>Suits are made to be able to be tailored to the wearer’s measurements. But modern clothes aren’t. For example, even though there are high, medium, and low rise pants, I can’t adjust their rise to my proportions.
To me it seems like this is really the only point OP have, which seems to have more to do with how modern clothes are produced? (factory, based on some averaged out categories of body type)
Other than that it seems like all the things he say are "better", you can find modern variants that do as well.
And the women's cloth rant is weird. Isn't that... Same for (most common) women's suite too? Pockets being too small is enough of an issue that I know some women just buy men's jeans (smallest size) instead, if their proportions are not too different (hip) from average for men.
Also, I didn't see any defense for neckties. What's good about that?
Also adjustments have nothing to do with comfort unless before the adjustments it was a clown suit. You'll look better if it's tailored but it's not more comfortable than a sweat suit. Whoever says a suit is more comfortable I just take as performative in the sense that they really like wearing suits for other reasons and extend that feeling to other attributes.
You have probably never worn a tailored suit. The difference between a good fit and a mediocre fit is in centimeters on the right spots, not the difference between a clown suit and a fitting suit. Tailoring is mainly for fit, not looks. Just the tailoring sessions shows that: about 40 minutes of measurements, and about 10 minutes of choices in wool, in pockets, in model. And to expand on the theme in OP: Super 140 wool is an awesome material on both durability and flexibility. There is a few thousand years of tech just in the wool. (Beat that cotton jeans!)
A tailored suit, but indeed, every tailored piece of clothing will always have the best fit and comfort. That's trivial. Even your sweat suit would benefit from being a tailored sweat suit.
I have non standard measurements and buying trousers has always been a chore (a cm lower shoulder, a 1/2 cm shorter leg, cyclist quads, life influences body). I've now started to use AI to pre-select brands and fits that might suit my sizing. Which is actually just moving somewhat towards at least 'fitted' clothing. The future of adult and sustainable fashion 'should' be made to measure.
Huh? I have the problem that suit shirts either squeeze my neck giving me a headache, or have to be comically oversized. Like OP, I think I just have non-standard proportions.
But when my wife made a shirt after my actual measurements as an experiment, it did not squeeze my neck and was very comfortable. I loved that shirt and used it for many years until it fell apart (unfortunately it wasn't made of the finest materials, and I don't have the wife any longer either).
So I'd think adjustments can absolutely help comfort.
Reading posts like this makes me painfully aware just how neurodivergent I am.
It took me until... late twenties? to understand that most people _aren't_ feeling physically uncomfortable in anything long sleeved (or with long pant legs), and that they're just more... patient? tolerant than I am?
It just straight up isn't an inconvenience to other people!
I am very, very, very glad I have a career (and live in a climate) that lets me get away with shorts and short sleeves on 99,9% of days.
You’re not neurodivergent, wtf people self diagnose like this as if it were some great discovery about themselves. Here’s another discovery you may not have made yet: we cannot know what others feel inside, even when they claim to tell us… they will just say what they think they should say or you want to hear. Revealing your inner thoughts is extremely difficult for most people, neurodivergent or not. Guessing others feelings about things also.
I consider myself "neurotypical", and have been working from home for a while now not getting any younger.
I don't even bother with clothing at all sometimes. It's also nice to shower midday and cook all my own meals. It's very nice to skip daily driving. It's amazing to not be too exhausted keep my home clean.
My point is, don't assume that neurotypical people aren't carrying at least some amount of stress from the things that bother you. It's just clearly a lot less stress.
100% agree. Its a tragedy that most men only wear suits for special occasions. When a suit is your daily driver, you'll get it tailored and set up correctly... its basically like walking around in pajamas in how it feels, but you look way way better than casual clothes.
Sadly I like sunshine so I moved away from places where wearing a suit was normal, to a place where people offer their condolences if you're in a suit (either a wedding or a funeral)
> When a suit is your daily driver, you'll get it tailored and set up correctly.
How far back in time do you have to go for that to be generally true? I'm 70 from South West England and I hardly know anyone who had a tailored suit, almost everyone just bought them off the peg even when I was very young. Even fifty years ago wearing an actual suit to work where I lived was relatively rare too even for people who were more than a generation older; it was something that only people in a few professions did (lawyers, estate agents, some doctors, some academics, etc.).
How is that possible? In my mind in an ideal piece of clothing you can equally do (light) physical activity, or just lay around, and is low maintenance, easy to wash, doesn't wrinkle. A suite the antithesis of this.
