Last edited by Cruz Diez (2008-08-10 08:59:37)

A couple of clarifications:

I do believe that there were standards to getting dressed; perhaps rules with a small "r". Except at the most general level imaginable, I don't believe there was ever a universal paint by numbers approach to being safe with what you wear. You can choose intrinsically elegant items which fit you well and because they may have no relation with each other you can still end up with an outfit devoid of style or sincerity. Thus, good ingredients thrown together without care/talent/flair can result in an insipid outfit.

Concerning universal standards, as soon as you choose something, someone else is going to have a positive reaction and yet someone else a negative one. Although it depends on the situations, minimizing the negative reactions and maximizing the positive ones are what make a man more pleasingly dressed.

If you consider a solid navy suit as the only choice for a man to wear, we would quickly develop stratifications based on quality of the material, construction, style, finishing etc… What will end up being most pleasing will be the current viewpoint of the most successful style for a man intersecting with the skill of the tailor and how in tune he is with current viewpoints.

Dressing "rules" evolved in an unwritten form amongst circles of people.

Think of dress codes or "rules" as invisible strings operating people like puppets. Depending on whom you are and what you do, the strings have been more or less severed. If you are a tailor it is more likely most of the strings are still intact (he has no choice but to accept many of the physical teachings of western tailoring) but if you are at a media company, most of them may have been severed.

I think the greatest reason that you cannot have a single arbiter of rules for clothes is because the casual workplace killed off the universal expectation of what to wear. As mentioned above, the removal of obligations to wear tailored clothes killed the idea of scrambling to a book to figure out what to wear to be safe.

Instead, we have more local fiefdoms than ever before, some of them as small as the single wearer himself. It would be better to recast oneself as a wardrobe designer keeping abreast with the times and the messages clothes send than to try to deploy a universal standard.

Think of the death of the "rules" as more of the fall of an empire with people still living in the ruins and using stones from great works to make new buildings or even stone walls.

When I say that men's tailored clothing has become costume, I did not mean it in a Halloween sort of way but merely that those clothes have made the journey from required uniform to special (and often expensive) items which men choose to wear for purposes of status up and above the minimal signalers of vocation, this status is more individualized than it used to be.

To a certain extent, men no longer wear suits to be viewed as decent or protective (battle armor), they wear them to show off their success/flair (Tournament armor).

This is both bad and good. Bad because you don't have a limited palette which would necessitate individualism through forced creativity and minimize getting it wrong. Good because you can choose from a wider range of choices and if you get it right it enhances your personal nimbus of authority. It is bad because you run more chances of dressing like a woman (when in doubt, match) or some other unfortunate direction and run the risk of being observed as slick.
The natural shouldered “sack” suit may or may not be objectively ugly but due to its associations it has become objectively handsome. Mens clothes gain associations outside of their intrinsic beauty and men themselves do not just wear clothes to be elegant or beautiful. 

If you take Duchamp ties as an example. I think that as silk designs most people can agree that they are attractive. It is when they become neckties that problems arise.  In some circles they are hideous in others they are exalted; even in those circles where they are accepted, not many men will wear them. With the right clothes they are a positive, with the wrong clothes they are out of place. On the right person, with the right outfit for the right occasion, they are brilliant. Getting dressed is a complex interlocking Venn diagram.

I think the suit itself in the USA is relatively safe if only because while Americans claim they want equality it is more likely that they want everyone else to be equal while they themselves are special. I have mentioned before that as long as the folks on TV providing you with entertaining or important information wear suits and ties, the suit remains safe to wear, even if less people are wearing them.