FWIW, wearing a suit (in the modern "business suit" sense of term) isn't technically "formal" dress. Heck, it isn't even semi-formal. Semi-formal would be a tuxedo (for men), and formal wear would be "morning dress" or "white tie".[1]
"Business suits" fall into the category of "lounge suit" which is considered informal dress.[2]
In the US, black tie is the highest level of formality that most people are ever likely to encounter. This requires a tuxedo (or, on the more casual level of black tie, an all black suit, white shirt, and black tie). Nothing is "technically" formal, since there is no defining body that lays down the specification of the word with the authority to enforce that specification. Like most non-technical language, it is a target that moves with the times. If someone says they went to a formal event in the U.S., most of the time it will mean they wore a tuxedo without tails.
I would never discourage you from such a pursuit. I would also love to see someone pull off a full cloak and mantle outside of Game of Thrones. I doubt I will live to see that day, but it would be incredible.
60 years ago, wearing anything other than a suit and tie was considered informal. Even just a tucked-in shirt without a tie and black pants was informal dress.
Men commonly would be seen in business suits; and usually wore hats as well.
I find it amusing how people want beautiful architecture, good weather, nice greenery, and so on, but don't make the next step and want people (including themselves) to dress better. Clothes are just another facet of visual culture.
That's how you get tourists with sweatpants and fanny packs outside the Florence Duomo.
Personally I suspect the disconnect centers around utility. Beautiful architecture can be beautifully functional too. Good weather is pretty, and also comfortable. Greenery is pretty, and cleans the air.
Semi-formal and formal wear are practically the antithesis of functional and comfortable.
Personally, I have been making an effort to dress up a step or two, but I have to balance this against carrying more changes of clothes for my various activities outside of work.
As a style averse geek I hate myself for saying this, but it really depends. I've never been able to convince myself to go spend at the highest levels (bespoke from Saville row, for instance), but it's supposed to be more comfortable than casual clothing. When I have splurged a bit on nicer clothing, I have found that even a little more quality in clothing can make the difference between stiff and comfortable. It makes sense that better fit and higher quality would be more comfortable. There was a fairly good discussion about this on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4476397
Oh, I don't mean "formal wear can never be comfortable". I was thinking more of, for example, how I would melt in 100-degree weather in an old-fashioned wool suit. Also, I'm really more concerned with utility/durability than comfort- I mentioned comfort only in passing. My lifestyle tends to be a little rough on clothes.
You're certainly right though, quality material and a cut that fits you well is fantastic. I have a few nice polos that I got tailored as an experiment, and they are now some of my favorite shirts. I would have more tailored, but it's $20 a pop and that's only if the shirt already fits me fairly well- which most shirts don't.
I'll give you the climate argument :) But I would think that higher quality materials and construction would also result in longer lasting products. As I don't wear my formal stuff very often, I couldn't personally say. But the flip side of custom fit is that if your body changes, it's no longer going to fit. On the gripping hand, custom fit is fairly well known for being something that can be tailored to fit, repeatedly. As for utility, I've got some suit jackets that have more pockets than my rugged wilderness parkas; then again, I wouldn't wear either kind of jacket bouldering or biking either ;)
I would think that higher quality materials and construction would also result in longer lasting products.
It's a question of construction decisions, not quality. For example, what fabric does it use? My denim jeans hold up to falls, rock, and dirt much better than light cotton slacks. What is the stitching pattern? Are there reinforcements? That sort of thing.
if your body changes, it's no longer going to fit.
Yup, I've been running into that problem. Thankfully the "problem" is that my biceps are stretching my sleeves, so I can feel good about said "problem".
An old-fashioned wool suit would never be appropriate in 100-degree weather. Formal-wear doesn't necessarily mean wool (which also doesn't mean heavy. Wool can be very light and summery). The point is less to dress more formally and more to dress more appropriately for the occasion.
I really doubt there's any full suit that isn't unbearably hot for me. I'm often wearing a t-shirt and shorts complaining about the heat while others are wearing sweaters and shivering. Casual attire gives you a range of options, whereas formal dress seems to always require layers.
