I don’t see myself wearing or buying $1200 suits on a 64K salary, but then again, I don’t have a need for suits. An occasional $1200 lens, though, isn’t out of reach. So I suppose that it’s possible. More so if the FBI pays for damaged personal property as a result of the job.
I have to wear a suit most days to work, and I have some suits that I paid $200 (or maybe $300 and change, no more) some years ago, a few of them at Brooks Brothers (off the BB rack, not custom-tailored) and I look pretty good in them, I think. I see the prices some friends and colleagues pay, however (600 and up) and wonder whether they look so much sharper than I do. Indeed, they often compliment me when I wear one of my better suits to work. I can accept that their suits might well last longer than mine, but to my untrained eye, my off-the-rack, on-sale stuff looks comparable to their hand-tailored stuff. Or am I just a self-deceiving ignoramus?
I guess I am on the opposite end of that. I think expensive suits are extravagant because very few can tell the difference.
Imagine pulling 100 average Joes off the streets of cities across the country. (Many of them may own one or two suits, a few of them will wear suits daily because they are required to, some will never have owned a suit). Now show them a series of high-quality glossy photographs of the same attractive model wearing $300-$400 suits and $1200-$2000 suits.
My guess would be that 98 out of the 100 Joes would be unable to achieve much better than a 50-50% guess at which is which.
$800 for bespoke? You can’t possibly. Not in DC. Not anywhere on the east coast. (And if you can, for og’s sake give me your tailor’s number. :D)
Not bespoke, anyway, which properly used means fully custom tailored, right down to the canvas coat fronts, multiple fittings, and wide choice of materials, details, and cut. Are you sure you don’t mean made to measure?
The tailoring is fancier, but it’s actually less complex. Many things about men’s clothes are not well known, because men’s knowledge of clothes is limited by gender role expectations. One of them is that they have to fit a lot better than women’s clothes and last a lot longer. That’s because men generally want a more basic wardrobe of clothes, and want to move more freely in them. That is what costs money. Add in options like fabric, detail and cut and the cost becomes very steep indeed.
Might not be the best analogy there. One of the worst mistakes a new Marine can make is to have his dress blues tailored to a custom fit. His buddies will notice, and will instill unit cohesion on his ass.
I recently posted this in another thread, but it seems appropriate here:
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
There’s a dryly funny short story about this - Clothes Make The Man, written by Nunnally Johnson in 1939. It concerns a prissy hotel manager who risks everything to evict a model tenant just because of his goofy taste in clothing.
Where are you living in DC that you think “$64k doesn’t get you that far”? I’ve lived inside the beltway my whole life, much of it earning less (much less at times) than $45k and I lived more than comfortably on that, and not in shitty neighborhoods either.
Bear in mind that an agent with Booth’s position and assignments doesn’t really have that much free time to be spending money. Field agents are required to log at least 50-60 hour weeks. That $64k figure is for new agents. Special agents with 10 years earn up to $120k. He could easily afford a closet full of $1200 suits.
There’s a tailor in Georgetown (it’s been several years but I’ll find his number if you’re interested) that for about $300 would put in a couple fittings (maybe more, but it never took me more than twice) and redo much of the suits I brought in. In the end I only had six $6-800 suits and it took a year or two to bring them in, but the outcome was phenomenal.
I ended up there following my father’s advice. I used to just get the basic cuffs 'n collar alterations done, but he set me on that path. Having a suit custom tailored brings it to a whole new level, one that is extraordinarily noticeable. Not that someone would say, “wow, Rhythm, you sure do have nice tailoring on that suit,” but that the way it fit and moved was clearly distinguishable from those that had yet to be altered: suits that looked good before looked great afterwards.
ETA: Wow, you gotta love Google Maps. I found it: Field Tailors
My one and only “suit” costs a bit more than that, especially if you include the shoes that were bought to go with it.
