I read a short article (Suitable Disruption) in the Economist the other day and it resonated with me. It's about how nowadays people are seen as more competent and creative if they wear informal or "out there" clothes.
In my early professional (in an office, with other people around me) roles I stood out because I didn't wear a suit. The people who worked with me soon realized that just because my sneakers were worn, my jeans were tatty and my T-shirt had a slayer cover on it didn't mean I was any less competent. But then I bought a suit, started wearing it, and people looked at me differently. The business people started paying more attention to what I had to say. The CEO invited me into his office the day I cut my hair short (it had been long for as long as he had known me) and congratulated me on what a professional I was becoming.
I was 19. Back then, people saw me more positively when I smelled of PERC and thought about where my clothes might crease when I sat down.
That company ended up dying fairly ungracefully, and once my employment had been terminated I decided to go to uni. That was a real eye opener. I actually wore a suit on my first day. I stood out like a sore thumb. Here were the brightest, smartest people I'd ever met. Nobody wore suits. In academia your work gets you grades and your grades get you recognition. It doesn't matter what you put on it, it's your body that counts (I consider the brain is part of the body), not what you cover it with. I didn't wear a suit to uni again until I graduated.
But in my working life I have worn a suit to a couple of other jobs. The first was a startup run by a pimp, an ex-defense IT consultant, his MBA wife and a silent partner. We built something cool that we thought people needed but it didn't take off and we ran out of money. My suit didn't help that.
The second was a very short lived role at a public service agency contracted through one of the big four consultancies (a chap could easily name them untold rather easily, but I'll leave it that up to you) as a software tester. I tried for what seemed like eternity to get the slow moving organisation's flaccid IT department to provide me with the license for the software (that they already owned I'll point out) that would allow me to automate the tests I was running and thereby remove their need to employ me. That job nearly killed me. I was contributing nothing of value and every attempt at improving the business just dissipated into the empty void of bureaucracy. I ended up just not showing up one day. Nobody noticed. I didn't come in the next day. Again, nobody noticed. I'd all but forgotten about them after a month, when I finally got a call asking if I still worked there and if I could please come and return my security pass. I wore my suit as I returned it too. Might as well keep up appearances.
That's all it was. Appearance. I wore a suit because I was insecure, in fact I was a bit of a wreck but I wanted to give the appearance of togetherness. I wasn't sure of my abilities (after all, I was still a student) and I wanted to project a professional persona. I wanted to impress people, and I did, but it didn't make any difference. The runway ran out and the product I'd poured my creativity into failed. The consultancy didn't even notice I was gone. Even though I had worn a suit.
My suit had made zero impact on the quality of my work or the degree of professionalism with which I'd conducted myself. Looking back, I think I felt as though my suit was a sort of disguise that meant that I could pretend to be a professional when I was "just" a student. I had it backwards. I was doing really fun, creative and interesting stuff. Then I would put on my suit and become Clark Kent because for some reason that's who I thought I had to be to succeed. I didn't realize that I was succeeding until and only until I put the suit on. Wait, were my clothes making me fail?
Of course not. Clothes are items used to cover your body. But business loves to turn anything it can into a tool that can be quantified, judged, sold, leveraged, imposed and exploited, and I fell for it. When I put my suit on, I wasn't just getting dressed, I was also changing personas, asking to be judged on my appearance rather than my work or my abilities. The fancy offices, the big named companies, the dollars. But that's not the sort of value that brings me satisfaction, and I was still incomplete. I didn't feel as though I was self-actualising.
It wasn't until years later that I met a company that I fell in love with. A small group of creative leaders, software and quality engineers, business analysts and domain experts who wanted to pay me to do what I loved. And that changed me. Now I look warily on people and organisations that place importance on clothes because I wonder what they are hiding themselves. I wonder how they will survive long term when they place more value on the crispness of the developer's collar than on the happiness of the user. I'll forever be thankful for that job. That company got bought by a larger company, then an even larger one, and eventually I had to leave because I was back to being surrounded by suits and bureaucracy.
Nowadays the companies I choose to work for don't have a formal dress code. I tend to wear a collared shirt most days. Mostly because my T-shirts have all worn out, but also because I realize that I still need to panda to the dress facade so that I can at least go out to fancy pub after work for a beer (bouncers haven't yet joined the meritocratic ways of my industry). But I haven't worn a suit to work (or even a job interview) for years now, and I don't expect to ever again. If someone can't listen to what I have to say when I am wearing a hoodie and sneakers, why should I waste my time on them?
Creative people, people who follow an unwritten code of meritocracy and mutual respect don't dress down to disrupt the system. They don't dress down at all. They simply dress. Then they work. They create. They actualise, and therein self-actualise.
Business sees the value in creativity and wants to control it so it can sell it. Same as it ever was.
But wearing a suit can be fun. At weddings, when flawlessly executing some sort of heist in Payday 2, when slaying Mexican vampires like the Gecko brothers, or even if you just want to look suave in a suit for a while.
Clothes are fun, looking good is fun. Getting dressed is creative, it's expressive, it's emotive. Creating something that looks good is rewarding, even if it's as fleeting as a particular outfit on a particular day in a particular light. I love it! I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable with the notion that what someone wears should be contorted and projected into a value judgement on that individual, and I don't think you should try and address your insecurities and dissatisfactions by changing how other see you because fundamentally it's a problem with your perception, not theirs, but clothes are cool.
Nowadays whatever I wear is either role play or practical, or both. You can laugh all you want at my plastic fantastic grey high vis striped motorcycle rain suit, I'm a space man, bitch. My armored jacket and kevlar pants protect me from impact, abrasion and possibly being shot by one of those pesky rebel soldiers, because I'm a storm trooper. And you can remove my super mega fancy awesome cuff links (thanks @flagg) from me when I'm dead. Or being undressed.
