For the very wealthy.. If you show enough interest in something to make signaling purchases, it's expected to be "up to snuff" .. this can mean very very high expense or high esotericness.

So that might mean a $200k sports car, or it might mean some uncommon though inexpensive limited production vintage vehicle even though it may be of reasonable price, the time & effort you took to acquire & maintain it is a signal of taste.

Otherwise you'd be better off signaling complete disinterest with a very vanilla middle of the road options.

On menswear I think to your example, you could say you'd be better off not wearing a suit than in wearing a $200 Men's Wearhouse suit. To that end, these days, the type of people you tend to see in suits are either security / front desk staff or very senior corporate executives. Those in the middle have enough labor negotiating power to not be required to wear a suit, but probably not the desire/wealth to spend $2k on a properly tailored suit.

If a senior executive wore a $200 suit to work, nobody would say a word.

> amongst other carefully selected pieces of his wardrobe

so if it was not that carefully selected, he'd look like a homeless?

Huh, custom tshirts and well fitting jeans counts as "looking like a total slob" now? Fwiw I'd rather work with / for someone that dresses like that over formal any day of the week.

I like t-shirts and jeans and never want to go back to suits and ties but..

When I went to Japan a decade ago, I realized just how informal and slovenly American working attire had become.

Though I think many imitate regardless of the tribe/workforce/culture in order to fit in.

Look at the schools. It’s informal but there are definitely trends and fashions to follow in order to relate.

Just a thought, but the change in attire, then, is to create some formal distance between management and direct reports.

On the other hand, Japan is the home of expensive high end recreations of American casual clothes - look up Take Ivy, BEAMS, nice selvedge jeans, etc.

I remember some acquaintances running a decent side business buying and then selling vintage American clothes back in Japan (shipping or flying back).

This was back in the 1990s so I believe it.

(it also brought back some fond memories)

Perhaps it's just a higher ratio of gay guys that work out vs straight guys that work out that's skewed your views.

America would be a lot better if people thought less about how to “express” themselves, and more about how to keep the social environment around them tidy and orderly.

Outside SBF, even the executives dressing "casually" are still doing so expensively.

Don't like the guy, his company, his policies. And I tend to repect our elected officals more than most.

But the idea of showing up dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, and/or a hoodie, make me smile broadly.

It's knowing which car or watch to buy, and also recognizing it on others, that acts as the signal.

But I wonder, in cultures very different from mine, which we generally see as more status-competitive, is that also true? Is it a faux pas to buy an expensive gold chain over a "proper" one?

Singapore is an interesting place in this regard. We had several young guys in our office who wore $10k plus watches while still living with their parents.

Other buy a home well beyond their needs but drive a honda shitbox and wear old navy (me).

People buying "100k+ rich man's toy" cars don't care about value for money the way you or I do.

Edit: appeasing nit pickers

Modern Maserati's are great driving cars with Ferrari heritage (and engines) that do command more prestige than a typical M or AMG model, especially in the Trofeo versions.

There’s a running joke in my circle about the “dad professional class”. People who are older (40-60s) and go to the office in a remote-work-accepting world mostly because they seem to want to leave their family at home. They all dress like shit in ill-fitting clothes, but because they’re older than the “office casual” dress code, they tend to dress in overly professional button downs and slacks. The business attire that look out of place in tech next to a 25yo in a tee shirt. They don’t seem to know people don’t always take them seriously, and think “they’re not here to [change the world/be the best/rise in the ranks/etc], they’re here to avoid their wife and collect a salary”.

TLDR: stop telling people you try to avoid your family, and start tailoring your clothes, it’s honestly not expensive.

(Source: upper 60s, go into the office mostly because a) it's not far, b) my office setup is a bit better, c) I don't want to wake my wife with Zoom calls. I do have some tailored shirts but seldom wear them.)

Its not about the fashion, its about looking put together. Its signaling that you care. Of course, there's the article which says that people who made it can stop signaling, so maybe that's you.

Sorry, no. There's nothing wrong with me for not putting effort into what aesthetic "signals" I'm sending, because there is no true signal. It's noise. If someone's unclean, that's one thing, because cleanliness matters to health. Fashion does not.

Arguments that fashion matters are all circular, which tells you something. (It matters because people think it matters, and is therefore worth taking seriously!)

Don Draper "I don't think about you at all" elevator meme in real life.

Little known fact: before he was Pied Piper's cool attorney in Silicon Valley, but after his first job at a Superstore, Ron LaFlamme lived in NYC where he was told that he "wasn't thought about at all" by Don Draper. https://youtu.be/LlOSdRMSG_k

Suits are very expensive to tailor by comparison.

Tech workers dressing casually at the office is only a (relevantly) recent phenomenon. Working from home, for a lot of people, is even more recent.

You’ve made a lot of assumptions, and I would consider that this group of people are just defaulting back to what they’re used to, rather than “avoid their wife and collect a salary”.

I don’t know where you work, what industry, or the demographics of who works there, but if “people [who work there] don’t always take them seriously”, and it’s based on older people dressing like older people, then there is a culture problem.

The problem is with you, I'm afraid.

I fit this demographic.

> and go to the office in a remote-work-accepting world mostly because they seem to want to leave their family at home.

There’s some truth to this, though I’ve avoiding coming in. It’s not about escaping the family but just a change of scenery.

> They all dress like shit in ill-fitting clothes, but because they’re older than the “office casual” dress code, they tend to dress in overly professional button downs and slacks.

I have a reasonable taste in fashion, but my cost-conscious self doesn’t allow it.

Age also forces a more conservative style and colors; and it says I’m sacrificing for the kids.

> “The business attire that look out of place in tech next to a 25yo in a tee shirt.

Business attire is like a uniform. You don’t need to spend a lot to look presentable.

> They don’t seem to know people don’t always take them seriously,

Is this a bad thing?

> and think “they’re not here to [change the world/be the best/rise in the ranks/etc], they’re here to avoid their wife and collect a salary”.

Rise in the ranks?

There’s nothing wrong with working to live. You get my best for 8 to 9 hours.

We live in a world where “leadership” is valued, and everything else is devalued. For engineers, this is purgatory.

Like, it’s a huge mental and emotional burden and I’d gladly take a 1/3 paycut to be an IC; except nobody else really wants it.

Because of their clothing? All other things being equal, of what possible objective value could fashion conformity hold?