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Funny how things circle and change, and sometimes, like political parties, end up flipping completely over a generation or two. I suppose the original reason tech rebelled against the suit was because a suit represented conformity, an aggressively enforced dress code. Now, I suppose you could say that tech aggressively enforces a casual dress code, to the point where wearing a suit becomes an act non-conformity. I'm not joking here, the blog post is absolutely right, wearing a suit may seem mildly eccentric in a tech company. I see various people (including coworkers) wearing suits, and there is a counter-culture element to it. Suits are worn in different forms at the Dickens fair, by jazz and ska musicians (and people in the audience), and by other counter-cultural types (there was a guy who worked at Peet's coffee who always wore a suit and bowler hat). SF is a place where this is particularly mixed up, since SF was probably the most east coast-ish of west coast cities where it came to wearing suits as part of the old dress code, and there are still a few more conservative industries here (banking, law) where suits are work as part of the older formal work culture than a new countercultural trend. As for me? I like suits, I think they look great. I have never been required to wear a suit to work, so I never really associated them with conformity (I wore them mainly at weddings and a very few parties, so I have positive connotations). Like Greg Foster (author of the post), people would give me a strange look if I wore a suit to the office, but now that I think about it, there actually is one guy who wears a suit to the office every day... |