Formal but not
Everyone needs a suit because weddings, funerals, New Year’s Eve, and jury duty exist. Usually you get something charcoal or blue, leave it in your closet for two decades, wear it twice a year, and you’re done with it. That is not the end of suits.
Two things can be true at once with suits. They are, in fact, one of the final vestiges of our dying world, failing to exist in right relationship to the energies that we will be calling in to move forward. They are also a flex, and sometimes we just need the flex, don’t we? Sometimes the flex is required, isn’t it? The death of the old world is slow, uneven, and messy, and so therefore the suit.
Look more closely and you find that there are suits for every occasion. In particular, casual suits exist. Different colors, cloths, maybe a little rumpled but just so, maybe see-through lightweight but in a way that makes sense to those in the know. Think green, brown, light gray, purple. Some suits are sold as separates now, so you can buy the jacket and rock it as a blazer, or you can buy the matching slacks, etc. To suit people, this is heresy, but gosh, how many of those do you realistically hang out with?
The very term casual suit is self-contradictory, and casual suits belong everywhere and nowhere, existing in the sunken place of fit architecture. They are also just as expensive as a formal suit – maybe even more expensive, since the fabrics are going to be harder to source and they tend to be made by more upscale places. As a result, very few people buy casual suits anymore. In what places is a casual suit appropriate? You can’t wear them to the sorts of workplaces where “suits” are required; you can’t wear one to the coffee shop without instantly making “suit guy” your personal brand. Few people wear suits 5 days a week and then switch into different suits for the weekend.
When I think of casual suits, I think of an old friend of mine from my past life, a feral comics-industry stoner who lived in Portland. I was visiting him for the weekend; we were about to go out; he suddenly realized something, excused himself to his bedroom, and then came out in a suit a few minutes later. “Oh, this is my walking suit.” He then proceeded to get mind-blindingly high. When I think of the idea of wearing a suit simply for the hell of it, I think of him. Ah yes, your walking suit. All of this makes perfect sense now.
Nothing has changed in the 18 years since this happened. It is still a little preposterous to rock a suit when you’re doing whatever. But also, sometimes you get older, you go to more conferences that are full of leveraged power, and so therefore the casual suit. Perhaps you grow into the suit; perhaps you just start to dress your age. Either way, there is a suit, a little confusion, and eventual understanding.