I find there is no clothing more uncomfortable than jeans. I simply don’t get their appeal. Washing makes them lose color, their material is rough. Maybe a good choice for workers, but not for wearing them every day. Alternative trouser choices (including those of suits) look better, are usually more comfortable and, at least for me, are good for years.
That said, the other issue of mothern clothing: sneakers… sure there are some high end ones that look amazing. But most of the time they just look cheap. The trend of making the soles white means you almost always look like wearing dirty shoes, as those rubber soles are almost impossible to whiten up again.
Compare that to a good goodyear welted shoe: if the leather is good, you can wear them for a decade and just let the soles be replaced every few years. Leather shoes are not too comfortable in the first two weeks of wearing them, but with movement the leather softens and adapts to you. Even paying hundreds for them is ok: you’ll rarely have to replace them.
Certainly some valid points. My main issue with suits is your choice of materials is essentially just wool and polyester. Polyester is something I avoid at all costs, but wool is both expensive and delicate. I don’t want to have to dry clean clothes, it’s inconvenient and generally involves toxic chemicals.
Cotton is nice in that it’s natural, cheap, and durable. In theory there is nothing stopping you having regular pants or jeans custom tailored to your body shape.
Linen is an awful clothing material. I got a linen suit for the summer last year and it’s just such an inflexible material. A light wool has much more give, and with an open weave it does as much as a full suit of clothing can do to keep you cool.
You can also get custom-made jeans and T-shirts. They fit better, you can pick the fabric, you can choose details, plus tailors tend to be fun to chat with. I could spend a whole day browsing the local fabric market chosing fabric for my next shirt.
I find it baffling, but custom-made shirts are cheaper than off-the-shelf.
You can also learn to make your own tshirts. Sewing is a useful skill in general, and tshirts are pretty easy. The neck band is a bit of a challenge, but other than that it's just cutting fabric to a template and sewing pieces together using a sewing machine.
Go to your local Chinatown. You can get custom tailored clothing for a lot less than typical upper middle class branded office/semi-formal wear.
Tailoring is an old old art. Look beyond the flashy Saville Row brands or pseudo "quiet luxury" ones like Brunello that seem to be favored in the Valley.
Any city that has proper suburban shops, strip malls, or Chinatowns. Avoid anything on Main Street. Look for small hole in the wall proprietor operations. This is one of the few times where economies of scale doesn't make things cheaper so avoid any big brands.
Also, watch a YouTube video or two to get a crash course on fabrics. In the states it's labor that's expensive but the fabrics are usually genuine. Alternatively you can go to South East Asia or places like Hong Kong and Japan too but there's a higher likelihood of fraud when it comes to the fabrics. Labor is about a magnitude cheaper though.
Bring your own fabrics if you want authenticity. Fabrics are cheap (relative to the cost of a nice suit on a tech worker's salary)
Another suggestion (not advice, I am hardly a professional when it comes to tailoring) is to commission more cotton clothing first to start so you can get a feel for the process. Suits are nice and all but are an investment of time and money and need constant dry cleaning. Try some custom tailor daily wear instead of H&M for a change (better quality and contributes to your local economy).
I would like to note that suit pants are ridiculously comfortable, and generally a fitted suit is far more comfortable than nearly anything else I wear daily. I don’t understand what crimes society has committed to achieve the outcomes of modern fashion.
Modern fashion dictates simply wearing whatever you are most comfortable in. Most people don't find suits to be comfortable (because they don't put in the effort to get them properly fitted, granted), and thus default to other styles of clothing. But if suits are what you are most comfortable in, then that is what the fashion suggests you must wear. Comfort is the fashion.
It, most certainly, isn't, people wear all sorts of uncomfortable clothes and shoes in the name of fashion. Fashion is all about signalling your status and belonging to this or that social group. Suits are simply associated with people most folks don't want to be associated with.
> people wear all sorts of uncomfortable clothes and shoes in the name of fashion.
Some people do wear all sorts of uncomfortable clothes and shoes, but they do so when they want to stand out against the fashion. Fashionable people blend into the wall, so naturally some people gravitate towards anti-fashion in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the heard.
I disagree. Yes, the failure mode of buttons is better. But the opening/closing process of zipper is much more convenient/faster than for buttons, and I dress and undress a lot more often than I need to replace a button or zipper.
I own a lot of zip hoodies, some of them > 10 years old, and for none of these the zipper has ever failed. The only zipper that have failed on me are on bags (e.g. messenger bags or similar)
I think zippers from 40 years ago were much more likely to fail than they are today. I remember multiple failed jacket zippers when I was a kid, and having to fix them at the worst time.
