Wearing fine clothes that fit well, and not looking uncomfortable in them, also signals that effort (not just money—though, again, at the higher end of the scale, as with everything else, money can replace effort) was put into finding that good fit, and that one puts in the extra work to dress well often enough to feel at-ease being so dressed.
It signals awareness that people treat the well-dressed better than the poorly-dressed, and both willingness and ability to follow through on that knowledge.
Then, of course, yes, clothes signal group membership. So do $120 hoodies and $400 Scandanavian high-performance light outdoor jackets and $90 hiking pants and $150 selvedge high-weight jeans and $350 impractical, throwback work boots, and shit, those aren't even the expensive side of tech-nerd signal-wear. Of course the people buying those are doing it because the items are "high quality", not to fit in with and signal among their peers. Clearly.
Having the time to put in that effort requires some amount of money. To afford to have someone take care of the kids for a bit, or to pay someone to work on your car on the weekend instead of fixing it yourself.
It takes money to have the free time so you can spend the time clothes shopping instead of doing life maintenance.
A guy once pointed around the room and described what 20 people were wearing, where they bought it, what it costs, how fashionable he considered it. I ask him what I was wearing. He said: I have no idea! Its so wrong that it works, its more refined than everything in the room. I cant imagine spending more than 10 euro on the set (shoes aside)
Indeed, for men, shoes are the hardest part to work around on a budget. Cheap looks cheap (and tends to fall apart really fast) and used is rarely actually cheap unless they're so beat up that, at best, you can manage smart-casual out of them. You can save money buying used, but "cheap" is practically unattainable.
The materials (leather, mostly) are just too expensive for actually-cheap men's shoes to be A Thing, at least for mainstream looks which basically all require leather shoes above a very-casual register. Even alternative fashions usually find a way for it to be hard to get away with cheap shoes, it seems (much "street" fashion, for example) usually subbing in expensive casual styles (pricey sneaker, or conspicuous-consumption work or military boot styles) for the oxford or loafer or whatever.
It's "learn to play the fashion game or get fucked"
We would be so much better off without that crap.
In the case of management, specifically, I'd think if someone's reached the point where they have a realistic shot at a management position, but haven't figured out they need to dress for it, and also found the time & willpower to do so, that's signaling working as intended. Any of several causes for that would be a good reason to think twice about putting that person in management. Meanwhile, anyone who cares can dress plenty well enough to start in a lower-level management position by hitting Goodwill or eBay and dropping low-hundreds of dollars, which isn't nothing (I'm aware—I'm familiar with tracking the costs of groceries while shopping to make sure you won't overdraft, or only getting 5 gallons of gas because you can't afford more until next week, et c.), but that's a pretty damn low admissions price compared to, IDK, college, which is usually also required to take the easy route to management.
There's a pretty big gap between middle-management dressy, and having enough bespoke suits to wear a different one every weekday and switch them out seasonally. The former's not exactly a high bar, compared to all kinds of other costs and time-sinks that are associated with being employable. Once you're "in" then yeah, maybe costs increase somewhat if you want to improve your chances of both being effective and moving up, but at that point you're... in management, so that shouldn't be some kind of huge hurdle anymore.
It's signalling working as intended from the perspective of people who think they can tell everything they need to know about someone by how they dress.
And they're wrong. Every single one of them.
It allows a certain group to continue favoring their own group, or force people to conform to their group before being considered.
How you dress says nothing concrete about your ability to function as a human, as a worker, or a manager of people.
It is just another aspect of how attractive people get preference in society. We have to shed this eventually.
Everything? No. It's a somewhat noisy signal. It is a signal, though, and absolutely does carry useful information. For instance, the poorly-dressed are one of, or some combination of: poor; ignorant of fashion; aware of fashion, but nonetheless not putting effort into it despite knowing its benefits; or are deliberately choosing not to dress well. The well-dressed are one of, or some combination of, the opposites of those. Clearly, then, you can tell some things about people from how they dress, or at least narrow down the possibilities.
