While no one is completely sure exactly when or why this fashion rule came into effect, the best guess is that it had to do with snobbery in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The "you can't wear white after Labor Day," rule was created to separate the old money elitists from the new money group. "It [was] insiders trying to keep other people out," according to Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, in an interview with Time, "and outsiders trying to climb in by proving they know the rules." For those who had money and could leave the city during warmer months, white was considered vacation attire. "If you look at any photograph of any city in America in the 1930s, you'll see people in dark clothes," Charlie Scheips, author of American Fashion, has said. Meanwhile, white linen suits and Panama hats were considered the "look of leisure." In short, if you lived in the dirty city, you wore dark clothes. If you were wealthy enough to escape to a vacation home for the summer, you wore white “leisure” looks — until it was time to return to urban life, that is. Menswear. Labor Day. White after Labor Day. White chinos. White pants. Tuxedo jacket. Dandy in the Bronx.