It requires three layers when often one is more than sufficient. It comes with a noose that fits tightly around my neck. It comes with shoes that have no grip. To keep the cuffs just-so, one wears tight bands just below the bicep. The pockets are easily distended and thus barely useable (I miss the 80s, when a distended suit pocket was the sign of that most ugly of status symbols, the mobile 'phone). Easily smutted, one must carry an umbrella or yet another layer to protect it from the rain.
If it is appropriate for you to wear a suit for an occasion (outside of church, weddings, and funerals), then you are likely making enough from the position to pay for the suit.
This doesn't apply to me, but couldn't this be a catch-22? To get a job/social status where you're making good money, you need to get a suit, but you need the money for a suit in order to get that job.
Also, you could just be averse to a perceived waste of money, even if you could afford it (my case).
They may have used to be true, but nowadays with fine wool, it really isn't any more. And let's face it, the level of improvement many of us engineers need to take is not to suits, but even to wearing something nicer than a t-shirt and loose jeans.
It isn't appropriate as a software developer to wear a suit to work. It often isn't even appropriate in an interview as a software developer to wear a suit. It looks ridiculous to wear a suit jacket when the next few layers of your management chain are wearing board shorts and sandals.
Instead, the ideal seems to be to tread a fine line between casual wear and formal wear. Properly fitted clothing is important here- a suit is too formal, loose jeans a bit sloppy, but dark jeans that are tailored to fit are perfect.
This makes shopping in the women's section very difficult- I usually find casual-wear for women a bit inappropriate for work (clothing is often too sheer and unlined, too clingy, or necklines too low), and clothing marketed as office-wear would make most assume I was a secretary or in advertising/human resources/ect. A mixture seems to work well. Rather than dressing up casual clothing, I find more success dressing down nicer pieces. For example, a nice dress with a denim jacket or a silk blouse with jeans and flats.
My male friends seem to have a similar problem shopping, in which clothes that are made for casual wear are more casual than they would like, but then there is a huge gap from casual to much too formal. Men's clothing doesn't have the problem of many causal clothes being too revealing, but there is also quite a bit less variety available.
TLDR: Ramble about trying to find appropriate software developer wardrobe that has nothing to do with the above comment. Sorry.
Button downs (especially oxfords) with very dark wash, slim-fit jeans and brown leather or canvas shoes seems to be what the more fashionable of my coworkers all wear. You can put together a full week's worth of these kind of clothes for about $300 without any sales and with only a few hours invested. I'm just getting started on this fashion project myself (at 28, I've wasted so much time), so I'm not an authority, but that's what I've been observing so far.
Here, here! Quoting Linda Grant, "Dressing down, ubiquitously known as “being comfortable”, says that you don’t care about how you look, as if your appearance were an entirely private matter that has nothing to do with anyone else. It’s the exact opposite: what you wear is part of the visible environment, as relevant as the architecture, the decor, the food on the table, the scents in the air."
Americans might think it superficial or an infringement of individuality to criticise dress, but in other parts of the world the concern is for others. Putting oneself together is respectful.
I wear suits at work fairly often; it depends on the client and if I'm interacting externally often in a given week (month). I like wearing a suit: I have an enhanced sense of professionalism and self-confidence when I'm dressed to the nines.
I'm not a developer or in "tech" in the pure sense, and I know this depends on the "culture", but I'm also on the East Coast and a bunch of our devs have Bow Tie Tuesday and really get into it. May be a geographic thing as well: I'm as like as not to wear dark jeans, nice shoes, a button-down, and a blazer on weekends.
And it isn't cheap. If you shop around, you can find a reasonable suit for under $500, which is still a fair amount of t-shirts and hoodies. However, the key to dress clothes more so than quality is fit—you should have all your suits tailored to fit you, and that's another $100 or so between jacket, pants, etc.
