At one time, it was considered a fashion faux pas to wear white shoes or pants until after Easter (or even Memorial Day) and the items were to be packed away for winter when Labor Day was over.
No more. (Well, men should never wear white dress shoes, belts and/or white or pastel pants — the leisure suit-look is like so four decades ago. Golf and other athletic shoes in white are OK, of course.)
Women, however, can wear white as a versatile noncolor year-round. Think winter white. Think black sweater with white jeans.
The tradition of not wearing white before Easter extends to the days when white was the color the newly Baptized wore on easter. However, there were practical reasons for the fashion dictate.
Before easily washed fabrics and effective cleaning products, removing the wintry street grit from shoes and keeping slacks snowy was difficult. Easier to make fashion rules than to risk dirty hems.