But I can't think of any zippers, other than ones put under too much stress like an overstuffed bag or suitcase, that have failed recently.
When Levi's first made jeans, zippers were not invented yet. You must have bought a pair from one of their original product lines.
Besides, pants with button fly have the distinctive advantage that you will never get your most sensitive skin accidentally pinched between the zippers. :)
Real backpacks should come equipped with a replacement zipper. In a secret pocket you will remember about it when you will need to remember.
The pain you feel when the zipper of your beloved 20-years old backpack fails is overwhelming. It rips through your soul. And all I want to do in that moment is to remember that I have a secret pocket inside it which keeps my replacement zipper. The feeling of having it there ready for me to fix my brother in arms will also give me an extra 20 years of good life. Small things. Matter. So much.
Finding clothes that don't suck has become increasingly difficult. I have a hard time believing that some of this isn't on purpose. It's one thing to use cheap materials and labor. It's another to persistently get the geometry of the human form this wrong this often. Even the obesity crisis does not explain what I am seeing on the shelves at Walmart and Academy.
The hallmark for me are men's shorts. I have to go into obscure athletic retailers to find something that isn't obviously designed to slow me down and antagonize me. Adidas & friends stopped making things that fit correctly 3-4 years ago. I happily pay $100+ for a pair of shorts that don't suck in 2026.
People say that your clothes are your expression. But actually it its other way around. You are an expression by your clothes. Your clothing tells you how to walk, behave and talk. You find yourself acting as a different person when you change your clothing.
My life quality became so much better when I discovered loose / yoga pants. Your sizes change week to week a bit in a way that it counts, and you get into random body positions in which things get tight without you immediately noticing. No clothing should have buttons on it.
A suit is the antithesis of good clothing. Its only appeal is the socially constructed notion that it looks "good".
For me wearing a suit is the worst in terms of clothing. One reason is the buttons. I hate wearing something with buttons. Just why. Instead I will just wear a white T-shirt. and then the jacket also has silly buttons. I just want single color, no writing, no button, no zippers, flexible tops. Also looks best in my personal opinion. Suits look unnecessarily complicated. I am aware that this may be on the scale, thanks.
Well-tailored suits also make you look sharp af.
The day I got the most compliments for my clothes was when I was wearing a suit for my college farewell and smoking (no, it's not a cool habit, I'm just an addict) at a tea stall.
In many places being a bureaucrat is exactly the impression you will make, wearing a suit. Depends on the individual, whether they want that. As an engineer I wouldn't want that.
Slowly but surely I think modern mass manufacturing is going to move towards personalised mass manufacture. I think in the meantime the clothes industry needs to do a better job of sizing, that is providing more detailed measurements so they can be selected better. At some point I ought to be able to buy a pair of trousers where I have defined more than just waist and length and especially true for tops based on chest or generic sizing. We can do this a lot better, its not intrinsic to suits they are just worn enough that bespoke services exist in quantity.
Wear whatever the fuck you want, and don't judge people for what they wear. It's that simple (barring a few exceptions around safety and whatnot).
You can get clothes adjusted/altered, even cheap store bought ones. I often have to get new jeans altered because my legs are chonkier than their length justifies. Some stores still have people on site who can make alterations for you. Some don't, but it's easy (at least in my town) to find little shops that do alterations/mending.
> Everyone wears street/modern fashion, and I don’t want to really go to a friends house in suit and tie. It sucks but that is the way things are.
Just wear the suit and tie if you want to. This is such a non-issue.
I've tailored t-shirts before I discovered a brand called 2tall which fits well enough.
I wore suits for the first 30 years of my life, but I can't stand them and they're terrible in warmer climates, I'm never wearing shorts with a suit. And that's part of it beyond the suitability (pun intended); there are unsaid overtones about wearing a suit that imply formality, status, etc. that I just do not want in my life.
I don’t like ironing, for me, it’s a waste of time. And I like to be able to trip into brambles. I get suits for special occasions but not as a daily driver. Too much maintenance and upkeep. You can tailor anything to your tastes!
So that brings with it one of the following: (1) Be very careful, to an uncomfortable degree, when wearing a suit, or (2) run around in a dirty suit for a while.
Maybe you. I sweat a lot and if I'm wearing polyester, I stink so much even I can't bear it. I would need at least three suits a week and they would need to be cleaned each week. Tossing cheap cotton clothes into washer every week is much easier and I always wear zip-up hoodies when it's cold, so it's easier to thermoregulate.
Maybe it doesn't work if you sweat a lot, but undershirt and a shirt should absorb most of it. Or you actually get three suits and dry wash them each week if it's important.
