What You Like to Wear on Weekends Changes

Unless you work in the creative workforce or are retired, you must dress within certain norms of an employer-approved dress code. Even when you have to wear a uniform, you enjoy the freedom to turn fashion into style and pick your own look in your time off. In this post, I will show you how weekend fashion style has, and ellucidate how my weekend style has changed for other reasons than fashion style has changed over time.

 

 

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Today, Weekend Style Means Casual for Professionals

When your work dress code is corporate, you have to dress up all week. When you are lucky, there is a Casual Friday culture. Nevertheless, whatever you wear has to stay within the framework of the HR-approved dress code. Thus, the weekend means dress-down or casual for many corporate employees. Employees having to wear a uniform or business casual style feel similar.

We love the athleisure looks for comfort in summer. In winter, we create a lovely leggings look with a cozy sweater outfit for watching TV, reading a book, or browsing fashion on social media.

We also spend time with our family and friends. Of course, what we wear depends on the plans and the weather. You dress for a spa weekend differently than you dress for attending a sports event.

 

 

 

 

My Favorite Outfits to Wear in my Spare Time

Of course, the outfits depend on what I am doing. Gardening in Alaska calls for jeans and kuspuk. Shopping for a casual look is perfect when it is the grocery store. A floral dress is perfect for the Farmers Market. My husband and I are passionate dancers. Thus, dance garments are It for us.

 

 

 

 

In the 1960s and 1970s, Weekend Meant Sunday’s Best

As a child, I never thought about wearing the same every Sunday. On Sundays, I was supposed to wear my Sunday Best. This means I had a winter dress and a summer dress that I wore every Sunday. I recall a pink and white polka dot dress with a pink jacket from first grade, a white sheath with embellishment over the chest that I wore in summer in second and third grade on Sundays. In winter, I had a brown velvet dress. I got a rust-colored jersey dress with stripes and a club sign application on the chest in fourth grade.

On Saturdays, I was so fortunate to have to go to school. It meant I was allowed to wear what I wanted as long as I obeyed my mom’s fashion rules. I disliked it when the school board turned to one Saturday per month to be without school. It just meant another day with “Sunday dressing rules.” In plain English, I had to dress for my parents’ action plan.

 

Saturday Shopping and Other Family Activity Outfits

Action plans I hated were jogging, hiking, walking, bicycling, and car washing. I still don’t like any gym gear or athletic attire meant to be worn for exercise. However, I love leather joggers with polo and Keds for the weekend, or the athleisure trend may be because they are making fun of the original. Maybe not.

I loved dressing for going shopping in Duisburg, Krefeld (both in Germany), or Venlo (the Netherlands), even if it was just grocery shopping. I loved the big department stores, the neon lights, the decorations, the outdoor markets, and looking at the store windows and observing what people wore.

 

Casual Weekend Style Outfits of My Childhood

I also loved collecting potatoes from the fields after the harvest or coal from the mining dump. We wore old clothes, i.e., distressed, ripped, or otherwise in bad shape. I liked the distressed look and that I could mix prints/patterns. My mom’s rule was just one print or pattern per outfit. However, when the call was for these activities, the rule was just that we had to wear old clothes that were too old to be worn to school.

Furthermore, we wore rubber rain boots with these outfits, no matter the weather. Why? There was a lot of dust and sand in that mining waste dump, and the fields were pretty sandy.

You wouldn’t get the sand in your “shoes” wearing boots. Real boots would have been too “expensive” to wear on the dump or in the fields.

I loved the fresh potatoes my mom would fry after we came home. Therefore, I collected small potatoes well because she would fry small ones.  I didn’t like cooked potatoes except those my granny had cooked.

 

Coal Collection vs. Science Interests

I had no ambitions to be the best coal collector among us kids who would find the largest piece of coal or collect the most. On the contrary, I was more of a burden than a help. Yes, I participated in the activity and threw one of the other pieces of coal into the wheelbarrow. But actually, doing so was only a side part of another goal. My interest was in the imprints of ancient plants in the rock pieces. When looking for them, you had to dig thru the dirt. While my sibling lifted dirt to find the coal, I lifted it to find imprints. Thus, when I had to lift a piece of coal, it went into the wheelbarrow. Every rock would be turned around and hit with another stone to see whether I could split it to find an imprint. You know, I spent time searching for imprints rather than leftover coal.

 

What Happened to My Collection

When the wheelbarrow was full, I had endless discussions with my father about how many of my finds I could take home. The dump was about three miles from my parents’ house. I had to either carry them myself or put them on the wheelbarrow. However, my Dad’s interest was, of course, to put as many coals on the wheelbarrow as possible. It was the time of and after the oil crisis. Heating the house as cheaply as possible was a legitimate goal.

Over time, I had curated a great collection or ancient imprints. One day, when I returned from college, all my rock vegetation imprints were gone. My mom had donated them to her school. I was pretty upset back then. Today, I think she did a good thing. This way a lot of students get to see them.

 

What Did People Wear on the Weekend in the 1980s?

Recall the sweat pants and sweater outfits couples wore in partner look when shopping for groceries on Saturday mornings? In the early to mid-1980s, I wore jeans, a sweater, sunglasses, a thermal jacket, a bucket hat, and a parachute. When the weather was nice, you could find me on the airstrip pushing gliders between soaring in the sky. Towards the late 1980s, graduate school sucked up a lot of time. Thus, my looks were more along the lines of picnic outfits.

 

How Did People Dress Up in the 1990s?

In Germany, hiking outfits were It as well as surfing. Even when not being in the mountains or on the beach, these youth groups wore these uniforms day-in-day out.  In the 1990s, my husband and I worked in different towns. Since we only saw each other at the end of the week, our looks were date night, dancing, travel or shopping outfits. The look in the example photo features an all black outfit in the 90s uniform style, but with contemporary pieces.

 

 

The 21st Century Saturday Night Fever – Dance Outfits

My husband and I are passionate ballroom dancers. When we go out for dancing I like to wear jeans with a top when the dance place is a country and western style place. It is not like dressing for a military ball. When we go out for milongas or Latin I prefer a flapper type dress. In other words, what to wear when going out for dancing depends on the venue. The look must allow to dance to the type of music played, the vibe of the music and match the dress-code of the place itself.

 

Best dance outfits for a Western Bar

Here is my Saturday nite outfit example for dancing at a Western bar: Rolled up washed jeans, studded heels, a sequin stripe top, and a faux fur bomber. Another reason to wear jeans for West Coast swing dancing is that we do some aerials and lifts. Thus, a skirt or dress is not a suitable choice unless you wear shorts underneath.

 

An alternative is a retro fit-and-flare dress like the next look. To stay with the retro-theme opaque tights are a great choice. Moreover, you won’t have a problem with aerials.

 

Salsa cruise and tequila tasting

The salsa cruise on the Chena River is an annual event in Fairbanks and a “go to” for everyone in the dancing community. The chairs are removed from the riverboat to make place for dancing. DJ atm  plays salsa for people to dance.

 

River Dance Cruises on Deck of the Tanana Chief …

… mean you are dinner for the the mosquitoes. That’s why a cocktail dress is not your best option. Well, the riverboat is a tourist boat meaning that it has outside decks. There are tons of mosquitoes during a late evening cruise. It always seems like the mosquitoes come out at 7pm. The top with sequins makes the outfit event appropriate. The jeans and bomber leather jacket are good protection from the “blood suckers”.

 

Further Weekend Style Outfit Ideas

 

 

 

 

 

Photos of me: G. Kramm

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