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Comment by overgard | Hacker News Reader

The funny thing is, I'm sort of jealous of the people that are "forced" to wear a suit every day. You mean they get to have an excuse to wear something that the average guy looks way better in every day without having to explain themselves because they have a built in excuse? That's awesome!

The funny thing is, casual clothes often take more thought. With a suit you can blend in, with casual clothes, even if they're not great, they're /yours/; no hiding from your choices. Sure you can screw up a suit too, but it takes a lot more trying. As long as it fits well and it's not weird, it's a suit. There's not a lot to think about. It's basically like the classical Jobs' uniform of jeans+turtle neck, but way better looking. Unfortunately it now has the stigma of being "stuffy".

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It really depends where you live.

In Sydney, I find it impossible not to see the suit and tie as an arbitrary cultural hold-over from a different climate.

The suit causes the company to waste thousands of dollars on air-conditioning, and introduces a gendered Cold War, because we simultaneously make the female staff wear clothes that strike a delicate balance between professional and attractive.

The suit is so impractical and stupid in this climate that it's hard not to think negatively about an office culture that demands it, or those who haven't questioned its place as a status symbol.

Yep. As a South African I felt the same way about my high school's overly warm boys' uniform. (And unlike wealthy corps, my school didn't have air conditioning.)

The little moments of "everything's optimised for being on the other side of the planet" are everywhere once you notice them.

All of our suburbs have peaked, ceramic tiled roofs. That design makes perfect sense when you have regular snowfall, which you need to run off the roof.

Here, a slightly sloping concrete roof would be a pleasant roof-top garden, or a more easily accessible place to put a solar-powered hot water tank.

The tiled roofs are expensive, costly when they're damaged by our frequent, heavy hale, and a good place for possums to get trapped and die.

All because our architects regularly pretend we're in England.

Fair point, I'm coming at this from a northern climate where I usually am comfortable wearing a coat indoors anyway.

I would totally agree, I have no real "enforced" dress code but I choose to wear a suit when I go to clients (even though they never do), I am usually with sysadmins, developers or Security teams. I feel like wearing a suit sets me apart and also gives impact when I enter a room, I also (being young) find it gives me a little more automatic respect which always helps too. I think people should have the choice but I really think this whole "suits" are stuffy thing is stupid, suits are comfortable, can be worn multiple days in a row and make you look fly.

This, suits look classy. They also can be quite comfortable.

Suits only look classy if you are impressed by the cultural narrative they represent.

Nonsense. Suits look good because they have hundreds of years - literally - of refinement into something that flatters the human shape. You might as well complain about the cultural narrative of subconscious, instinctive body language.

For that idea to have a shred of validity, you'd have to explain why there is no such convergence in women's attire.

Suits are admired because they developed from the dress of the aristocracy and military and represent established wealth and power. They are a clumsy design, full of anachronisms, for example the buttons on the cuffs of a suit coat originate from Napoleon trying to stop soldiers from wiping their noses on their clothes. The second pocket on the right of many jackets is a ticket pocket introduced to hold an English gentleman's railway ticket in the time when rail was an exclusive way to travel.

If they really represented an evolved ideal way to make the human body look 'good' we'd all love to wear them and this debate wouldn't be happening.

I like you, can we be friends?

This is correct IMO, because in my experience when I wear a suit or a tuxedo I feel sort of superior to others around me. This could have something to do with my personality or with the images that I have been fed or both. The idea has been implanted that "suits" == "good jobs" and "good jobs" == "good money" or "suits" == "obedience" and "obendience" == "climbing the success ladder". When I wear my black sweatshirt everyday to my engineering job, I wear it for comfort and it in no way make me look or feel inferior to other people.

Right - I wore a Brooks brothers suit to a courthouse to a speeding ticket hearing. I was treated with the utmost courtesy by the security guards who even held the door open for me, and once into the courtroom I was invited to sit with the other attorneys.

Obviously this wasn't because the suit made my body look great.

If you live somewhere warm, a suit is quite literally 'stuffy'. You'll sweat a lot more in a suit than in a T-shirt.

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