That sumptuary laws are gone is not a weakening of the class distinction implied by suits, but a demonstration of their effectiveness.
>>No one aspires to that. Jeans, sweats and t-shirts are the new class separator, indicating which of us have earned the freedom from having to wear suits.
The key thing here is that there is a difference between aspiration and ability. Clothes unsuitable for labor merely indicate a commitment to an information occupation. Suits, expensive clothes that look good and are unsuitable for labor, also indicate a social commitment to the organization, a social commitment necessary to advance within the ranks.
In many, if not most, software firms, the way to success is upward through management. For a while, it was through stock options or stock grants. In the latter two scenarios, no social commitment was necessary, so come-as-you-are became the norm.
Come-as-you-are seems to survive for two other reasons. Firstly, the class distinction between partners & the board vs the line-level programmers has to do with ownership, and no amount of coding, whether performed in jeans or in a suit, can help you over that barrier within the organization. Secondly and consequently, the route across that social divide, for the line-level programmer, is via a start-up effort undertaken as a side project, outside the social structure of the worker's organization.
These trends are not heading in a direction that portends an infinite ocean of denim and sweats, but rather for a re-emergence of business casual or even smart casual in the workplace for programmers, and again for suits in the managing establishment. Suits are a signifier that someone is adept at controlling other humans and getting them to perform work for them. The ability to get computers to do useful (capital-capturing) work has upended this temporarily. As this algorithmic market commoditizes, or at least as the exploitable niches fill, the ability to control people instead of machines will become more important again. Even without commoditization and niche-capture, the fitness advantage of being able to control and manage an organization still portends a crystallization of an owning class, complete with ownership regalia, the suit.
The short of it is this: If you program for another organization and don't have an amazing side-project, you might consider the slacks-and-jacket smart casual look if you want to move ahead.
Says you. You must be exposed to very different workplaces than me. I've yet to work at a place in the last ten years where any of suits, business casual, or smart casual is practiced, or encouraged. Pretty much, normal street clothes are perfectly fine.
I think your image of lower-class labor is outdated. There are now 'literate' jobs that pay way less while being tougher than a lot of 'physical' jobs. Like working on a call center on a daily pay.
There's a whole class of people in Japan who are homeless but work in a suit.
Given no other information, are you going to hire the programmer who obviously puts a lot of effort into his appearance? or the programmer who does not?
I mean, I know people who answer both ways. Some people think looking nice is a sign of respect... but others assume that if you put that much effort into your appearance you must be covering up for incompetence.
Nevertheless, how we present ourselves is inevitably influenced by what other people think of us. The amount of influence differs by situation. Though a programmer might dress in jeans and a T-shirt, he surely combs his hair.
Sure, our perceptions of appropriate dress change by the decade or so. But there's a difference between lowered expectations of what's appropriate (business casual instead of business) and no expectation. I think the later is what you're suggesting, that opinions of us are less influenced by our dress.
The former may be happening; but as others have stated, all fashion is cyclical. The later is, in the absolute sense, impossible. In the relative sense, it may sway, just like fashion, but we will always dress based on what other people will think, even if its to a lesser degree.
No, because expectations of appropriate dress vary radically by field. If you dress appropriately for a nightclub hostess job and then try to, say, get a job as a financial advisor or an enterprise software salesperson, you are likely doing yourself a disservice, even if the nightclub hostess getup is more flattering.
>Sure, our perceptions of appropriate dress change by the decade or so. But there's a difference between lowered expectations of what's appropriate (business casual instead of business) and no expectation. I think the later is what you're suggesting, that opinions of us are less influenced by our dress.
I'm suggesting that there are some situations where looking less attractive is more likely to help you obtain a positive business result.
The obvious examples are the trades, but I think there are certain, ah, stereotypes about programmers and sysadmins that also have a similar effect.
I mean, not always; but there are certain companies where a programmer showing up in a suit would be seen as almost as weird as an electrician showing up in a nice silk 3 piece.
>Though a programmer might dress in jeans and a T-shirt, he surely combs his hair.
I find this statement to be so far outside my experiences and expectations that I wonder... are you American?
Could you cite your assertions please?
I mean, we'll both want jobs where we can show up in shorts and flip flops whenever we want, but we also kinda want jobs where we get to wear suits (as long as we get enough pay so the suits don't bankrupt us). Cause suits make you look -awesome-. And doing anything in a suit just makes you feel kinda giddy and special.