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.
Pun intended? ;)
But yeah, it's getting off-topic and there's plenty of other places to discuss that kind of thing.