At a former job of mine, we used to have "Formal Friday." Soon enough, some started to attend "Flannel Friday" instead and it became quite the office-dividing phenomenon. Regardless, it can be quite fun and effective to have informally-defined clothing days. Gives people a nice chance too try out new pieces and styles.
The article reminded me of a quote by Heinlein I recently came across:
'Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naïve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.'
So basically, we need to engage in superficial nonsense, because people are so immature that they can't settle their differences amicably? I'll make sure to teach my child that.
That's exactly the same thing you're teaching your child when you tell them not to point and say "Why is that man so fat?".
I usually wear tees and jeans, but I recognize that formal wear has a place.
I'm surprised you made such a snarky response, when you said something very similar in another thread:
"I think, that as techies, we are in a unique situation, as far as intellectual development is concerned. The vast majority of the population can't appreciate technical phenomena because it is culturally viewed as "too hard" or "robotic" or "blah blah, boring". We, OTOH, actively refuse to engage with humanistic pursuits, but not out of any perceived difficulty so much as discomfort with the pretensions that come with "cultured society"."
So you're comparing common decency and common sense to overbearing vanity imposed on people? If I remark about someone's weight to demean them, that's simply dick behavior. Wearing whatever the hell you like is not. Now imposing that one may be somehow inferior for not paying an exorbitant amount of attention to dress (for vanity, no less), that's dick behavior - which was the crux of OP's comment.
And please, tell me how "if you strip away the pretensions from these things, more people would take to them" is the same as "the pretentiousness is necessary and the untraveled, uncultured, blah, blah, don't understand that, because, you know, uncultured".
I just wish more American businessmen would wear decent shoes, such as bluchers or oxfords by Alden or Allen Edmonds, so I don't have to see anymore rubber soled, bicycle toed loafers at the airport: http://instagram.com/p/ZbdZfMsM4G/
People wear all kinds of silly fashions here in Italy, which is pretty much the fashion capital of the world. Some of them may be well made, name-brand silly fashions, but they certainly look odd 5 years out from when they were 'in'.
I'm with Zuckerberg, and Jobs with his 'uniform' on this one: most of that junk is a complete waste of your time. The only winning move is not to play. You don't have to wear just sweatshirts and jeans, but pick stuff you like and get on with life and stop worrying about it.
Mimicry has its place for those who haven't succeeded globally by the age you're supposed to start wearing formal, or at least "decent" clothes, like Zuckerberg and Jobs did.
"supposed to"? According to why? And what gives this amorphous "they" any standing to dictate such a thing?
Fuck that... I like to dandy it up and rock the "two and a half piece" suit look sometimes (that is, waistcoat and - in my case - a cravat, but no outer jacket), but I do it because I like it, not because somebody says it's what you're supposed to do. And the rest of the time, this 40 year old sees no reason not to wear jeans and a Twisted Sister t-shirt.
Why don't you put "jeans and Twisted Sister t-shirt" version on LinkedIn profile?
In the neighbourhood I'm known as "the bathrobe guy with funny facial hair", so I get you. I don't want attract people around me who will judge a book by its covers, but majority people I interacted with are living in that cave.
It is pretty oblivious to walk around and think that your appearance doesn't matter to substantial number of people you do business and socialize with.
If you want to leave appearance of laid-back honest doer, that's fine. Not all people do.
Why don't you put "jeans and Twisted Sister t-shirt" version on LinkedIn profile?
That's actually a damn good idea. The picture that is there now is just one I picked because it's a halfway decent picture. I'm not terribly photogenic, so I usually try to avoid having my picture taken at pretty much all costs. If I had a good picture of myself in jeans and a T/S t-shirt, I'd switch it right now.
As soon as I can get a new picture taken, I'll do it though.
It is pretty oblivious to walk around and think that your appearance doesn't matter to substantial number of people you do business and socialize with.
Oh I don't think it doesn't matter to some people, I just try very hard not to think about those people or their opinions. Maybe if I would "play by the rules" more I'd be richer or more successful or whatever, but it's just not worth it...