What's stopping you? I know it might seem a flippant question but I mean it seriously.
Such clothing, or at least a plausible copy, would be much cheaper now than it was then. I don't do the kingly robe thing but I do wear colourful clothes almost every day and people love it. I was stopped in the street yesterday by a woman who wanted to take my picture.
People had to wear a suit and wanted it to be as cheap as possible, which led to a race to the bottom in suit quality. In the end we had fused jackets and synthetic fabrics which made you sweat with people in turn not even bothering to get cuffs and hems adjusted. Absolutely horrible. This is why casual took over.
Maybe it's time for us to recognize that a good suit serves you for years and decades and as such can cost a few hundred bucks.
And despite the little supply due to classical menswear being irrelevant today, there are also incredible deals to be found at goodwills and the like.
If you're comparing good jeans and a good t shirt then not In my experience. Likewise you can also buy a crappy suit for not a lot of money. I think the core point stands that a suit gives pretty good bang for your buck now and hasn't been enshittified as much as casual clothing is.
Lol this is a pretty wholesome, funny snapshot of an engineer reverse-engineering another field. And all the specific claims are right on, of course! A few elements are missing, though:
1. Suits are nice & durable because they're expensive. After my first "holy shit you're paying me how much??" job I replaced all my college tees with ~$1K in super high quality tees, and the difference is obvious to say the least. I do care for them a bit more (i.e. hangdry them), but still: more comfortable, more durable, more attractive.
2. Suits are tailored because they're expensive. You can get anything tailored! Expensive jeans also receive this benefit by default.
3. There are shitty suits. Presumably this guy has never looked for the very cheapest set at H&M in desparation!
That said, this guy's a smart cookie. And the comment about ties is just joyously relatable
If I see a person with a generic arm tattoo, hoodie with skateboard logo, and sweat pants, it express the same amount of uniformity as a person in a bad off-the-rack suit with a boring tie.
“ Even if I feel physically more comfortable in suits, and they are functionally better, I won’t use them when it’s not needed. The only reason is that it’d be socially awkward.”
If you’re an Ashkenazi orthodox Jew, it’s the opposite. Wearing suits every day is the norm. Along with a hat in some denominations.
(In 1930s it was also the norm for many men to do both.)
I have a friend in his 30s that always wears a suit, to work, to the club, to hanging with friends. He is one of the more successful people I know as far as both quick career climbing and getting phone numbers of women he approaches.
TLDR: I have unusual extremities to torso ratio hence I find custom fitted suits more comfortable. Some nonsense about button and pockets that are not exclusive to suits.
Why is this on HN to start with and how the hell did it get to the front page?
Gloom weather season coming to the continent, everybody needs a good excuse to fly to their tailoring destination of choice, get a suit tailored and visit some temples. Or whatever you do there.
>Suits are made to be able to be tailored to the wearer’s measurements. But modern clothes aren’t. For example, even though there are high, medium, and low rise pants, I can’t adjust their rise to my proportions.
To me it seems like this is really the only point OP have, which seems to have more to do with how modern clothes are produced? (factory, based on some averaged out categories of body type)
Other than that it seems like all the things he say are "better", you can find modern variants that do as well.
And the women's cloth rant is weird. Isn't that... Same for (most common) women's suite too? Pockets being too small is enough of an issue that I know some women just buy men's jeans (smallest size) instead, if their proportions are not too different (hip) from average for men.
Also, I didn't see any defense for neckties. What's good about that?
Also adjustments have nothing to do with comfort unless before the adjustments it was a clown suit. You'll look better if it's tailored but it's not more comfortable than a sweat suit. Whoever says a suit is more comfortable I just take as performative in the sense that they really like wearing suits for other reasons and extend that feeling to other attributes.
You have probably never worn a tailored suit. The difference between a good fit and a mediocre fit is in centimeters on the right spots, not the difference between a clown suit and a fitting suit. Tailoring is mainly for fit, not looks. Just the tailoring sessions shows that: about 40 minutes of measurements, and about 10 minutes of choices in wool, in pockets, in model. And to expand on the theme in OP: Super 140 wool is an awesome material on both durability and flexibility. There is a few thousand years of tech just in the wool. (Beat that cotton jeans!)
A tailored suit, but indeed, every tailored piece of clothing will always have the best fit and comfort. That's trivial. Even your sweat suit would benefit from being a tailored sweat suit.