Someone choosing to communicate deliberately over that signaling channel, or deliberately trying not to is, itself, information, as is someone trying to but missing their intended message, or someone plainly not understanding that it's a method of communication, or communicating with a message tuned for the wrong audience. This is how you end up with things like computer-nerd "uniforms"—they must make it clear they're trying to be non-conformist, as that's the signal they want to send, distinct from "I'm very poor", "my background is, in fact, low-class, and so my attitudes continue to follow", or "I don't know how to dress well even if I wanted to".
Every time you correctly identify a geek from across a room, or out on a trail, or on the street, based solely on how they're dressed and how they carry themselves, that's fashion-as-signal working very well. Does that mean you can so-identify every geek? Of course not. Does that mean there's no information available in fashion? Of course not. Are the geeks who choose to make it very obvious they're a geek sending a signal you're intended to receive? Oh my god, yes. And the ways they choose to make it clear further refine that message.
Would second Ebay if on a budget, lots of very cheap options compared to what things go for retail. Back when I was in school I bought around 10 designer silk ties for 20$ (retail new for 200$+ each) and a few suit jackets. Knowing your measurements can't be overstated, and only costs a tape measure. Alterations are also very affordable and can make a world of difference.
Much like keeping your hair looking good, trimming your nose hair and so on, these signals will never be completely ignored unless social norms for personal care change significantly - and that’s not happening without a significant cultural / economic / health shift.
Caring about sophistication or good taste in fashion is a luxury that it takes money to afford. Even just the time investment it requires to be fashionable, to source nice clothes and plan outfits and all of that shit, it's absolutely the domain of people who have money.
I don't think you've ever been poor. Poor enough that "second hand" doesn't mean thrift stores, it means "hand-me-downs".
> I don't think you've ever been poor.
You shouldn’t jump to conclusions - there are many people on hn from other countries where having access to a thrift store defines you as relatively wealthy.
Either way, if you look like a hobo on your livestream setup, then people are likely to judge you.
I wish the world was less judgemental, but you don’t get to tell others how to be, so you have to live with how they act, and sometimes that means playing dress up. Sometimes it is a sign of respect for other people’s opinions - some people really care about how you dress and that is OK.
Edit: also if you are obviously needy, then are you sure you can’t find thrift stores that will give you stuff for free? The best stores are run by volunteers who just want to help people.
Extremely disagree. That is them trying to exert a form of control on me and it's absolutely bullshit.
Accepting how other people have other opinions, rightly or wrongly, is just part of being a participant in this world.
If you interact with others as you are doing here, then perhaps you need to learn some wisdom.
Note that I agree that judging others by how they dress is bullshit + I have always hated it myself. I would also hazard a guess that you judge others for how they dress e.g. I expect you don’t like power dressers, or extremely fashionably dressed people.
In the case of clothing, marking willful non-conformists is, notably, a significant part of its true (as in: accurate and useful) signaling value. This is where some counter-cultural fashions come from, in fact—an effort to make it crystal clear that one is dressing contrary to fashion norms on purpose and not by accident. To signal a distinction between the non-conformist and the ignorant or destitute.
Not really.
Suits are flattering to the male figure because they smooth out the difference between a man's waist and his thighs, and accentuate the shoulders. That's not a fashion statement, that's an explanation of why suits are timeless.
With that said, they're fairly difficult to get fitted right. So wearing a suit that actually fits you says one of two things - you either buy new suits all the time to ensure that your suits actually fit you (in which case, yes, a suit signals that you have money), or you have the self-discipline to maintain your figure so that you don't need to buy a new suit all the time as you gain weight.
The fact is, either quality is desirable. It's those qualities that make suit-wearing the signal that it is. People who don't have at least one of those qualities, can't pull off wearing a suit.
The sooner we can get over this obsession with people dressed "nicely" and instead listen to people who know what they are talking about, the better.
Any monkey can wear a jacket and tie. I hate that society automatically elevates well dressed people the way it does. To me it only signals that they have money.