Suits: A Love and Hate Story
“Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.”
Hi There Stylish Friends,
Today I want to talk about Suits. To me, suits are awesome and terrible at the same time, and probably not for the reasons you’d think about. While I really like the look of suits and how they make you feel when wearing one, I really don’t like the forced part of suits. I am looking at you Japanese salaryman!
The future of the suit is changing rapidly. A lot more men start to appreciate the suit as a piece that is for non-working situations. I, personally, think that suits in the workplace serve less or even no purpose anymore. I guess this is because this is the age of data rather than emotion.
So why do I hate and love suits?
Suits are Amazing
Let’s start with the positives and what I like about suits. The most obvious part is how they look and how you can style them. A guide suit will make any man look good, no matter the body type. skin color, hairstyle, amount of tattoos, etc.
There are so many ways to style suits and the variation is far larger than people can think of. I feel confident wearing a suit and unlike common opinions, find them very comfortable. The types of materials for suits vary so much these days that you will definitely be able to find a suit that looks great and can be comfy too.
One of my personal favorites is to be casual with suits by combining them with a simple white T-shirt and a pair of white sneakers. Suits are here to stay and have become more common to wear in a non-business environment, and I love that.
Suits are Terrible
This might be a bit more relevant to Japan than other countries but: the way most men wear suits is terrible. Is that a bad sense of style? No, it’s a form of fitting in. The suits men wear to work here are as standardized as possible. This is because of the (in)famous Japanese saying: The nail that sticks out gets hammered.
The result of this is that most suits worn by businessmen (or salaryman as they call them here) are as simple as possible and usually not a great fit. This starts at the very beginning of that life during job hunting. Everybody has to wear a certain type of suit to be as uniform as possible. After joining the company you go through on-the-job training (OJT) and after that, you are ‘free’ to wear a different type of outfit. Even though you are free to wear a different outfit this usually just means changing the color of the suit to not look like a new grad/hire.
Source: https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/318137161173907563/
But isn’t that the terrible style, not the suits?
No, my issue with this is the idea behind these suits. I think men should care about what they wear but I respect people who don’t really care about their fits. My main problem is the idea that you have to look the same as everyone else on your level/in your class/of your rank. I really believe that your performance has nothing to do with the clothes you wear. If that would be true guys like Elon musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg would wear 11/10 suits all the time, and let’s be real here: That’s far from the case.
I love wearing suits, but I hate wearing them to or for work. Suits, like any other clothing piece, should be an expression of your style, your personality, and your fashion and not be worn because that is the standard for that situation.
