– Today’s wikipedia picture of the day. That bird looks classy. Violet-backed starling by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0

Every now and then I have to wear suit and ties. When I first started doing so I hated it. The suits didn’t fit me, the shirts made me feel claustrophobic, the shoes hurt my feet, etc. Then as time passed, naturally I bought more traditional/formal clothing out of necessity, and as I bought the clothes I had them adjusted for me. That made a vast improvement for my comfort.

Note: ties feel a bit useless but at least they hide my belly when movement slightly opens the shirt.

Nowadays I do it gladly. I love wearing suits. I’ve noticed I feel way more comfortable in them than in normal clothes. So I started thinking why.

After a few seconds of thought it’s because of two things: comfort and utility.

When I was in school, in arts class we were studying canonical human proportions. There was an assignment to do a paint that demonstrates that we can paint anatomically correct humans. I thought I wasn’t very good at drawing or painting, so what I did was I asked someone to take a picture of my front and my back, and then I traced and copied that picture for my painting.

When I got my grade back, it was a 4.0 out of 7.0 (in Chile grades go from 2.0 to 7.0, don’t ask me why). That was one of the lowest grades I ever got, and when I asked the teacher, who was unaware of the fact that that was a close copy of my picture, her answer was that the subject’s legs proportions were all wrong and close to deformity.

Thankfully I do not have any major deformities. But that’s when I understood that my proportions can be and are way different from the average proportions of others. I know for a fact that my leg-to-torso proportions are shorter in comparison to others, especially when I buy clothes.

Suits are made to be able to be tailored to the wearer’s measurements. But modern clothes aren’t. For example, even though there are high, medium, and low rise pants, I can’t adjust their rise to my proportions. Same story with the waist. So much so that it’s virtually impossible to get a proper combination of rise and waist proportions in modern clothes for me. They are always wrong and it shows, notably when wearing belts. For my suits the belt is an accessory, the pants rest perfectly on my waist. But in my normal pants I have to strangle them at my waist because regardless of size the pants slip and shift.

I could continue ranting the same way with shirts, but the point is proportions vary a ton and modern clothes don’t account for that.

There’s this trend called techwear. It looks like people dressing straight out of a Hideo Kojima video game. There’s a fashion aspect to it, but functionality used to be a core pillar of the trend (which seems to be dying nowadays).

MORE POCKETS PLEASE

Suits may look traditional but their functionality stats are through the roof. You have three front pockets, two inner pockets, a dedicated slot for pencils, the pants pockets are perfectly sized. I can carry my phone, notebook, pen, pencil, napkins, charger, and more. All within my suit jacket.

Buttons > Zippers

The failure mode of zippers is full replacement and time inefficient. Buttons may fall but they are VERY easy to place back in.

It’s even worse for women

The pockets women get are practically useless. There’s a data-driven essay here that gets more into detail, but to me it’s infuriating to see how my wife is bound to having to carry an (arguably also impractical) handbag just because that’s what fashion states: women have no pockets and have to carry everything in a handbag.

Coping through backpacks

One day I asked my little brother what he was carrying in his backpack. The answer was he carried it mostly for having a CHARGER and some napkins always with him, with the added benefit of carrying pen and paper occasionally. Those are all things that can be carried in a well suited jacket.

Wearing clothes wears them

Of course, but with traditional clothing my jackets aren’t falling apart. My modern jackets don’t last more than 5 years. But I have a traditional coat that my dad gifted me that is as old as I am, and it still looks great. And don’t get me started with t-shirts. For some reason after a few years wholes start appearing in them out of nowhere. My main suspects are either moths or the seatbelt pressing them against my belt’s buckle.

Even if I feel physically more comfortable in suits, and they are functionally better, I won’t use them when it’s not needed. The only reason is that it’d be socially awkward. Everyone wears street/modern fashion, and I don’t want to really go to a friends house in suit and tie. It sucks but that is the way things are.