I think dresses and skirts are nicer, but some years the trends are so bare or short or tight, it’s 
almost better to err on the side of more casual. We seem to be in a fairly ladylike trend right now, though, and pretty, full-skirted, to-the-knee skirts are quite in vogue and look lovely on girls and ladies of all ages.
We old fuds dress up when we go to good restaurants but, more often than not, we find ourselves seated next to people in jeans and ratty tee-shirts with slogans and logos on the front of them. Kind of spoils the evening.
It seems silly to wear a dress and heels and pearls and a casmere wrap and all that when the woman handing me Communion is wearing track pants and a Nike tee-shirt and a pair of sneakers, or jeans and Tevas. The strange thing is I’ve never been in a parish where the altar boys and girls aren’t read the riot act if they have jeans and sneakers peeping out from under their cassocks, yet the adult EMs dress like they breezed in while taking their dogs out for a walk, or something.
I agree with the dress code in the church,first we are not at the beach,nor in the grocery store.if we can dress beatifully when we attend party or wedding.why can’t we dress up properly in church..so dressup accordingly.we go to church to worship not to dance the disco. nor going to the park.please lady’s respect yourself ,and the house of worship.
I’d be hard pressed to tell you what people wear at Mass, daily or Sunday. I’m not there looking at other people, I’m trying to pray. All this discussion about what people wear… Are the commentors spending their time people-watching or liturgy-watching? I get so sick of so many people in the congregation sitting there in the pew after Communion staring at everyone going up to and coming back from Communion. In my opinion they should be praying with their eyes closed or downward-looking ; or praying out of the missalette or a prayer book ; or singing the Communion hymn. I pray for them as I walk past them hoping they will lift their souls and hearts to the Lord instead of evaluating everyone else in the Church.
In defense of Church dressing, part of the problem is that the lay people who are involved with the Mass are often very casually dressed themselves
How do you know what’s going on in their hearts and souls? Often it may seem as if someone is looking at you or looking at others, but their hearts, minds and souls are focused on prayer while their eyes are just sort of generally looking forward.
This dress-down trend is everywhere, however
Aren’t you the one evaluating everyone else when you watch them and where their eyes are and then decide you know what’s going on in their hearts and souls? If your eyes are downwards, how come you know – or think you know – where everyone else’s eyes are?
When I get this trite excuse for laziness and disrespect from my children I remind them of the passages the author missed. God asks for our best! The scriptures are rich in passages where God asks for the first fruits, the whitest lamb, unblemished sacrifices. God does notice and HE knows. If a factory worker has to rush from job to church to keep his/her obligation and only has time to wash his/her hands and run a comb through his/her hair God knows that is the best that could be done that day. Sadly we use the phrase “judge not” as an excuse to appear before the Lord in any manner of shabbiness, all because we just cannot be bothered. Sadly in the Roman Catholic churches, where the true presence of Christ unfolds daily, is where dress is the shabbiest. Protestant churches have not wholly sunk to where Catholics have. For those of us who know who is present, it is embarrassing.