The Suit-Wearer Manifesto
December 31, 2011, By Gin A. Ando 0 comments
Like many things nowadays, the suit has become widely accessible to numerous people. But that mass-market availability comes with a price. Unfortunately, it's homogenizing a niche and undermining experts who have dedicated years of their lives to menswear.
Don’t fall for the cookie-cutter approach to choosing a suit. Just because a tie is around a mannequin’s neck, it may not be the best choice for the shirt. That shirt might not be all that great either. And although we buy things from the designers or brands we adore, men should never feel obligated to wear what’s in a display case or on some stuffed torso propped up at the end of an aisle.
A suit should make a unique statement about the guy wearing it.
"Ignorance and Fear"
Andy Gilchrist, author of “The Encyclopedia of Men’s Clothes” and the mind behind AskAndyAboutClothes.com, blames the prosaic everyday suit wearing on two things: ignorance and fear.
The male mind, Gilchrist says, must achieve an experienced eye. The female mind is one that knows—and is impressed with a male who knows—how to coordinate patterns effectively, who doesn't succumb to the generic, store-mannequin approach.
Grant Harris, owner and chief style consultant of Image Granted, a Washington, D.C.-based company, says that if a man is willing to take the plunge, he must overcome the misconception of matching versus coordination.
"Nobody should match," Harris says. "You coordinate—nothing in your outfit should match, but everything should go."
Both Harris and Gilchrist say learning how to coordinate patterns might take awhile to do properly. The ability to do it, however, brings an air of fearlessness (as an added bonus to female respect), Harris says.
"[The man who coordinates patterns] is confident," he says. "He cannot be afraid, scared or embarrased because people will talk. But he also has to know what he's doing."
Despite the dizzying number of patterns, colors and fads that come and go, the suit still reigns in some respects. And if you're bound to a dress code in the office, Gilchrist and Harris don't see that as limiting your options.
In fact, the sheer number of options—shirts, ties, pocket squares, jackets, trousers, socks and shoes—allows a suit to be formal and respectful enough for a funeral, but also wearable to a weekend social event. Unless the environment demands otherwise ("You wouldn't wear a suit on a farm, and you wouldn't wear overalls to the office," Harris says), a suit can be worn most anywhere. And being the best-dressed guy in the crowd is never a bad thing.
That utilitarianism of something like the classic suit, which may seem counterintiuitive, has allowed it to endure as an icon. Because, sometimes, it isn't about the jackets or the trousers. It's about the patterns and color that go with it.
“First there was the Peacock Revolution back in the ’60s and ’70s that gave men permission to wear turtlenecks instead of shirts and neckties [and] to wear velvet, dark shirts and scarves,” Gilchrist says. “It was fun and liberating, but it took away the professional image it had taken decades to build. A suit, dress shirt and necktie are the ultimate image-projection of authority and professionalism.”
We’re naturally drawn to words like “ultimate,” authority” and “professional.” Creating that image really should be all the incentive a guy needs.
NEXT: Wisdom and Valor
