Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
The power suit gets itself some panache
Now often worn as a form of vanity
DOUGLAS Heye wears suits. Like a lot of men, he gives a fair amount of consideration to the way those suits are styled. Unlike a lot of men, he is willing and able to break down those considerations into specifics.
“I like a pocket square, but I generally don’t wear one with a tie,” said Heye, a former Republican strategist, now a CNN contributor.
“If I’m wearing a tie, three out of four times it’s blue. I like blue and I’ve been told it works for me. If I’m wearing a jacket and no tie, I always like a pocket square. I think it’s a little bit more dressy. It shows a little bit of effort.”
Effort is important. The whole reason for wearing the suit, he said, is to set a tone. He recently attended a meeting where he knew everyone else would be casual.
But he couldn’t bring himself to show up in khakis and a golf shirt. A suit, he reasoned, signalled a certain seriousness.
“But I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it means something to me and not the viewer.”
What exactly does the business suit mean today? For many men, it is formality and propriety.
When cut with skill, it celebrates the beauty of a well-proportioned physique and camouflages the imperfections of a decidedly human one.
A suit announces a man has grown-up intentions – even if he is wholly immature. It’s an expression of personal aesthetics. But in the world of men’s tailoring – retailers, designers, shoppers – the suit no longer represents power. The power suit is dead.
Slipping on a suit is no longer a requirement for moving into the executive suite. It does not automatically imbue its wearer with authority.
The most important person in the room is probably not wearing a suit. The president wears something that can only loosely be called a suit; it is more of a sack.
The “suits” may still be the rule makers. But what are the rules worth these days?
“Today, the suit of armour has a different meaning and a different purpose,” said Tom Kalenderian, a 38-year veteran of Barneys New York and the store executive in charge of menswear.
The power suit did not die a quick, painless death. It was not slaughtered with one brisk pen stroke on a designer’s sketchpad. Its demise was slow and anguished.
Decades ago, Casual Friday tried to kill the power suit. The effort only frustrated powerful men who didn’t have the time or the wherewithal to figure out a dignified alternative to chalk stripes and peak lapels.
Casual Friday gave men Dockers and men deserved better than that. The power suit survived.
Then, the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley rebelled against the business suit. They wore hoodies and jeans while they built their brands and they continued wearing these informal clothes after they became tycoons.
But then fashion began to muck around with suits. Thom Browne made them in grey flannel and shrank them for maximum stylistic effect.
J Crew, Zara and others took the downsized Mad Men silhouette to the mass market.
In 2016, the classic Italian menswear house Brioni hired a former street-style star in a bid to boost sales. Justin O’Shea, a lean, tattooed Australian whose main retail experience was as fashion director of a women’s e- commerce site, sought to radically remake the 72-year-old brand in his own rebel image.
He created a collection of angular, hyper-sexy suits. On the runway, models wore them with chinchilla overcoats. O’Shea aimed to woo customers with an advertising campaign featuring the heavymetal band Metallica photographed in shadowy, gothic glamour. It was all too much and O’Shea was out of a job in six months. But no matter. His time at Brioni might have been short and his vision extreme, but it was in keeping with the new reality.
“The suit is in a really interesting place. It’s come off very bad times,” said Mark-Evan Blackman, a menswear specialist at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Musicians now wear business suits during performances – not the bedazzled blazers and leather pants expected of rock stars, but Wall Street suits, gloriously tailored Tom Ford suits.
Not every man loves suits, but a lot of men do. There are more modestly priced brands such as Suitsupply and Strong Suit making inroads in the US market and on the red carpet by pushing style, panache and flexibility.
By celebrating everything but power.
Or, in the case of Suitsupply, which is based in Amsterdam, by poking fun at power suits in an advertising campaign titled, “Revenge of the Yuppies.”
What motivates a man to purchase a suit? “I think it’s more of a confidence thing,” said Nish de Gruiter, vice-president of Suitsupply USA. “Younger customers see (a suit) as a reflection of their personality.”
They wear a suit with hiking boots. They choose knit jersey blazers that feel like sweatshirts.
“They don’t have to buy a suit; they just like how they look in a suit,” Kalenderian said. “They like how they feel and what people say about how they look.”
Suits have emerged as a form of vanity, in the peacock tradition, breaking free of the master of the universe mould.
What they have lost in power, they have gained in style. – The Washington Post