Line #7 Main/FakeFabricFashionFauxPas


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11	->''Polyester. The very name stirs images of tackiness, of Saturday-night swingers in leisure suits making clumsy passes at women in hotel cocktail lounges. Without polyester, the look that some people rudely called the "full Cleveland" would be nothing more than a white patent-leather belt with shoes to match. Polyester, in short, is a cultural smirk, a synonym for bad taste.''
12	-->-- '''Steve Lohr''', "Beyond Leisure Suits: New Life for Polyester", ''New York Times'', March 18, 1991
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15	The Fake Fabric Fashion Faux Pas trope is not so much about clothes made out of synthetic material as it is about the people who wear them--and [[WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization the message conveyed is often not good.]] For example, [[StockCostumeTraits putting a character in a polyester suit]] is often a shorthand way to depict him as an obnoxious boor or a [[HonestJohnsDealership shifty salesman]]. This trope is also invoked whenever there are jokes about [[FelonyMisdemeanor friendships or relationships ending when the other person gets caught wearing or possessing]] [[FauxHorrific clothes made out of artificial material.]] The clothing doesn't even have to be something garish and inherently tacky like a [[VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry leisure suit]] or [[DiscoDan disco outfit]] since even a sedate-patterned or subdued-colored suit, blazer, sport coat, shirt, pants, dress, blouse, skirt, or sweater that's polyester (or polyester-blended) can be enough to make the character a target of ridicule and scorn (especially from someone who's a {{Fashionista}} or TheDandy).
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17	The Fake Fabric Fashion Faux Pas trope was at its peak during TheEighties when there was a backlash against the garish fashions and polyester-heavy apparel that had been common during TheSeventies. Clothes made of artificial fabric were still prevalent during the '80s but they and the people wearing them came to be associated with fashion-blindness, lack of aesthetic taste, and [[StepfordSuburbia plastic suburban life]]. However, it is now becoming a DeadHorseTrope due to changing attitudes about fashion over the last 30 years. In many professional workplaces, [[https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/how-polyester-bounced-back/?utm_source=pocket-newtab clothing has become a lot more casual and less formal.]] (If there is some backlash about wearing synthetic fibers, it will more likely be due to environmental concerns.) Also, this trope depended upon the perceived existence of [[SnobsVersusSlobs friction]] within the middle-class between [[{{Suburbia}} suburbanites who wore polyester clothes]] and the [[{{Yuppie}} Yuppies]] and [[BourgeoisBohemian Bourgeois Bohemians]] who only wore natural fabrics. The middle-class, on the whole, has shrunk so much since the 1980s that these intra-class distinctions have nearly disappeared.
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19	Instances of [[{{Hipster}} people "ironically wearing" tacky polyester clothes]] represent a more recent off-shoot of this trope.
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21	Compare with ImpossiblyTackyClothes, IWasQuiteAFashionVictim, and OutdatedOutfit. This trope is often used as a WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization and is associated with the CasanovaWannabe, the DiscoDan, the LoungeLizard, and characters whose fashion sense is TwoDecadesBehind. Subtrope of FeeFiFauxPas.
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24	!!Examples:
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26	[[foldercontrol]]
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28	[[folder:Comic Books]]
29	* In the 1980s Creator/DCComics ''Literature/DocSavage'' comic book, VitriolicBestBuds Ham and Monk continue their bickering from the 1930s. One of the things clothes horse Ham attacks Monk for is Monk's appalling fashion sense, including his love of synthetic fibers. Monk's poor fashion choices come back to bite him when he creates a gas to dissolve polymers, forgetting that he is wearing a polyester suit. [[TheNudifier The gas dissolves his suit]], leaving him standing in his GoofyPrintUnderwear. Ham, who is dressed in all-natural fibers, is immune[[labelnote]]:*[[ArtisticLicenseChemistry Realistically]], something that dissolves "polymers" should destroy basically any fabric (cotton, for instance, is made of cellulose), not to mention the collagen in '''human skin'''.[[/labelnote]] and finds the whole thing hilarious.
30	[[/folder]]
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32	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
33	* In ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot''. Jason's attempts to scare Paige with ghost stories prove unsuccessful until he tells her one that ends with "...and when she opened the closet, all the clothes were polyester!"
