I like stories where characters wear suits.
Since I like suits so much, I realized that I should just wear one.
The result has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone loves it: friends, strangers, dance partners, bartenders. It makes them feel like they're in a Kingsmen film. Even teenage delinquents and homeless beggars love it. The only group that gives me hateful looks is the radical socialists.
- The first time I go somewhere wearing a suit, people ask me why I'm wearing a suit.
- The second time, nobody asks.
- After that, if I stop wearing a suit, people ask why I'm not wearing a suit.
If you wear a suit in a casual culture, people will ask "Why are you wearing a suit?" This might seem to imply that you shouldn't wear a suit. Does it? It's complicated. Questions like this one follow the Copenhagen interpretation of social standards; their meaning is defined retroactively.
- If you respond with anything other than quiet self-assuredness, then people pick up on the incoherence. This will probably happen the first time you wear a suit just because you want to.
- If your subtle mannerisms and other contextual clues imply that you should be wearing a suit, then not only is it acceptable for you to wear a suit—it's appropriate. Why wouldn't you be wearing a suit? Suits are awesome and so are you.
There are correct and incorrect answers to the question, "Why are you wearing a suit?" After experimenting with several different answers, I notice that other people respond well to, "I like to, and I think it makes me look good." You have my permission to steal this answer for yourself. This answer is good for multiple reasons:
- It communicates that I'm not wearing a suit because I have to for my job.
- It implies that I don't care if anyone else wears a suit. This puts other people at ease.
- An ironed, well-fitted suit does look good.
I wouldn't wear a suit everywhere. I live on the West Coast of the USA, which is very casual. That makes wearing a suit a fashion statement. If I wore a suit in Japan, then it wouldn't look like I'm making a fashion statement. It would look like I just got off of work and didn't have time to change.
I don't wear a suit to work. If I did, then it wouldn't be fun to wear one casually. In this way, wearing a suit helps create work-life separation for me.
If you're wearing a suit, then don't comment on anyone else's clothes (unless they compliment you first). This is the reverse of normal social advice. Normally, complimenting other people's clothes makes for a general-purpose icebreaker. However, if you're wearing a suit, then drawing attention to others' appearances just draws attention to yours, which is counterproductive.
That's because if you wear a suit in a casual culture, then you want to be sending the subconscious message It's no big deal that I'm wearing a suit. I'm just the kind of person who wears a suit.
I believe that Trump is, in fact, exactly that clueless and completely unaware of how clueless he is.
Edit: For the record: my biggest reason for believing this is having read reports of what many mainstream Republicans who worked under him during his first term have said and written about what he was like.