Why Steve Jobs Chose Issey Miyake’s Turtlenecks

He was ahead of the curve on minimalist 'normcore' -the whole point was a drive to efficiency: Nobody needs to care if Steve wears polo shirts or Donna Karan Designer jeans. They need to care whats in Steve's head. Steve doesn't now need to care what colour he wears because he knows when he opens the wardrobe door its clean, and its black. he simply puts on the most clean items, and goes to work.

It was the emphasis on function, not form. Do not look at Steve's nipples, they aren't on display.

In many ways, it reaches back to the 14th and 15th century. Black was expensive, and sumptuary laws limited who could wear black (and purple). Black was not only expensive, it was a signifier of wealth and success. But also, people really only had one suit of clothes, oftentimes. What we call "motley" is people piecing together a suit of clothes from hand-me-down rags, you would have sleeves separate to bodice, and piece them together to make new clothes from old clothes. Steve is saying "I am rich, and I don't care about having to be a peacock, and this is my work, my persona, and also this is functional, and also.. this is simple"

He might have chosen a white tee shirt and Jeans. Same same.

I can't personally carry this off. I live in my conference tee shirts, I am riddled with designer logo, and I have colour choice issues every morning. But my dad did make it work, long long before Steve. My dad back in the 70s settled on a range of three hues of turtleneck, and wore them to death. We found about 10 in his wardrobe, along with 4 pairs of the hush puppies he liked. I recall one memorable instance when he appeared on BBC scotland to talk about the new Edinburgh University computer wearing one of the turtlenecks inside out and back to front: I suspect the BCC producers knew, and liked the "mad scientist" schtick and went with it.

Italian nonnas adopt black polka dot when the husband dies. I have friends who made the same choice when their partner died. It's surprisingly common to decide monochrome suits you and stick to it, and it removes decision-choice-panic delay in the morning.

If I can wean myself off conference teeshirts, I really do think I might be there one day, before I die.

Turtleneck is why Sid (my dad) chose them: No tie. he hated ties. Steve hated ties.

There is an alternative: Graph paper shirts. Most engineers will have at least one graph paper check shirt in their wardrobe, major axes 1cm with a 2mm sub-grid in contrast colour.

Most runway designers eschew complex clothes. Karl Largerfeld is somewhat of an anomaly with those ridiculous collars.