There’s an old joke about why African-American men (supposedly) dress more flamboyantly than white men, goes something like this:
A white guy thinks “If I wear something colorful or interesting, I’ll look different from everyone else. I might not be listened to when I speak, I might be stared at or avoided on the street. I might not get a good job or a promotion. I could even be harassed by the police. Better play it safe.”
Better not be on color film, either. Might look gay.
A black guy thinks “Fuck it, as long as they’re doing all that anyway, I might as well look good.”
Yeah, like the suit is the only thing between me and middle management.
Obviously, that joke is a gross oversimplification, based on some rather old stereotypes. It does, however, speak to something real: for many men, suits aren’t something they have a choice about wearing or not. The reasons why that is are (spoiler alert) hella fucked-up.
In part one of this series, I talked about how suits are, in Western culture (and increasingly beyond) icons of male socioeconomic power, and how damn dirty hipsters like myself fool around with that iconography to tweak assumptions, express our style, and let’s just admit it, get girls. However, there is a wide class of men for whom suits aren’t something that can be played with or treated as a costume. Once you enter that power structure that suits exemplify, your sartorial freedom of choice goes out the window.
For the life of me I can’t find the darn thing, but there’s an old Bizarro cartoon where a sober-faced businessman in a suit is pointing to a slide of two men, one wearing a suit and the other wearing a short vest, MC Hammer pants, and a three-foot-tall cylindrical hat. He’s saying “Then it’s decided. From now on all male employees will mandatorily wear this outfit instead of this one. Female employees will of course remain free to choose from a variety of styles.”
It’s true. If you’re anywhere in what we might term “the business world” (and I’d add “the political world” but I don’t think those two are separate any more) then you can only wear a suit, or you get kicked out of that world. Some might quibble at the terms “mandatory” or “forced”, but I think when you are presented with two alternatives and one of them is economic suicide, we can agree that’s not a fair choice.
Also, when I said you have to wear a suit? I lied. You have to wear one of a much smaller sub-range of suits, tightly restricted in style, color, materials, and cut. A similarly narrow range of hairstyles is available. Certain forms of jewelry are permitted, but most are not. Certain other forms of jewelry are mandatory, and their absence will be heavily penalized. (If you think I’m exaggerating on that last point, I once saw a menswear article that explained “Of course your digital watch is more efficient, has more functions, and looks great, but you can’t explain that to someone who’s deciding whether to trust you with his money.”)
A man so rich he can afford to wear an “artist” costume in public.
Same man, when he still had to ask richer people for money.
In both of the above shots, the late, great Steve Jobs is deliberately cultivating an image as an eccentric creative genius. Yes, he is wearing at least four “eccentric” markers in the second shot (Kids! See if you can spot all four!), but in 1985 he still had to fall within the acceptable range to even be allowed into meetings.
As Piraro implied, women in a business context are allowed to choose from a greater range of styles, but there are even more arbitrary and insane rules for their plumage, which I won’t be getting into because I don’t know those rules and because I’m focusing on the men’s suit problem here.
Let’s make no mistake, this is a class thing. It’s a money thing. If you want money, you conform to a rigid aesthetic set by the moneyed class, and maybe they’ll let you have some. To the untrained eye, a bunch of dudes in suits might all look alike, but those suits in fact carry a wealth of information about which is better than the next. And “wealth” is the word, because every single indicator is about money.
I can tell you half a block away whether a man’s suit is hand-stitched or machine-made. So can half the guys reading this, I bet. It’s one of those bits of male lore that women don’t usually learn. (Though a tutorial on some of the lore was written for a female audience last year, for reasons that I will be exploring in part three.)
Some long-haired beatnik stole a good suit from his betters.
Men in cheap suits are not permitted heads.
You might think those two suits, both two-button charcoal gray numbers with flap pockets, notch lapels, and creased flat-front trousers, are basically identical. And they are, except that one says middle management and one says upper management, or a difference of about $100,000 a year.
Yes, that is barking mad by any reasonable standard.
There’s a lot more than just that, though. There’s ties, including the subcategory of material, color, and style of knot. (My Lex Luthor Halloween costume is wearing a red silk tie in a full Windsor, because of course he is.) There’s the use and arrangement of pocket squares. There’s your shirt, including variations in collar shape, material, and cut. There’s the age of the suit; no suit showing any signs of visible wear whatsoever can be worn, and fashions are changed slightly every couple years, to see who can keep buying new suits and who can’t. In all cases, it’s about showing who’s richer and more powerful. It’s about establishing a pecking order, and you better believe that pecking order isn’t based on brains, ability, or human decency.