I have non standard measurements and buying trousers has always been a chore (a cm lower shoulder, a 1/2 cm shorter leg, cyclist quads, life influences body). I've now started to use AI to pre-select brands and fits that might suit my sizing. Which is actually just moving somewhat towards at least 'fitted' clothing. The future of adult and sustainable fashion 'should' be made to measure.
Huh? I have the problem that suit shirts either squeeze my neck giving me a headache, or have to be comically oversized. Like OP, I think I just have non-standard proportions.
But when my wife made a shirt after my actual measurements as an experiment, it did not squeeze my neck and was very comfortable. I loved that shirt and used it for many years until it fell apart (unfortunately it wasn't made of the finest materials, and I don't have the wife any longer either).
So I'd think adjustments can absolutely help comfort.
Reading posts like this makes me painfully aware just how neurodivergent I am.
It took me until... late twenties? to understand that most people _aren't_ feeling physically uncomfortable in anything long sleeved (or with long pant legs), and that they're just more... patient? tolerant than I am?
It just straight up isn't an inconvenience to other people!
I am very, very, very glad I have a career (and live in a climate) that lets me get away with shorts and short sleeves on 99,9% of days.
You’re not neurodivergent, wtf people self diagnose like this as if it were some great discovery about themselves. Here’s another discovery you may not have made yet: we cannot know what others feel inside, even when they claim to tell us… they will just say what they think they should say or you want to hear. Revealing your inner thoughts is extremely difficult for most people, neurodivergent or not. Guessing others feelings about things also.
>You’re not neurodivergent
I have paperwork from three different countries disagreeing with you, but thanks for your concern :)
I consider myself "neurotypical", and have been working from home for a while now not getting any younger.
I don't even bother with clothing at all sometimes. It's also nice to shower midday and cook all my own meals. It's very nice to skip daily driving. It's amazing to not be too exhausted keep my home clean.
My point is, don't assume that neurotypical people aren't carrying at least some amount of stress from the things that bother you. It's just clearly a lot less stress.
100% agree. Its a tragedy that most men only wear suits for special occasions. When a suit is your daily driver, you'll get it tailored and set up correctly... its basically like walking around in pajamas in how it feels, but you look way way better than casual clothes. Sadly I like sunshine so I moved away from places where wearing a suit was normal, to a place where people offer their condolences if you're in a suit (either a wedding or a funeral)
> When a suit is your daily driver, you'll get it tailored and set up correctly.
How far back in time do you have to go for that to be generally true? I'm 70 from South West England and I hardly know anyone who had a tailored suit, almost everyone just bought them off the peg even when I was very young. Even fifty years ago wearing an actual suit to work where I lived was relatively rare too even for people who were more than a generation older; it was something that only people in a few professions did (lawyers, estate agents, some doctors, some academics, etc.).
How is that possible? In my mind in an ideal piece of clothing you can equally do (light) physical activity, or just lay around, and is low maintenance, easy to wash, doesn't wrinkle. A suite the antithesis of this.
Just wear a light colored linen suit without a tie. You’ll look great
>offer their condolences if you're in a suit (either a wedding or a funeral)
Nice, nice
I find there is no clothing more uncomfortable than jeans. I simply don’t get their appeal. Washing makes them lose color, their material is rough. Maybe a good choice for workers, but not for wearing them every day. Alternative trouser choices (including those of suits) look better, are usually more comfortable and, at least for me, are good for years.
That said, the other issue of mothern clothing: sneakers… sure there are some high end ones that look amazing. But most of the time they just look cheap. The trend of making the soles white means you almost always look like wearing dirty shoes, as those rubber soles are almost impossible to whiten up again. Compare that to a good goodyear welted shoe: if the leather is good, you can wear them for a decade and just let the soles be replaced every few years. Leather shoes are not too comfortable in the first two weeks of wearing them, but with movement the leather softens and adapts to you. Even paying hundreds for them is ok: you’ll rarely have to replace them.
Certainly some valid points. My main issue with suits is your choice of materials is essentially just wool and polyester. Polyester is something I avoid at all costs, but wool is both expensive and delicate. I don’t want to have to dry clean clothes, it’s inconvenient and generally involves toxic chemicals.
Cotton is nice in that it’s natural, cheap, and durable. In theory there is nothing stopping you having regular pants or jeans custom tailored to your body shape.
Linen, linen blend.
Linen is an awful clothing material. I got a linen suit for the summer last year and it’s just such an inflexible material. A light wool has much more give, and with an open weave it does as much as a full suit of clothing can do to keep you cool.
Linen has to be worn a lot to become flexible over time.
Tailored suits fit better than off-the-rack street clothes? That is not an argument for suits, it's an argument for tailoring.
