Clothes

[zoomphy]

No: HPFGUIDX 40730

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Heather Gauen <miss_dumblydore at y...> wrote:

"Do all magic kids wear "muggle" clothes when not in school? If so, 
why do adults bother to wear robes? More importantly, why don't 
adults know how to dress properly as muggles? After all, if magical 
kids know enough how to wear things like jeans and sweaters, how come 
the adults think kilts, galoshes, and women's dresses (on men) are 
proper clothing?"

I am not posting because I have any sort of answer to this, but 
merely to state that me and my best friend were--I kid you not!--
discussing the exact same thing this last weekend. And to me, the 
coincidence is just plain eery. Not to mention heartening, because it 
means we aren't the only ones who ponder such things.

But, like, yeah! If the kids know enough to wear Muggle clothes, why 
don't their parents/the adults?

I was thinking that maybe wizards do wear the same clothes as us--
just *under* their robes! Do they at least wear undergarments? Hmm. 
This line of questioning could be applied to other things. Like, do 
wizards eat the same food as us or do they have "wizard cuisine"? 
Clearly from book descriptions of their feasts and breakfasts, they 
do eat *some* of the same stuff as us. But they also seem to want to 
draw a very distinct line between themselves and Muggles. 

On a slightly related note, why do the wizards refer to a lot of 
things as "wizard" this or "wizard" that (ie Wizard Chess)? It's not 
like they have a lot of interaction with Muggles because it appears 
they don't have much knowledge of Muggle stuff in general (I assume 
this from the need to have an office in the MoM for the Misuse 
of "Muggle Artifacts"). So the act of differentiating their things 
from "Muggle" things doesn't seem particularly necessary. Although 
now that I think about it, a lot of wizard contraptions seem to be 
made to improve on original Muggle inventions (The Hogwarts Express, 
for instance). So "wizard" products would be better than "Muggle" 
products and the "wizard" part of the name would be a red flag to 
that effect. But it would also seem a given to me that if I were in a 
wizarding society, the things I use are "wizard" things so I wouldn't 
need to preface their names/descriptions with a "wizard" disclaimer. 
Especially if I didn't know much about Muggle stuff anyway.

So are there just some things--clothes, food, etc--that are 
universally used by everyone, Muggle and Magical alike? I'm beginning 
to think this is probably just be a literary convention on JKR's part 
and I'm making a big to-do over nothing. 

Anyway, sorry for rambling, but this is my first post to the list and 
I wanted it to be a doozy. :)

K.

P.S. Also I apologize if this has been discussed before. I've skimmed 
the archives and never found anything explicitly addressing this, 
though I could obviously be very, very wrong.