After all, as they say
Getcha a 3-piece Wall Street smile and son you'll
look just like me
I said "Hey man, there's something that you oughta know"
I tell ya Park Avenue leads to Skid Row.[1]
I think the failure of so many in the software/IT business to dress and groom to professional standards has important consequences. The perception of the social prestige of the occupation is lowered in the broader society. This in turn invites the misguided pointy-haired-boss managerial approach to developers. In the eyes of many, software people appear to be some sort of lower level technicians like the guys who stock the soda machines, because that's how they're dressed. Ergo software development must be commodity labor like the soda machine guys. We should outsource!
The personal computer industry has its roots in the late-60s/early-70s California counterculture, which deliberately rejected those "professional standards" and the corporate mindset which went with them. It is not a "failure", but a conscious expression of a different value system.
People typically care more about the respect of their peers than the respect of random people in general. Wearing a suit among software people doesn't make you look "professional", it makes you pretentious at worst and just a bit weird at best.
I'm probably overreacting, but your post really reads like "you should wear less comfortable/more expensive footwear because I don't like looking at what you currently own", and that sort of thing kinda pisses me off.
Most shoes sold in the the US are of low quality and made at a low cost and then sold at a huge markup. They don't last very long and aren't serviceable.
Traditionally made welted shoes are neither more expensive over the long haul or less comfortable.
But, that's not what your argument was. Your argument was pretty aristocratic. It's like saying, "Stop being ugly, I don't like looking at ugly people". Very dickish to say, as people shouldn't really give a shit some random dude at the airport thinks about his shoes.
The second sentence isn't a reasonable statement. I am not a big fan of Ecco quality, especially not for the cost, but I bought a pair of their GoreTex books at a discount shoe warehouse for $40 and wore them until the soles fell off before I sent them back to Ecco for warranty coverage (the soles literally fell off). They gave me a $200 credit to buy a new pair. I bought two pairs of Ecco loafers from sierratradingpost.com for $60/ea. I wore one pair for about five years until the sole cracked in half. They gave me $190 warranty credit for that pair. The second pair of loafers lasted one additional year before an elastic band on the monk strap gave out. They repaired those free and sent them back.
At this point, I'm not going to purchase any brand new Eccos using my own money, but as long as they keep giving me free pairs I'm happy to wear them. Others in my family have had similar experiences with Rockport and Clarks. I think most people just don't bother trying to take advantage of workmanship guarantees.
Living in SF rendered my leather-soled AEs pretty much useless. Walking up Nob Hill wearing leather soles is pretty much a treadmill. On the casual end of things, backless sandals are equally iffy (despite the SF Birkenstock stereotype).
I wish I can dress nicely in suits, but I don't do it for two reasons. No one dresses in suits in technology sector. Not even CEO. Only team that dress up in our company is legal, and even they are on the more informal side compared to what real formal is.
Good suits that look good are expensive. I don't want to wear daddy tier suits, but good looking suits I've seen run well over $500.
I worked for a client once (a very large logistics firm) where everyone who isn't union had to wear suit and tie, this included all vendors. We were testing some new equipment we built in a sorting facility without any climate control. In July. In Orlando.
My brilliant developer co-worker worked at UPS for 8 years. Told me he had to wear a suit to work everyday, and shave as well. Not clean shaven? You get sent home. Not dressed correctly? You got sent home.
I wear a suit (or sport coat) every Friday. Here's what I do:
Buy vintage. You can get an $800 suit for $40 at Goodwill. Treasure hunting is fun. Seriously.
Make light of it. I call it "Fancy Friday" and sometimes refer to it as a "ridiculous affectation" or "grown-up cosplay". People get used to it and now comment when I'm not dressed up on Fridays.
Make sure you go to a tailor before (to get measurements) and after (to make alterations). A nice fitted suit makes all the difference. Also, different brands have different cuts and so try on a couple of different brands of the same size.
