One thing I've noticed is that the upper classes live in a world where dressing down is an act of rebellion, and the lower classes live in a world where dressing up is similarly defiant.

On the lower end, you have everything from the skinhead/mod cultures wearing tailored suits and high end polos with work boots, to inner-city kids spending a ton of money on FUBU and Nike, to middle-aged black women wearing extravagant church hats and Italian-Americans wearing flashy chains and jewelry.

On the upper end, you have the Bohemians, trashy hipster fashion, "derelicte", slumming it, and articles like this, about how great it is to get to wear a t-shirt to work (not so great if you're making minimum wage).

The middle classes seem to bounce between the two.

My take on it. We're programmers, and when I code I could give fuck-all as to how I look. And I say this as a person who enjoys dressing up and buying nice clothes.

Wearing t-shirts is just one less level of bullshit, and it's cheaper as well, I save my nicer clothes for non-office occasions.