Clothing, second hand, is pretty much worthless. It also offers a much larger selection compared to just than what is hip today (uhh all black? white cloths forbidden?) which allows you to create your own style for next to nothing. Just ask the article of clothing if its you and listen to what it says.

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)

> 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.

Yes—as with everything else one may wish to do, it's easier to dress well the more money you have, and it's very hard for single parents with two jobs to do it (again, like everything else). That's true.

Yes. So placing higher value on people based on how they dress is a garbage practice used to profile people with poorer backgrounds and limit their social mobility, keep them out of better jobs, keep them out of upwardly mobile roles like management.

It's "learn to play the fashion game or get fucked"

We would be so much better off without that crap.

Sure, but we the same applies to any other skill or practice. Like learning to program. Or bathing. Or showing up to work on time (a much, much bigger problem than, say, not owning a suit, for the actually-poor—ask them, or their employers, and you'll get an earful).

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.

> 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

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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

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.