I dress the same every day. Black t-shirt with no logo, jeans, and sneakers. If its cold, I put on my black hoodie. That's all you will see. Nice ocassions? My wife takes care of that. Otherwise, it's my uniform. Clothing costs have gone down, I save time and money by not having to pick what to wear of having to wash things in differen loads. But, I mostly do it because I'm lazy.
I gave that up because it got too boring (for me). The crack in the dam came when I added in a selection of monochromatic (non-black) tees. It was all downhill from there.
Yes. But I'm the good kind of lazy. I choose to spend my time working on solutions to big problems, rather than working on what shirt to wear tomorrow. I do use different brands with different cuts and styles. Mostly because I grab whatever is available at the store. I also only use name brands, because the last twice as long.
It's also a sort of camouflage. I blend in very easily. I like that.
I had a tough time growing up due to this "virtue". I was always looking for ways to simplify and automate. I even had my computer connected to my alarm clock. So that a basic program I had running on it would automatically wake me up depending on the time I shut it down (which meant I was going to sleep.) But I then had problems waking up before noon, so I connected that little hack to a stereo system with 15-inch speakers. The whole neighborhood could hear my alarm clock to off. It's actually quite funny now that I think about it. Imagine being able to hear a loud beep beep beep two streets over.
I don't want to belittle the author too much, but when I think about the way my time is spent, there is no way in the world thinking about clothes this much is worth that amount of time.
> But I found that a higher level of formality improved my students' learning. My larger classes ran more smoothly.
This is the crux of the article, and he provides no proof to back it up.
The article says that this is an "experiment", but how did the professor log his activities? How did he measure the change in his student's perception? How did he isolate the variables of his own bias vs. the impact of new clothes vs. the impact of formal clothes?
My personal opinion is that fashion is a gigantic waste of time. In any and all venues. Clothing should be first and foremost for utility. Part of that utility is creating a personal brand, which the author has stumbled upon here in his "experiment".
While I'm not a fan, Steve Jobs had a great outlook on this, and is well known by his jeans-and-turtleneck look. This is an amazing insight into clothes in my opinion: Jobs found an outfit that worked, and then simplified everything in his life related to clothing. Image how easy laundry, the decision on what to wear for the day, moving, and ownership of clothes would be if you had a single, standard type of clothing to wear? Imagine how much easier it is to standardize social interactions with other people around you? You'll never have to worry about wearing 'nice' clothes again, because ALL your clothes are exactly the same.
You are aware that words have various meanings, right? This guy is not talking about an experiment in the formal, scientific sense of the word. Also, you are incorrect about whether this is the crux of the article. As you can clearly see from how much time is spent on each part, this is merely a happy side effect to what was a personal development for him.
> My personal opinion is that fashion is a gigantic waste of time. In any and all venues.
I'm not sure what you mean by waste of time. Do you mean it in the sense of, "Not something I would prefer to do?" Or do you mean it in the sense of, "Ineffective for all purposes?" One of these two meanings is demonstrably false.
> While I'm not a fan, Steve Jobs had a great outlook on this, and is well known by his jeans-and-turtleneck look.
I think Ryan Gosling's character in Crazy, Stupid, Love had a great outlook on Steve Jobs' outlook on fashion. "Hold on, are you the billionaire owner of Apple Computer? No? Then you've got no right to wear New Balance sneakers, ever." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZwjcpEEkPs
Seriously, HN seems to get one or more of these comments every time someone dares to describe some personal adventure as an "experiment". The implication seems to be that if you don't have a statistically significant control group, you should just not say anything, I guess.
You are correct that his anecdote doesn't actually prove anything. I rather doubt this is news to anyone, including the author.
> My personal opinion is that fashion is a gigantic waste of time. In any and all venues.
In my own (one person, non-experimental) experience, it significantly changes the way people interact with me. That can make a huge difference over time.
I have a hard time seeing formal clothing as anything other than an attempt to advertise an elevated social status. This seems to me to be at odds with the desire to create an egalitarian society.
Worth noting that not everyone is of your opinion, and many are interested in clothing (and extensions of it, such as watches and jewelry) as a form of expression.