I can dress like I do because I’m not part of that world. If I were in it, wearing a double-breasted jacket would mark me as an eccentric who might be getting above himself, and of course my hat would be entirely beyond the pale. My wearing rings that are neither wedding nor class rings would also be a significant point against me, and my digital watch would render me laughable. I am quite deliberately not even broaching the subject of shoes. Naturally, to even be in that world at any level, I’d have to be wearing a tie. They’re quite strict about enforcing that. In short, I dress like a poor man, because rich men all dress alike or they’re no longer allowed to be rich.
The truth is, while lord knows I hold no brief for the economic overclass, it saddens me that so many men, struggling to claw their way up or at least keep their heads above water, are arbitrarily forced to dress so goddamned drab.
“So if we follow Jim’s argument, women’s fashion NOT being this way and being more expressive, would be about actual intentional contempt of women. Dress this way so we can shit on you by disrespecting you, because you’re not unemotional like us, men in suits. I’m using hyperbole, but yeah, I don’t buy the argument Jim put forward’ Well I didn’t make this up on my own. This is exactly the advice women entering the corporate women were given in career self-help books in the early 80’s and they took that advice. Remember all those women’s suits with football shoulders?… Read more »
http://nielsg.com/dressing-well
This link goes to a comic is in the middle of a storyline, but it’s still relevant to suits, so bear with me. Also, have a look at the archives if this one catches your fancy 🙂
I’m a woman and I wear a suit to work because I can’t figure out womenswear rules. Also it has pockets. It’s not just in my head: I have been cautioned at work for looking too outré before.
I’d rather noone had to wear these dumb gimp suits (dehumanising, anonymising, restrictive: gimp suits.) but personally I have chosen to be restricted just to make things easy for myself.
I do buy all my stuff second hand though.
Weird. I’ve always worked in technology, where suits are only found on salesmen, people soliciting investments and job candidates at interviews; basically a suit means you’re asking for money.
I wear khakis and a button-down shirt, and I dress more formally than most of my coworkers.
“The cities have been cleaned up and working women are common now, but the idea that bright colors on a man are effeminate remains.” And the notion that blue collar, dirty due to work man, = manlier, stayed. Wolverine the lumberjack is more impressive (as far as masculinity), even considering the EXACT same powers, than Wolverine the data entry guy, or even Wolverine the lawyer. Only Daredevil can be the Badass Lawyer type. Especially because he seems to know everything, and because his blindness is barely a limitation – also he physically fights. So the stereotype is that men move… Read more »
There’s historical reasons to understand here – during the Industrial Revolution, going to work in the city meant getting your outerwear covered in a fine layer of soot, so businessmen started all wearing black or dark gray. Women, who spend most of their time in the house, kept wearing colors. The cities have been cleaned up and working women are common now, but the idea that bright colors on a man are effeminate remains.
That’s just weird to me. I haven’t read the comments, but I have to say that the “suit as uniform” is freeing in a lot of ways. I don’t have to think too hard, work too hard, worry about shifting fashions or the whims of people I don’t care about. I can buy a conservative suit, shirt, and tie; get them tailored; go out into the world confident that I’m equipped for the occasion. Easier than women have it, based on what my wife suffers through. I can buy three pairs of shoes and three belts and be good for… Read more »
So if we follow Jim’s argument, women’s fashion NOT being this way and being more expressive, would be about actual intentional contempt of women.
Dress this way so we can shit on you by disrespecting you, because you’re not unemotional like us, men in suits.
I’m using hyperbole, but yeah, I don’t buy the argument Jim put forward.
Trinity, buttons on the opposite sides of men’s and women’s clothes goes a lot further back than the 1950’s. I had always heard it attributed to the fact that men (the right handed ones) wore their swords on their left side, and having the buttons on the right side minimized the chances of the sword hilt catching on the buttons of an unbuttoned coat. Noah, I don’t think Beau Brummel is remembered as a guy who aspired to middle of the road conformity in dress. Rather he is remembered for his attention to the minute details of his clothes and… Read more »
“Private versus public is not the same thing as personal versus professional. ” They are as far as it concerns my point that this is about how you present to strangers. “Read what you said again: a suit conveys “You don’t know me and you don’t get to know me.” Is that a common or even acceptable attitude at funerals and weddings?” It most certainly is when there are strangers in attendance. Customs and cultures vary, but we don’t do public displays of emotion in mine. If you put yourself in the street like that you can expect to be… Read more »
@schala,
the reason behind the buttons/zippers being on opposite sides is because in the 50’s women were supposed to dress their men. Because middle class Americans didn’t have servants it became a wife’s job to get her husband dressed. So, they put the buttons on the opposite side so that she would still be doing the same motion to dress him as she made to dress herself.
