Wanted to start a thread about people wearing lab/craftsman/shop-type workwear. Aprons, lab coats, coveralls, etc.
It's interesting how some of these kinds of protective clothes are seeping into non-working class/craftsman jobs, as a way of honoring/co-opting craftman heritage.
Warby Parker
Warby Parker retail workers wear special blue shirts/dresses/smocks, perhaps because opticians traditionally wore short lab coats and were essentially lab techs. I like that there's a variety of options depending on gender, like some kind of start-up culture Star Trek.
Ippudo X Engineered Garments
For their NYC shops, ramen shop Ippudo worked with EG to develop special aprons for their kitchen managers. I'm not sure if they really wear these day-in, day out, but again I enjoy the romanticism that this clearly invokes. You like to think that these people who prepare your food are clinically disciplined. I also like that there's several pieces to this: apron and jacket, making the whole thing a bit modular and oh so much more versatile. MODULARITY OH GOD YES.
Margiela
Perhaps the most obvious example of what I'm talking about in fashion. Margiela workers both in-store and otherwise done white lab coats, I've heard, to maintain the continuity between what they do and the craftsmanship that is their core. I've personally been trying to get a lab coat from them for years but they don't sell them to civilians.
I always get a kick out of the fact that the store workers seem to really hate wearing them. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen a Margiela associate smile, but that could just be the nature of fashion/retail work. They also treat these coats like garbage, spilling coffee and pen ink all over them.
Look at this unhappy camper.