The argument he makes is that suits are designed to be easily tailored, and tailored for many different aspects of the body.
Modern clothes aren't as easy to tailor, because the seams aren't placed well for tailoring, and the patterns / fabric shape also doesn't tailor well.
You can also get custom-made jeans and T-shirts. They fit better, you can pick the fabric, you can choose details, plus tailors tend to be fun to chat with. I could spend a whole day browsing the local fabric market chosing fabric for my next shirt.
I find it baffling, but custom-made shirts are cheaper than off-the-shelf.
You can also learn to make your own tshirts. Sewing is a useful skill in general, and tshirts are pretty easy. The neck band is a bit of a challenge, but other than that it's just cutting fabric to a template and sewing pieces together using a sewing machine.
I wonder how much of that is subsidized by the proprietors pursuing the custom-tshirt business lyfe
So you get your fabrics and tailor for less then two bucks?
Otherwise no, custom-made shirts are not universally cheaper than off the shelf
Go to your local Chinatown. You can get custom tailored clothing for a lot less than typical upper middle class branded office/semi-formal wear.
Tailoring is an old old art. Look beyond the flashy Saville Row brands or pseudo "quiet luxury" ones like Brunello that seem to be favored in the Valley.
Where is this?
Any city that has proper suburban shops, strip malls, or Chinatowns. Avoid anything on Main Street. Look for small hole in the wall proprietor operations. This is one of the few times where economies of scale doesn't make things cheaper so avoid any big brands.
Also, watch a YouTube video or two to get a crash course on fabrics. In the states it's labor that's expensive but the fabrics are usually genuine. Alternatively you can go to South East Asia or places like Hong Kong and Japan too but there's a higher likelihood of fraud when it comes to the fabrics. Labor is about a magnitude cheaper though.
Bring your own fabrics if you want authenticity. Fabrics are cheap (relative to the cost of a nice suit on a tech worker's salary)
Another suggestion (not advice, I am hardly a professional when it comes to tailoring) is to commission more cotton clothing first to start so you can get a feel for the process. Suits are nice and all but are an investment of time and money and need constant dry cleaning. Try some custom tailor daily wear instead of H&M for a change (better quality and contributes to your local economy).
I would like to note that suit pants are ridiculously comfortable, and generally a fitted suit is far more comfortable than nearly anything else I wear daily. I don’t understand what crimes society has committed to achieve the outcomes of modern fashion.
Modern fashion dictates simply wearing whatever you are most comfortable in. Most people don't find suits to be comfortable (because they don't put in the effort to get them properly fitted, granted), and thus default to other styles of clothing. But if suits are what you are most comfortable in, then that is what the fashion suggests you must wear. Comfort is the fashion.
> Comfort is the fashion
It, most certainly, isn't, people wear all sorts of uncomfortable clothes and shoes in the name of fashion. Fashion is all about signalling your status and belonging to this or that social group. Suits are simply associated with people most folks don't want to be associated with.
> people wear all sorts of uncomfortable clothes and shoes in the name of fashion.
Some people do wear all sorts of uncomfortable clothes and shoes, but they do so when they want to stand out against the fashion. Fashionable people blend into the wall, so naturally some people gravitate towards anti-fashion in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the heard.
looking art fashion shows, this is not exactly evident
> Buttons > Zippers
I disagree. Yes, the failure mode of buttons is better. But the opening/closing process of zipper is much more convenient/faster than for buttons, and I dress and undress a lot more often than I need to replace a button or zipper.
I own a lot of zip hoodies, some of them > 10 years old, and for none of these the zipper has ever failed. The only zipper that have failed on me are on bags (e.g. messenger bags or similar)
I think zippers from 40 years ago were much more likely to fail than they are today. I remember multiple failed jacket zippers when I was a kid, and having to fix them at the worst time.
But I can't think of any zippers, other than ones put under too much stress like an overstuffed bag or suitcase, that have failed recently.
I have a pair of jeans where Levi's has inexplicably decided to use buttons instead of a zipper. Why??? It's a struggle every time i go to a urinal.
When Levi's first made jeans, zippers were not invented yet. You must have bought a pair from one of their original product lines.
Besides, pants with button fly have the distinctive advantage that you will never get your most sensitive skin accidentally pinched between the zippers. :)
Real backpacks should come equipped with a replacement zipper. In a secret pocket you will remember about it when you will need to remember.
The pain you feel when the zipper of your beloved 20-years old backpack fails is overwhelming. It rips through your soul. And all I want to do in that moment is to remember that I have a secret pocket inside it which keeps my replacement zipper. The feeling of having it there ready for me to fix my brother in arms will also give me an extra 20 years of good life. Small things. Matter. So much.