This is the primary reason I plan on buying a suit (not a super nice one; I plan on spending a few hundred bucks, maybe $400 total, including tailoring, which means I'm well into 'cheap suit' territory, but meh, amateurs, which is to say, almost everyone I will encounter? will not be able to tell the difference. I know I can't. I /can/ tell the difference between a suit that fits and a suit that doesn't fit, however; thus the tailoring.)
But yeah, I feel /weird/ dressed formally, and I see that as the primary problem I am doing this to overcome. I will probably keep my standard dress informal[1] after I get used to the suit, but being able to switch contexts is a good thing, and will likely be pretty interesting.
I mean, the point here is mostly to get over me feeling weird about formal dress, and I think for me, it's mostly the suit that feels weird. Also, I think leather soles are hazardous, and I have no actual respect for people who judge other people on shoe quality.
[1]current uniform is black cargo pants (moderate expense, "tactical 5.11" brand; reasonable expense and quality, lots of pockets. very convenient for datacenter work; one pocket is for garbage, the rest for tools. Kinda shapeless and baggy, though.) and a black 'prgmr.com' logo T shirt, with very old "Cove Matterhorn" brand boots that have seen years and years of abuse, and several motorcycle accidents. I also have a thin, unkempt 'homeless man' beard and generally only cut my hair when it starts presenting a hazard by blocking my vision.
I would also pay for such a service. I have several old band shirts that belonged to my dad that just can't safely be worn anymore. I'd love to be able to pay someone to recreate those. T-shirts would be the simple case though. I have other clothes that I'd like to clone as well.
You may feel that clothing is boring and something you can look past, but you are in a tiny minority. By failing to invest a bit in your appearance you are foolishly forgoing substantial advantages in life.
Very nicely done. Benton has a great voice and style. Loved the piece. I also made some additions to my Amazon wish list!
The social engineering aspect of dressing formally was especially interesting. By dressing formally in formal class, then "dressing down" for one-on-ones, he was able to put students much more at ease. (And they also starting emailing him beginning with "Dear Professor" instead of "Hey")
I'm not a suit guy by any means, but in some situations this life choice could make a lot of sense.
Many people pretend to not care about their clothes, or the way they look, so long as they look clean, and decent. The truth is a man who wears a nice shirt, pants, and shoes will simply not want to go back if he is confident about it. And for your information, you look much much better if you sport nice, fitted clothes.
The truth is a man who wears a nice shirt, pants, and shoes will simply not want to go back if he is confident about it.
The truth is I am having a difficult time fitting nice shirts, pants, and shoes into my lifestyle. Less because I am lazy, and more because boulders and bicycle cranks and dirt are hard on nice clothes.
If you are dealing with boulders and dirt on your way to work, then you should find a different path, or consider ride-sharing etc... But I believe you can still ride in style.
That professor is from Hope College, a private Christian college, so he's subsisting on taxpayer money only insofar as most other nonprofit employees are.
I thought the commentary was at least mildly interesting. When I was in the Valley I experienced a strong anti-suit attitude and many I met in the startup industry would vehemently protest any suggestion that dressing formally could be a good idea. It seems like common sense to me but clothing and appearance are just communication tools the same way body language, tone of voice, and diction are.
I had to meander down to the troll section of the responses to find the best comment, yours.
"It seems like common sense to me but clothing and appearance are just communication tools the same way body language, tone of voice, and diction are."
I'm not sure why you think that humanities professors at small liberal arts colleges subsist on tax-payer money. Even if they did, that certainly shouldn't prevent them from writing whimsical, entertaining and interesting pieces like this one – especially when they are English professors.
Because it is taken as axiomatic in some strains of Conservatism (Reactionary, really, but they're pleased to refer to themselves as 'Conservative') that spending tax money on anything other than the military, the police, and the privately-owned jails is unconstitutional. Because having another tax-paid F-22 is not Socialism, somehow.
"Business suits" fall into the category of "lounge suit" which is considered informal dress.[2]
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_wear
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lounge_suit