in case I have to impress a client.” But he rarely reaches for it. “In today’s economy you don't want to wow ‘em with your elegant shoes, your gold ring, your fancy car,” Mr. Meier said. “That's not the style anymore.”

Along Park Avenue, social couples who once did time on the charity circuit now look upon opulent parties as boring or embarrassing. Let’s have some of that new informality, they say. Which may explain the number of informal charity parties on the calendar this season.

Take, for example, the Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association's Bingo and Barbecue Benefit in June. The association used to hold black-tie auctions and sales of antiques and artworks. A couple of years ago, it sponsored a benefit sale of watercolors from the collections of Louis XIV, the Empress Josephine, Napoleon and members of the French court.

Let them eat barbecue.

“There is a wish for greater informality in these gatherings,” said George Trescher, the marketing consultant who runs most of New York's big charity events. “Particularly if you're trying to mix groups of young and older guests.”

Mr. Trescher, who was tieless at the time, said the dress code has been unraveling for years now. But jeans at the theater? The ballet? The opera? “Yes, yes,” he said. “What's new is that nobody looks askance at it. It's laissez-faire.”

Heads did not turn unduly when Kevin Walz took an aisle seat in the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera the other night. He was wearing wool pants, no jacket and a plaid shirt unbuttoned at the neck to reveal his undershirt.

“What a bum, huh?” he said, stroking his chin. “I didn't even shave.”

Mr. Walz, a furniture designer, was dressed for a rock concert he planned to attend after “The Marriage of Figaro.” He said a trend toward piggybacking cultural events might have something to do with the new informality.

“Last month I went to the ballet in jeans for an evening of Stravinsky and then down to the Ritz,” he said. ”I snuck out five minutes early so I wouldn't miss the Pixies.”

To observe the new informality on the move, hang around in an airport terminal. Count the sneakers, the shorts, the sweatsuits, even in business class.

“We were talking about that the other day, coming back from Barbados,” said Sisi Cahan of Manhattan, a frequent flier long before they had clubs. “People used to look terrific traveling, and now they look ghastly. I haven't seen anyone attractive in an airport in years.”

On a flight from New York to Paris, the etiquette authority Letitia Baldrige found herself seated next to a nearly nude dude from California.

“Bared to the waist, he was,” she said. “The flight attendants didn't say one thing. He was a surfer, very suntanned, and I must say he had a great body.”

Contributing to the decline in decorum, in Ms. Baldrige's view, is a growing folksiness in the corporate culture. “Companies are telling employees to first-name everyone, to forget about deference to age and rank,” she said. “All of a sudden, it's not only the C.E.O., but the clergyman and the schoolteacher who are being called Joe. It's spreading like wildfire.”

Ms. Baldrige, who lives in Washington and lectures around the country, went on to say that “down here the diplomats try to hold onto some formality in entertaining, but it's getting worse and worse.”

“Some people don't even bother to R.S.V.P.,” she said. “Other people accept for seated black-tie dinners and don't show up. Or they show up with small children. ‘Oh, I couldn't get a baby sitter -- knew you wouldn't mind.’”

For an academic look at the reasons behind the new informality, put in a call to Michael T. Marsden, a professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

A secretary answered the phone, informally. (“This is Sylvia.”)

The caller asked for Professor Marsden. (“Hi, this is Mike.”)

Professor Marsden cautioned against comparing the informality of the 1960’s, which was real and deep and wide, to the informality of the 90’s. It could be one of those behavioral blips on the East and West Coasts that never go anywhere.

“In the 60’s, wearing blue jeans was identifying with the working-class culture,” he said. “In today’s, world the up-and-coming executive is supposed to aspire to the leisure life. What better way to show this than to wear a sweatsuit? It's costuming.”

Nonetheless, Professor Marsden went on, society has thrown off some formal trappings taken on in the 80’s. “But not all,” he said. “Look at weddings. Formal weddings are on the rise. As for funerals, when people are laid out at wakes, they're generally dressed formally. It's not likely you’ll find somebody being buried in their sweatsuit.”

In any case, elaborate entertaining is out in New York. No more putting on the dog for company. Caterers who used to gussie up trays of hors d'oeuvres with foie gras medallions say they are making meatloaf, mashed potatoes and beans. “But beans don't have to be beige or boring,” said Susan Simon, whose catering company on the Lower East Side has always been known for its stylish and informal food.

And guests like Mr. Walz, the jeans-at-the-ballet man, find the down-home feeling refreshing. “You even see Pyrex on the table now,” he said. “People are much more casual about entertaining. They're acknowledging that life is tough in New York. What's important is that we're all together, having dinner. So what if there are a dozen kids underfoot and the centerpiece is daisies?”

When not dining at home, some busy New Yorkers are dining out, informally, while doing something else or waiting to do something else. In coin laundries, in bank lines, in doctors' offices, everywhere there is the crinkle of foil unfolding, the snap of aluminum cans opening.

Subways, always informal, have become more so with commuters breakfasting on bagels and coffee and applying major makeup and nail polish. On the F train the other day, Lucinda McBride blotted her lips with a tissue, smiled and said, “My mother said never put on lipstick in public.” She went on to apply eye shadow and mascara as the train rumbled from Brooklyn toward Manhattan.

“This is how I get ready for the office,” Ms. McBride said, studying her face in a mirror. “I've got two kids under 6.”

That's nothing, according to Phyllis Hall, who works for a trade magazine in Manhattan and commutes on a No. 68 N.J. Transit bus with a man who manages to change from sports clothes to a business suit on the turnpike.

“By the time we come out of the Lincoln Tunnel, he's in full business attire,” she said. “He even does cuff links.”

Here is the new informality personified. Except for the cuff links. They must go. – The New York Times, April 1, 1992

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