I am always in the market for a good tailor.
Finding clothes that don't suck has become increasingly difficult. I have a hard time believing that some of this isn't on purpose. It's one thing to use cheap materials and labor. It's another to persistently get the geometry of the human form this wrong this often. Even the obesity crisis does not explain what I am seeing on the shelves at Walmart and Academy.
The hallmark for me are men's shorts. I have to go into obscure athletic retailers to find something that isn't obviously designed to slow me down and antagonize me. Adidas & friends stopped making things that fit correctly 3-4 years ago. I happily pay $100+ for a pair of shorts that don't suck in 2026.
People say that your clothes are your expression. But actually it its other way around. You are an expression by your clothes. Your clothing tells you how to walk, behave and talk. You find yourself acting as a different person when you change your clothing.
My life quality became so much better when I discovered loose / yoga pants. Your sizes change week to week a bit in a way that it counts, and you get into random body positions in which things get tight without you immediately noticing. No clothing should have buttons on it.
A suit is the antithesis of good clothing. Its only appeal is the socially constructed notion that it looks "good".
For me wearing a suit is the worst in terms of clothing. One reason is the buttons. I hate wearing something with buttons. Just why. Instead I will just wear a white T-shirt. and then the jacket also has silly buttons. I just want single color, no writing, no button, no zippers, flexible tops. Also looks best in my personal opinion. Suits look unnecessarily complicated. I am aware that this may be on the scale, thanks.
Well-tailored suits also make you look sharp af. The day I got the most compliments for my clothes was when I was wearing a suit for my college farewell and smoking (no, it's not a cool habit, I'm just an addict) at a tea stall.
I don't ever get compliments if I'm not wearing a suit. Not a single one.
This is just a cultural effect.
I'm in India, suit wearing is not really a big cultural thing anymore (and I doubt it ever was for most people). At least if you're not a bureaucrat.
In many places being a bureaucrat is exactly the impression you will make, wearing a suit. Depends on the individual, whether they want that. As an engineer I wouldn't want that.
No, what I mean is people finding other people in suits attractive is a cultural thing across the world. I am also from India.
Slowly but surely I think modern mass manufacturing is going to move towards personalised mass manufacture. I think in the meantime the clothes industry needs to do a better job of sizing, that is providing more detailed measurements so they can be selected better. At some point I ought to be able to buy a pair of trousers where I have defined more than just waist and length and especially true for tops based on chest or generic sizing. We can do this a lot better, its not intrinsic to suits they are just worn enough that bespoke services exist in quantity.
Where I live, you can get made-to-measure shirts. I think it’s overkill to wear suits just because your body proportions are unusual.
Wear whatever the fuck you want, and don't judge people for what they wear. It's that simple (barring a few exceptions around safety and whatnot).
You can get clothes adjusted/altered, even cheap store bought ones. I often have to get new jeans altered because my legs are chonkier than their length justifies. Some stores still have people on site who can make alterations for you. Some don't, but it's easy (at least in my town) to find little shops that do alterations/mending.
> Everyone wears street/modern fashion, and I don’t want to really go to a friends house in suit and tie. It sucks but that is the way things are.
Just wear the suit and tie if you want to. This is such a non-issue.
I've tailored t-shirts before I discovered a brand called 2tall which fits well enough.
I wore suits for the first 30 years of my life, but I can't stand them and they're terrible in warmer climates, I'm never wearing shorts with a suit. And that's part of it beyond the suitability (pun intended); there are unsaid overtones about wearing a suit that imply formality, status, etc. that I just do not want in my life.
I don’t like ironing, for me, it’s a waste of time. And I like to be able to trip into brambles. I get suits for special occasions but not as a daily driver. Too much maintenance and upkeep. You can tailor anything to your tastes!
The funny side of suit fitting. Zumbach The Tailor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0iSR1H02E0
suits are flimsy and need to be dry cleaned.
not really, and you dry clean them pretty seldomly
So that brings with it one of the following: (1) Be very careful, to an uncomfortable degree, when wearing a suit, or (2) run around in a dirty suit for a while.
Doesn't seem too practical.
Maybe you. I sweat a lot and if I'm wearing polyester, I stink so much even I can't bear it. I would need at least three suits a week and they would need to be cleaned each week. Tossing cheap cotton clothes into washer every week is much easier and I always wear zip-up hoodies when it's cold, so it's easier to thermoregulate.
