Why Do We Dress So Badly?

I went to a wedding of a good friend last week in Rome. Beautiful event, destination wedding, the whole thing. The entire time I was there I kept thinking, why don't we wear suits anymore? I looked good. I felt good. Everyone else looked good and felt good too.

I decided to run an experiment. For the next few days in Rome, I would just keep wearing the suit. I ditched the tie, put on a sweater underneath the jacket. Made it more casual. Easy to wear a suit in Rome all day, you stick out a little less than other places. It’s still a place to dress up. Matches the architecture and eternal city vibe.

@romeitalytravel

Even if its boiling out there, they will never loose their style 🫢 #rome #romeitalytravel #visitromekanye

The last time I'd worn a suit was in court. Before that, years ago when I was meeting clients at work, where I'd hated everything about it: the corporate grey, the costume of compliance, the whole thing.

But this was different. I wore the suit because I wanted to. No one was forcing me. I got looks from girls. People treated me better. My posture straightened out. The experiment was a success

I took it off after a few days when I got back home. I felt like I was the "the suit guy.” Clothes are social. If everyone is wearing a suit, it feels fine. If you're the only one wearing it, it starts to feel like a costume. Like you’re playing a character.

But, wearing a suit for a few days, without being forced to, made me realize something. The problem isn't that modern men are lazy dressers. It’s that we removed a cultural system that solved dressing for men for a thousand years, and replaced it with nothing.

The 90% and the 10%

Men tend to fall into two camps when it comes to clothes.

The vast majority, 90 percent, most of the people reading this, see clothing as a functional tool. They want to look appropriate, be comfortable, and not waste mental energy on it. They aren't trying to impress or stick out, they just want a system that works

Then there's a smaller group who cares deeply about fashion. They number around 10 percent. They are the ones on Twitter and Instagram discussing color palettes and fabric rules. People like the Menswear guy on Twitter. You can find them all over Instagram reels. This 10 percent has always existed, but today they have a megaphone.

This 10 percent of men are very prominent right now because they make a simple point that we all can see, men today dress badly as compared to previous eras. Things have gotten so strange that people with money and resources dress badly, and don’t feel bad about it.

They offer a solution, these fashion-obsessed men: develop a personal style.
Spend money, spend time, build an identity through outfits. Choose an era, learn the rules, express yourself through clothing. And if you can’t? That’s your failure. The 10% mistake their hobby for a universal path, and then blame the other 90% for not wanting to play.

But this is an ahistorical solution to a modern problem.

The 90 percent majority of men don't think like this at all. And for good reason. They participated in a system, a tradition of male dress that they didn't have to think about. A clothing tradition was handed to you and you just assimilated to it. It was a clothing system every other man was in, and it worked.

However, that system, a continuous, evolving uniform, has been severed. So now, the 90% are adrift, throwing on whatever is comfortable, while the 10% critique them for not playing a game that never existed for their ancestors.

Remember: the fashion-obsessed men are the aberration, not the norm. You are normal. Not them.

We abandoned a culture that solved this problem, and now things are aesthetically chaotic. But we won't be saved by all becoming fashion obsessed. That isn't happening. Ninety percent of men don't work that way and never will.

The modern fashion industry asks men to become the wrong kind of creature. It pushes them toward a cognitive style (constant novelty, emotional expression, seasonal churn, aesthetic signaling) that historically belonged to women. Maybe ten percent of men can operate in that mode. Most can’t and won’t, their psychology evolved for different problems than curating appearance.

When a system doesn’t match male psychology, men do what they always do, they either retreat into pure comfort (hoodies, joggers, sneakers) or they cling to brands and hype as a substitute for a stable template.

And because most men opt out, no new male uniform can form. A real uniform needs to emerge organically, slowly, through repetition. The modern fashion cycle prevents that on purpose. Its business model depends on destroying stability before it can take hold.

So the industry keeps trying to turn men into high churn fashion consumers, and men keep resisting by disappearing into comfortwear. Until something organically replaces the suit, we’re stuck in this stalemate.

Six Reasons Why The Suit Works

The reason the stalemate feels so claustrophobic is that the suit actually worked. It solved the exact problems modern fashion keeps creating. A suit is simply a jacket, pants, and a shirt. It’s clothing that solves presentation without requiring daily invention.

1) It’s Pre-Solved

The jacket and trousers already match. the equation of what to wear is already solved. Like a well-designed tool, it eliminates daily decisions about color and combination. This frees your mind for more important things than wondering if this shirt goes with those pants.

@whatmyboyfriendwore

Using #colortheory in #mensfashion is an extremely simple way to create better looking outfits. This will definitely give you the theiry y... See more

2) It Abstracts You.

The suit hides physical flaws, and constructs a flattering, geometric silhouette that works for almost every body type. It equalizes. In contrast, modern clothing, from skinny jeans to fitted tees, often clings and exposes, turning your body into a public metric of your fitness or dietary discipline. There’s a civilizational aspect to the suit.

3) It Commands Posture.

A suit is an architectural garment. The structured shoulders and canvassed chest force you to stand straighter. It makes physical demands where contemporary clothing makes none. You can slouch and collapse into a hoodie; a suit won’t let you. It physically enacts a state of readiness.

@edgyalbert

My favorite suit was $25 at goodwill

4) It’s an Egalitarian Silhouette.

Yes, quality varies immensely. But for over a century, the silhouette of a banker's suit and a shopkeeper's suit was essentially the same. From across the street, you often couldn't tell who was who. The suit was a rare social garment that flattened economic difference. Today, the opposite is true, the elite signal status by dressing down, while everyone else is trapped in the frantic churn of consumer trends.

5) People Like Suits

The aesthetic power of a suit is immediate. You are treated differently.

@infinityloyalclothing

Waitt what? That´s classic, do you agree? ##infintiyloyal##streetinterviews#suit

6) It’s a Adaptable System.

The suit is a modular kit for different climates. Cold? Add a vest or an overcoat. Warm? Remove the jacket and roll up your sleeves. While it struggles in extreme heat (where traditional, uniform-like robes take over), its versatile.

The Long Continuity

For most of history, men wore a shared, standardized outfit. Bruegel’s Wedding Dance shows that even ordinary peasants in the 1500s dressed in a uniform way. Every man wears the same basic template, fitted jacket, hose, belt, cap. Colors vary, but the silhouette is identical. This was everyday male clothing. Men formed a visual block, women varied more.

The suit is just another expression of a continuous male uniform that evolved logically for five centuries. You can trace this unbroken lineage from the doublet of the 1500s, to the justaucorps and waistcoat of the late 1600s,

through the sober frock coat of the 1830s, and finally to the democratized lounge suit of the early 1900s.

This was not a series of random trends, but the slow refinement of a single, coherent system. The death of the suit is a rupture of a 500-year tradition, leaving us with no continuum to step into.

In This Newsletter

But today, the suit is mostly dead and we are in this strange in-between period. I don’t know how long we can exist in this stage where every man is expected to have a personal style. It’s not Lindy.

Two questions remain:

1) What Killed the Suit? The decline is shockingly recent. Variations of the suit held on well into the 2000s. Then, almost overnight, the entire system collapsed, socially, professionally, culturally. Why?

2) What Will Come After the Suit? If history is any guide, another universal male uniform will eventually emerge. The only question is which direction it takes. Right now, there are three real contenders.

The Death of the Suit: Four Stages

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