B.C. MAYOR WEARS SAME SUIT FOR 15 MONTHS — TO PROVE A SARTORIAL POINT.

While running for re- election in late 2014, Coquitlam, B.C. Mayor Richard Stewart decided to experiment by wearing the exact same suit throughout the entire campaign. He won, and decided to keep the ruse going. For 15 months, the chief magistrate for 125,000 people wore the same off-the-rack suit to council meetings, conferences, groundbreakings — and nobody paid the slightest notice. As Stewart told the National Post’s Tristin Hopper, his sartorial experiment contains an important lesson about feminism.

Q Mayor Stewart? Thanks for taking my call, it’s Tristin Hopper with the National Post.

A Oh great, you’re calling about that GHG emissions project we’ve launched?

Q Correct! I am calling about GHG emissions, I’m calling about Coquitlam 125, I’m calling about the recent round of Spirit of Coquitlam artist grants and if we have time I will ask you about wearing the same thing every day for 15 months.

A (Sigh.) Go ahead. Q There was an Australian news anchor who wore the same blue suit for a year, and in that case he was trying to make the point that if a woman had done the same, we would have noticed immediately. Was that the idea here?

A Exactly. It’s disconcerting from my perspective that we can go through an entire election campaign and I can wear exactly the same suit and no one would bat an eye. But if a woman shows up to two all-candidates’ meetings wearing the same outfit, she will receive emails. “Your outfit looks frumpy.” “What were you thinking with your hairdo?” That sort of thing. Q Is it something you’re heard directly from female colleagues?

A I used to be an MLA, and there would be four days of legislative sittings and women colleagues would say they’d have to bring four outfits or else get emails. Men just aren’t subjected to the same questions about our clothing or our hair that women get all the time. Q As is my understanding, you intended to do this until someone noticed, but nobody noticed and you called it off after 15 months lest you be wearing the same suit for the rest of your career?

A It would seem so, or at least until the life of the suit.

Q If you don’t mind my asking, how often did you dry clean the suit during this process?

A A half dozen times, I guess? I’m not very diligent about timing my dry-cleaning. It’s just when it seems a bit wrinkled. But it was regular enough so that no one would comment on my suit because of its odour. I also wear the same thing to work every day and nobody seems to have noticed. Q What would be your ideal solution to this phenomenon? Should a woman have the freedom to wear the same black pantsuit every day without anybody caring?

A All I’m looking for is that we end these inadvertent barriers that tend to keep women out of public life. We’ll try to recruit a wide range of people from our community to run for office so that they better reflect the communities they represent, and women perceive different barriers that don’t exist for men. I think we need to get past that so that my daughters can be judged on how well they do their job rather than what they wore. Q Have you ever done a social experiment like this in your political career?

A No. I’ve never done anything like this, and I won’t ever again because it’s tied up a whole day. Q If the national media could have rung your phone off the hook for any other issue rather than your limited wardrobe, what would it have been?

A Mental illness. The lack of resources and the stigma surrounding it.