Jim:
Private versus public is not the same thing as personal versus professional. Read what you said again: a suit conveys “You don’t know me and you don’t get to know me.” Is that a common or even acceptable attitude at funerals and weddings?
“If that were the major purpose of suits, they wouldn’t be expected at formal but personal occasions like weddings and funerals, at least for people who are family or close friends of the primaries. Which is not the case.” Weddings and funerals most definitely did not used to be private affairs. The family wass putting on a face in public. The reception was private, but the ceremony was not. The whole point of a wedding ceremony was and even now on the formal level still is a public announcement of a change of legal status. That’s as public as a… Read more »
“One of the purposes of professional attire is to de-personalize the presention you make. A drab and severe business suit says “You don’t know me and you don’t get to know me.”
If that were the major purpose of suits, they wouldn’t be expected at formal but personal occasions like weddings and funerals, at least for people who are family or close friends of the primaries. Which is not the case.
“Well there is Armani taste and there is Versace taste. I side with Kenko, the ultimate authority on esthetics and taste, and lean Armani.”
I don’t know what either Armani and Versace styles look like, and given the price tag, have no desire to find out. I fail to see how it’s aesthetics and not just “we’re the biggest name to boast about having”.
The same way Bugatti’s and Ferrari create an artificial rarity by doing the cars by hand, even though they have incredible budget – it’s more an object of prestige than one of aesthetics.
“I do think there’s such a thing as good taste, but I think the way “tasteful” is usually used, it would be more accurate if replaced by “cowardly”.
Well there is Armani taste and there is Versace taste. I side with Kenko, the ultimate authority on esthetics and taste, and lean Armani.
@AnonymousDog: Pffffft. “Tasteful” is a word people use to describe things that are inoffensively conformist, such as the dull, middle-of-the-road styles of Beau Brummel. I do think there’s such a thing as good taste, but I think the way “tasteful” is usually used, it would be more accurate if replaced by “cowardly”.
AD, that sounds like him. My ex-wife had a more succinct way of putting it: He isn’t wearing that suit; it’s wearing him.
Just remembered, wasn’t it Beau Brummel who said something to the effect that if a man’s clothes were attracting attention, he wasn’t dressed tastefully?
In my senior high school year, the rest of the yearbook staff dedicated half of the “fashion” section to me, declaring my personal style to be the result of Howard Stern and Whoopie Goldberg having children. Why they thought it worthwhile hiding that page from me until publication, I’ll never understand. I suppose they thought they were being negative. Fast forward almost twenty years and I’ve joined the Royal Canadian Navy. All resentments and apprehensions about being uniformed aside, I’ve discovered a few things about clothing I never knew. When in the ranks’ work blues particularly, the lack of visual… Read more »
“But seriously, as I said in part one, I have a great appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of a suit. I just think it’s a shame that “professional attire” is such a tiny little range of the available possibilities of suits, and in such drab, uninteresting colors.” Noah, think about the word “professional” for a moment. Think of how often oyu hear it opposed to “personal”. “Can we keep this on a professional level?” “Let’s keep a clear line….” One of the purposes of professional attire is to de-personalize the presention you make. A drab and severe business suit says… Read more »
Got it in one Jim. For all the praise that toolkit gets, and it is praiseworthy to an extent,I think a lot of people are too quick to ignore the shortcomings of that kit. In other words screwdrivers are good to have (as in some tools are missing) and you can’t drive nails with an Allen wrench (meaning some tools are not being used properly).
“Amen to that. What I see as one of the primary goals of this blog is using the toolkit feminism developed to start tackling the issues old-school feminism was bad at seeing, if that makes sense.” It makes sense. But you have to remember the rest – that tool kit may happen to lack some tools, and some of its tools may be counter-productive. The key is to focus on the task rather than to cling sentimentally to the tools. It is a question of what is valued – methods or results. There’s old-school feminsm and then there’s old-old school… Read more »
I hardly ever wear jeans (only when actually doing the manual labor/outdoorsy stuff). My experience has been that nearly every social situation where jeans are acceptable, khaki cargo pants are acceptable, too.
There are some restrictions on acceptable dress in “casual” situations that I’m not fond of, but it’s nothing like as restrictive as the rules for business environments.
Pre-transition, I wore size 28 high-waisted boring jeans without drawings, it’s the only thing I could find without looking specifically for it. After transition, I decided to buy size 24, low-waisted embroidered jeans for women. Size 0 also fit, because small hips (less than 32 inch then) means that I can go down a size or two, without having a 22 inch waist (it was 25 in reality). They didn’t drop to the ground on their own, unlike the size 28 (and I dislike HAVING to wear a belt). Now, at 150 lbs (back then – and for about 10… Read more »