Can someone explain the whole ‘No wearing white after labour day’ thing?

27 comments

1. Who understands fashion? I certainly don’t. I also don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who actually follows that rule.

2. That died with Nancy Reagan

3. It’s an archaic rule of etiquette and fashion. It no longer has any influence, if it ever did.

4. It’s an archaic informal fashion rule that only ever made sense in the northeastern part of the United States due to how their seasons and climate works.

5. It’s just old and uppity fashion advice. No one really cares

6. [According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the concept of not wearing white after Labor Day started in the 19th century as a way for the upper class to separate themselves from the working class. Some historians say brighter clothing was worn by affluent groups who could afford to leave town for a warmer coast when the leaves began to change. Subsequently, it became socially accepted that those who didn’t have the money to take fall and winter vacations shouldn’t don white after the last summer holiday.](https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/holidays-celebrations/a40246129/white-after-labor-day-history/)

7. The most important thing to know is that it only exists now as a phrase to reference breaking a pointless rule.

8. Despite all these people telling you it’s not a thing any more, it’s very much a thing among the upper middle classes in the southeast and mid-Atlantic. Maybe elsewhere but I just know what I know.

9. Fashion has changed!

10. Some groups like to make up a whole lot of rules so as to distinguish insiders and disparage outsiders. It’s snobbery.

11. My uneducated guess is that it originated in a region where the weather became wetter, and streets muddier, late August or early September. In the days before Clorox and washing machines, white clothes were difficult to maintain and a sign of privilege. Swearing off white during the cooler and rainier months was a means of preservation.

12. The basic premise is that white is a spring/summer/vacation color and Labor Day marks the official end of summer. I am sure there are some stodgy old upper crust folks who still adhere to that but it isn’t a hard and fast rule anymore. Some white clothing definitely goes out of season when the weather gets cooler (like linen pants) but you’ll still see people wearing white jeans, sweaters, shoes, coats, etc.

13. There were VERY strict rules and guidelines about fashion and grooming in the Victorian era.

    Boys ONLY parted their hair on the side, girls in the middle. Everything from length of skirt, the type of fabric you wore (and colors) when in mourning, when a boy could wear long pants, wearing your hair down was subject to all these rules.

    This was one of those that lasted a long time.

14. It’s essentially just because white is a traditionally spring/summer color, but honestly it’s going out of style to do it this way. No one really does it anymore

15. It doesn’t exist, if it ever did

16. Heard this my whole life.. Never met one single person who abides by it.. not one

17. It’s just an old fashion rule. Some might notice if you break it, but hardly anyone will care. There isn’t a whole lot of logic behind what is considered fashionable and what isn’t.

18. It has gone out of style like wearing an onion on your belt.

19. Long story short, it started as a classist movement to distinguish the rich from the poor.

20. It’s the desire to have unwritten rules for the select few that are only shared within the select few. It is no fashion rule just a closed society that leverages things like this to keep people outside.

21. I am not sure, I have never actually heard of it before. From a cursory glance, it looks like it has a lot to do with the upper class in the 1900s.

22. Can someone explain when before Labor Day begins and after ends?

23. And ‘Winter White’ is a total thing with its own shade of white. Think the white cuffs on Santa’s suit.

24. I don’t know where it came from, but as a teen I wore a white shirt the dat after labor day because I thought the rule was stupid.

    ……That was as rebellious as I got

25. My grandmother explained it was the rule because with coal and wood heat there was soot, and as the weather got wet there was mud. If you wore your white clothes after Labor Day they would get ruined and washing anything before electricity was a huge PITA.

    Nobody pays a bit of attention to it today because there isn’t nearly the soot there used to be and washing clothes is not a big deal.

26. The only people who seemed to care about it were rich old white ladies.

    They might have cared about it, because their friends and family cared about it, but it was just some kind of “common sense” rich people etiquette rule that they could use to look down on people who didn’t know the rules.

27. Archaic fashion “rule”. Also heard not to wear white before Easter. No one cared, even when I first heard it too many years ago.