Maybe it doesn't work if you sweat a lot, but undershirt and a shirt should absorb most of it. Or you actually get three suits and dry wash them each week if it's important.
My counter argument will be argued by Alan Watts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kd68ijKxW0
It's not saying that suits are necessarily bad but that we can do so much better.
Suits are too restrictive. It is efficient but totally lacking in redundancy and resilience.
I would sweat my ass off! I'm a guy who wears shorts and a t-shirt in autumn and spring. I can't imagine life in summer in a suit.
Fuck that, you can have pry my t-shirts, hoodies, cargo shorts, and kirkland stretchy jeans from my cold dead hands.
I wore a suit for years at work. I liked it! Even a with scratch built tailored suit, the trousers would wear through though.
Eventually, can't remember why, I stopped
Screw suits. Screw modern clothing.
I want colorful, ornamental, kingly robes, flowing around me like an 15th century sultan.
What's stopping you? I know it might seem a flippant question but I mean it seriously.
Such clothing, or at least a plausible copy, would be much cheaper now than it was then. I don't do the kingly robe thing but I do wear colourful clothes almost every day and people love it. I was stopped in the street yesterday by a woman who wanted to take my picture.
This friend group, of which I was not a part of, would “suit up” for a night out. Fun little tradition it seemed to me.
Are they back though?
A tailored suit and shirt costs an order of magnitude more than a pair of jeans and a t shirt, so yeah, no shit?
They are kinda high maintenance too, can't just throw a bunch in a washer machine.
True, and that's one reason suits disappeared:
People had to wear a suit and wanted it to be as cheap as possible, which led to a race to the bottom in suit quality. In the end we had fused jackets and synthetic fabrics which made you sweat with people in turn not even bothering to get cuffs and hems adjusted. Absolutely horrible. This is why casual took over.
Maybe it's time for us to recognize that a good suit serves you for years and decades and as such can cost a few hundred bucks.
And despite the little supply due to classical menswear being irrelevant today, there are also incredible deals to be found at goodwills and the like.
> good suit serves you for years and decades
Don't all clothes? I buy bargain rack t-shirt and jeans and get decades out of them just fine.
If you're comparing good jeans and a good t shirt then not In my experience. Likewise you can also buy a crappy suit for not a lot of money. I think the core point stands that a suit gives pretty good bang for your buck now and hasn't been enshittified as much as casual clothing is.
Lol this is a pretty wholesome, funny snapshot of an engineer reverse-engineering another field. And all the specific claims are right on, of course! A few elements are missing, though:
1. Suits are nice & durable because they're expensive. After my first "holy shit you're paying me how much??" job I replaced all my college tees with ~$1K in super high quality tees, and the difference is obvious to say the least. I do care for them a bit more (i.e. hangdry them), but still: more comfortable, more durable, more attractive.
2. Suits are tailored because they're expensive. You can get anything tailored! Expensive jeans also receive this benefit by default.
3. There are shitty suits. Presumably this guy has never looked for the very cheapest set at H&M in desparation!
That said, this guy's a smart cookie. And the comment about ties is just joyously relatable
a lot of people use fashion as a means of self-expression and suits tend to function as a vehicle for uniformity.
If I see a person with a generic arm tattoo, hoodie with skateboard logo, and sweat pants, it express the same amount of uniformity as a person in a bad off-the-rack suit with a boring tie.
“ Even if I feel physically more comfortable in suits, and they are functionally better, I won’t use them when it’s not needed. The only reason is that it’d be socially awkward.”
If you’re an Ashkenazi orthodox Jew, it’s the opposite. Wearing suits every day is the norm. Along with a hat in some denominations.
(In 1930s it was also the norm for many men to do both.)
Does it have to be any hat or that particular hat that I'm seeing in my head now?
Womens suits dont have much practical pockets, so that point is moot.
And suits are not the only piece of clothing with many pockets or with buttons. So the whole argument is “I like custom fitted suits”
Agreed. It is finally time to go back into wearing suits rather than the era of cringe-worthy hoodies.
I have a friend in his 30s that always wears a suit, to work, to the club, to hanging with friends. He is one of the more successful people I know as far as both quick career climbing and getting phone numbers of women he approaches.
While at it, don't forget to put on your fedoras.
TLDR: I have unusual extremities to torso ratio hence I find custom fitted suits more comfortable. Some nonsense about button and pockets that are not exclusive to suits.
Why is this on HN to start with and how the hell did it get to the front page?
Gloom weather season coming to the continent, everybody needs a good excuse to fly to their tailoring destination of choice, get a suit tailored and visit some temples. Or whatever you do there.