34	* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'': Jon Arbuckle's love of polyester suits is presented as only one of his many crimes against fashion, albeit not as bad as their out-of-date cuts, [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes eye-watering colors]], and odd accessories.
35	[[/folder]]
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37	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
38	* In ''Film/AnimalHouse'', when Flounder first visits the rush party at the Delta house, the frat brothers quickly comment on Flounder's necktie in a semi-sarcastic tone
39	-> Oh, 90% Rayon, very nice!
40	* Discussed in ''Film/MyCousinVinny'', when [[UnderdressedForTheOccasion Vinny gets reprimanded for showing up to court as a defense attorney wearing casual clothes]].
41	-->'''Judge Chamberlain Haller:''' I'll let you off this one time. The next time you appear in my court, you will look lawyerly. And I mean you comb your hair, and wear a suit and tie. And that suit had better be made out of some sort of... cloth. You understand me?
42	* In ''Film/PlanesTrainsAndAutomobiles'', it's never directly stated but Del Griffith's off-the-rack polyester suit is meant to match his overbearing and occasionally aggravating personality.
43	* The title and titular opening song of ''Film/{{Polyester}}'' allude to this trope. The film chronicles the misadventures of Francine Fishpaw, the "Polyester Queen" of the song, a suburban housewife who futilely aspires to a bland, respectable lifestyle yet is incredibly tacky and surrounded by boors. Fittingly, she dresses in tacky polyester housedresses, and her boorish porno theater-owning husband wears polyester leisure suits.
44	[[/folder]]
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46	[[folder:Literature]]
47	* In his book ''Mind Over Matters'', Creator/MikeNelson describes [[IWasQuiteAFashionVictim his terrible sense of style in the early eighties]] by referring to his clothing choices as "cheap, tight, and made entirely from petroleum-based fibers".
48	* Invoked in ''Literature/MyTeacherIsAnAlien'' -- when word gets out that Broxholm will be abducting the smartest child in the school, Mike and Stacy realize they're obviously in the running for that category and stage a fight sparked by the ''devastating'' insult that is "your mother wears polyester". [[PokeThePoodle They're too nice to come up with genuinely insulting insults.]]
49	[[/folder]]
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51	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
52	* On ''Series/CallTheMidwife'', Chummy takes to wearing Crimplene, which her GrandDame mother heartily disapproves of. She even gets married in it, and [[VirginInAWhiteDress not white, either]].
53	* ''Series/SavedByTheBell'': [[TheFashionista Lisa Turtle]] considers polyester to be absolutely beneath her. In "Slater's Friend" when fantasizing about what her punishment for her "role" in his pet lizard, Artie's, death, she believed wearing a polyester outfit (or getting "curtains") was comparable to "frying" (in a giant frying pan), being "put on ice" (via a large ice cube) and sent to "solitary confinement" (playing the Solitaire card game).
54	* ''Series/SonnyWithAChance'': A recurring gag throughout the seasons is how [[DramaQueen Tawni Hart]] believes this, usually using it as a dig against Sonny's clothes and fashion choices. At one point she relates a humiliating breakup, presenting the worst part being that she was forced to wear "polyester pants".
55	* On ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'', the station's sales rep Herb Tarlek is often ridiculed for the polyester suits he wears but mainly because of their eye-searing patterns and colors.
56	[[/folder]]
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58	[[folder:Webcomics]]
59	* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': A variation, terraformed planet Jean had to make their clothes out of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxybutyrate P.H.B.s]] until the oceans developed enough to harvest seaweed. Naomi [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff700/fv00676.htm comments]] that the governor felt nobody took him seriously when he wore his plastic pants.
60	[[/folder]]
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62	[[folder:Western Animation]]
63	* ''WesternAnimation/AngelaAnaconda'': In "Kar-lean on me", Karlean is thrown out of Nanette's GirlPosse because she was the only one who bought a designer hat made out of synthetic fur (due to it being cheaper than the real thing).
64	* On ''WesternAnimation/MonsterBusterClub'', AlphaBitch Wendy uses this trope to insult Sam's outfit, but Sam retorts that her shirt is 100% cotton with all-natural dyes and textiles.
65	[[/folder]]
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67	[[folder:Real Life]]
68	* Until recently, college graduates entering the professional job market were advised to only wear [[DressCode clothes made of natural materials]] to their interviews if they didn't want their careers to end before they began.
69	[[/folder]]

Context Main / FakeFabricFashionFauxPas