The end of the ‘suits’

You could blame COVID-19, lockdowns or CEOS being able to close deals worth crores in their pyjamas, as they work from home (Zoom does not go under the table and thank God for that), but is the business suit hanging by thread in pop culture?

Even before the pandemic hit, major companies were relaxing their policy on wearing suits to the office, as business casual or even all-out casual slowly became the norm at startups and techie central cities such as San Francisco and Seattle.

Marks & Spencer recently announced it had stopped stocking suits across more than half of its stores to ‘be more relevant to changing needs’.

In the 1980s ‘Gordon Gekko Wall Street’ heyday, the suit maintained its place as a symbol of power – images of the polished, prim and proper gents drinking it up in fancy cocktail bars during the money market boom years in custom-tailored suits were images burned into the public consciousness.

Then slowly the suit started falling out of fashion. First went the tie, then the jacket and trousers that didn’t match, brown shoes with dark blue suits became the new cool until they weren’t, with the leather shoes left out altogether, replaced by cool kicks endorsed by the popstar du jour.

Suits were at best ‘a relic of an elegant past’ and at worst, ‘old-fashioned.’

One thing is for certain, no one is going to miss the pretentiousness of being well turned out, while not having any ideas to take your vision forward.

In that sense, suits might have been like the ’emperor’s clothes.’ They made you feel and look good, but not necessarily do good.

Felons wore them to court too. So, maybe we should not have believed the hype.