(June 23) – “So the summer is officially here and Morgan Stanley and Chase Manhattan and the last few white-shoe law firms have finally accepted the inevitability of casual wear. This is widely believed to be either the end of the civilized world or the best thing to happen to work clothes since man shucked the bearskin and started hunting in pants,” writes Scott Omelianuk in today’s Wall Street Journal.
“If you are old school, as they say, you believe the former. If you’re one of those free-thinking, networking, new-economy wunderkinds, it is the latter you believe. And if you are me, well, you think both groups are twisting their knickers over not a whole lot.
“To be sure, this shift in professional dress has caused its share of anxiety and anarchy. I have seen plenty of both. Anxiety: the $500,000-a-year partner in Manhattan who’s suddenly worried that his bright green cable-knit sweater makes him look like a $5-an-hour intern. Anarchy: the shapely city clerk in Newark who thought it was okay one particularly hot day to wear a tube top. Worse anarchy: the slightly overweight Seattle rainmaker who strode into the office on a Friday with his Testoni briefcase in his hand, a Rolex on his wrist and a pair of Lycra bike shorts stretched about his bottom.
“I think we all can agree that these scenarios aren’t pretty, or, in the case of Lycra Man, are downright terrifying. They’re also the sort of extreme sartorial faux pas that sets the alarmists atwitter. ‘These companies are shooting themselves in the foot by letting down their standards,’ says Clifford Grodd, president of the excellent clothier Paul Stuart. ‘There’s no way we’re going to do it — not while I’m calling the shots. . . . Everyone recognizes that we stand for something.’
“While it may be true that Paul Stuart stands for something — suits, presumably — the error that Mr. Grodd makes is believing that any man in any suit stands for something too. One wonders who Mr. Grodd would trust his wallet with: gangster Dutch Schulz, who by all accounts was a world-class suit wearer, or Mahatma Ghandi, who, I think we can agree, was not.
“Of course, the progressives make errors, too. ‘Casual wear is more comfortable,’ they say. ‘It helps me be more creative.’ The thing is, it’s not that suits are uncomfortable — it’s that cheap, ill-fitting suits are uncomfortable. Furthermore, guys like Matisse managed some fairly durable art while wearing a three-piece suit, in the South of France, in the summer, before air conditioning. Likewise, Edison didn’t need Dockers to do the things he did with electricity.
“Ultimately, this move toward a less regimented way of dressing is nothing more or less than one more step in the long march toward democratizing the closet. The modern business suit, which men have worn for 100 years, was a more casual version of the frock coat. The frock coat in turn was a simpler, sober reaction to the effete fussiness of powdered wigs, silk vests and too-tight knee breeches popular among men of accomplishment before the French Revolution.
“Thus has the wardrobe changed over the last couple of centuries. Meanwhile, we’ve had good times and bad, and our standards and morals and the respect with which we treat one another have all ebbed and flowed more or less irrespective of what we’ve worn.