The Suit is Dead; Long Live the Suit

It's a colossal image problem. The staple of men's wardrobes suffered another blow last month as two more major investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, joined the growing ranks of corporations that have decided suits will no longer be required working wear.

This decision was not made because workers complained that their suits were uncomfortable. Nor did it come about because management decided suits hindered productivity. The decision was made, because a new generation of business school graduates has decided that working in someone's garage, in jeans, with the potential to make millions in stock options, is more interesting than working in a glass and steel office at the bottom of a rigid corporate ladder. And it was made because customers and the public are still (stock market corrections aside) fascinated with all things new and modern. Suits are not new and they are not modern. Companies that require them are not thought of as new and modern. To be pro-suit is to be anti-tech, to be trailing the bandwagon of billionaires pushing into the future. To be, well, dull. Lose the suits, gain instant credibility.

Anne Hollander, fashion historian and author of Sex and Suits, a book on the history of modern dress, compares the plight of the suit to that of the skirt in the 1970s, when feminists boasted, "I don't own a skirt." Six years ago, when dress-down Friday was still a new and exciting development and Internet companies were worth only millions not billions, tech entrepreneurs, too, liked nothing better than to rant against the suit: "If you don't have anything to say, wear a suit," said Bing Gordon, a co-founder of Electronic Arts, a maker of interactive games. "If a $1,000 suit makes somebody more confident, go for it. I bought a new pair of Levi's 501s this weekend," one of his vice presidents chimed in.

But when corporations try to institute this sort of renegade spirit it sounds, well, suit. "Following positive feedback from employees since the implementation of dress-down Fridays, we are pleased to announce that ... the Firm will adopt a 'business casual' dress policy throughout the year," began an internal memo at Morgan Stanley. Oh, joy.

The casual trend began in the mid-'80s when human resources departments in American corporations decided that a weekly dress-down day in the summer would be a fun, and free, employee perk. It would be easy to say, as many have said, that what is now a worldwide movement toward a casual workplace has killed the suit. And it's true that the news that thousands more bankers would no longer feel compelled to traipse down to Armani twice a year hasn't helped an industry that was already staggering.

Just look at who the notable suit wearers are in America today: basketball coaches, chauffeurs, talk-show hosts, maitre d's. Consider the number of manufacturers and retailers on both sides of the Atlantic who have fallen into financial difficulty because of the shift: Brooks Brothers, Hartmarx, Today's Man, Burton. The suit as in 'Corporation Man', as in 'The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit', as in dark suit, white shirt, silk tie each and every day, five days a week is dead. But that doesn't mean we'll soon watch it go the way of the bowler hat. After all, skirts are back longer and shorter than ever.

The modern suit originated in America in the 19th century. Originally called a lounge or leisure suit it was designed for gentlemen to wear while relaxing at home. The suits confused and frustrated Europeans who could read all sorts of subtle class distinctions into the stripe of a pant, the weave of a vest, none of which was evident in the single-fabric American constructions.

Inexpensive machine-made versions were produced by the likes of Hart, Schaffner & Marx at the turn of the century and working-class men started buying them and wearing them out when dressed up. Early ads proclaimed: "You wouldn't know them from the work of the finest merchant tailor." In the democratic New World, upper-class men joined the trend, wearing their leisure suits to work to the consternation of elders who continued to wear frock coats, striped trousers and vests. Young people dressing casually for work to the annoyance of stuffy elders ... Sound familiar?

The 1900's leisure suit had four or five buttons positioned high up the chest, a boxy body and natural shoulders. So did recent designs by the likes of Prada, Jil Sander and Giorgio Armani which were heralded by fashion critics as the height of modern. Most drastic attempts to change the shape of the suit in the past 100 years have failed. Often comically. Remember the Zoot suit? The mods of Carnaby Street? The Nehru jacket? The collarless jackets of Pierre Cardin? The fact that the basic shape of the suit has changed so little in the last 100 years is a testament to the strength of its design.

Ironically, it's the old-fashioned suit makers those who sell handmade suits that start at over $1,000 who are doing the best in this shrinking market. "The people who go to Savile Row don't regard wearing suits as a chore," says Hugh Holland, managing director of Kilgour French Stanbury, a Savile Row tailor. "They are the extraordinarily rich or those in love with clothes. Those who perceive the suit as stuffy come from a certain strata of society."

The rising Dow has pushed aside class considerations and broadened the profile of the hand-made suit afficionado. Hip British designer Paul Smith has a made-to-measure suit service in his newest London store in the trendy neighbourhood of Notting Hill. Prices start at $1,500 and business is booming. Why? "It reflects people's need to return to individuality to things that are more personal," Smith says.

No one sells the message of hand-craftsmanship better than the Italians. Representatives from exotic places Penne and Naples regularly visit American malls and top European stores to wax lyrical about fabrics so light they're measured in microns; about workers in the Italian hills who sew by hand the 3,000 stitches in each lapel; about the one old woman allowed to cut buttonholes in the finished product.

Not only do you owe it to yourself to buy the $10,000 K model custom suit from Kiton the argument goes you owe it to them. After all, these suits aren't apparel, they're works of art. And thanks to the boom economy, there's great demand for art for all things handmade. Men will spend vast sums of money if they think they're getting something precious. Men are buying these suits for all the same reasons one might buy a Picasso sketch and hang it in the bathroom: It's rare. It's classic. And it's discreet.

But success at the high end of the market isn't, as some in the business like to suggest, evidence of a mass suit revival. Neither is the fact that young men occasionally wear suits to dress up. Nor does it matter that most men look lousy in the jeans and chinos they choose for business casual. Or that designers continue to send suits down the runway. None of these takes away from the fact that the role of the suit has changed forever. Men, for the first time in a hundred years, are now free to say, "We will wear suits when and how we want to."

It's what women learned to do with skirts decades ago. Men are learning that there are more directions to dressing than just up or down. This newfound freedom has its consequences. The bankers at Morgan Stanley say they are suffering from DDSS dress-down stress syndrome. "Morgan Stanley's London trading floor is a fashion shambles," says one employee. "Some in suits still, some in suits with no tie, visiting Americans in Banana Republic, expat Italians in club gear and a few in T shirts and jeans."

Casual wear is a struggle, but the suit is making life outside the office easier. For instance, a suit is now a common substitute for black tie. It may yet do to the tuxedo what the tuxedo did to white tie push it forever from men's wardrobes. Removing the suit from standard daily office wear has also changed its meaning inside the corporate office. Steven Balmer, a lawyer for PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, says the PwC legal department has trailed the rest of the company in the move toward casual because, "to some the suit is still a sign of power."

To be suit is, for now, to be safe. The suit is still what to wear when you're not sure what to wear. The suit is the closest thing men have to the little black dress.