Most male clothes (I’ve said this before, sorry for the repeat…)… most male clothes fall into two categories:
• comfortable, cheap, looks comfortable and cheap, everyday wear. Totally cookie-cutter guy-wear (jeans, t-shirt, some variations in undies and sox and shoes)
• uncomfortable (to me at least), not quite so cheap (but not truly expensive either), ALSO looks totally cookie-cutter like it came out of Ken doll factories, no significant style changes since oh I dunno 1900 or thereabouts (dark blazer jacket with 2 buttons and wide V opening above the topmost button; standard dress shirt with triangular collars, single row of small white buttons, two-button sleeve cuffs, buttons all the way to neck, in various colors; necktie; dark pants in thin material, loose-fitting, pants pockets cut rather stupidly along the sides, with or without innocuous bottom cuffs depending on era). Clownish.
If you want to dress up and look nice and also different you get to spend a lot of money on it.
Thank you kindly Rhythmdvl. It might be more than worth the train ticket to talk to these guys.
In New York, where I am now, tailoring at any but the very highest price brackets is a real hit-or-miss proposition. Quality work doesn’t necessarily keep you in business, nor shoddy work send you out of it.
New York tailors tend to be workmanlike, with no knowledge of styles beyond what they’ve already been exposed to. If you want your pant cuffs 1/4" wider than “traditional,” or want your jacket hourglassed when they’d rather just move the buttons in, they’ll talk you out of it, quote an ultra-high price or just ignore your requests. The attitude seems to be that the person with the skills gets to make the decisions.
My brother-in-law is very label conscious and prefers to spend a lot of money on clothes. (As opposed to spending money on golf, or a boat or electronics) Before he changed his career focus to administration jobs for not-for-profits he would spend that much on suits. I think now he keeps it closer to the $500 to $800 range.
My uncle loves, Loves, LOVES a bargain and squeezes every possible benefit out of sales and “preferred customer” type perks and likes to keeps his suits more in the neighborhood of $200.
I suspect that for the TV show the writers would choose a figure that would make the greatest number of people watching would perceive it as a really really expensive suit, even when they watch it on USA ten years from now.
Huh, and I thought this was going to be yet another thread about pro se legal representation.
Nothing wrong with that as long as you don’t want to look like you’re wearing $200 suits. Michael Dukakis was famous for buying every scrap of clothes at Filene’s Basement while he was governor of Massachusetts, but he was always careful to be well tailored and well put together. (Well, except for that unfortunate tanker helmet…) A counterexample would be Ralph Nader, who makes dowdy sloppiness a badge of honor.
I have several different types of suits. Some are very nice and expensive and worn on special occassions. LOts of good to ok “work” suits and a few really crappy ones.
I wear the expensive ones when I am in the High Court and the less expensive ones when in Bumfuck Magistrates Court.
Of course, in the High Court, I wear a gown with a stiff collar and bands, I sometimes wonder if I should switch it around
#1. $1200 isn’t “an expensive suit.” It’s a mid-range suit. Most people would consider it a fair bit of money for a single outfit, but in context it’s just the middle of the pack.
#2. Expensive suits are better even if “very few can tell the difference.” They fit better, are more comfortable and – most importantly – are better constructed, so they last longer. Yes, of course you can buy suits that are expensive because of the brand rather than the quality, but that’s true in anything. As much as I wish it were different, there is no $500 suit that is truly as good as a quality $2000 suit. It may be that you don’t wear suits often enough to justify spending money on a good one, and that’s totally fine, but it doesn’t mean the difference doesn’t exist.
Can I ask where you buy a $1200 suit? If I wanted to buy a $1200 suit, I have no idea where I’d find one. Brooks Brothers isn’t near that expensive and neither is Thomas Pinks (of London, and lately, Wall Street). I suppose my idea of fancy is rather plebian!! However, really, I just can’t see the point in paying that for off the rack – at $1200, I’d expect at least made-to-measure. Does the off-the-rack $1200 suit really exist?
BTW, I don’t count the shoes, belts, shirts, or other accessories in the cost of a suit. People who wear suits regularly wear the same shoes with more than one suit. Similarly, dress shirts. It is part of the cost of correct attire, but not part of the cost of a “suit” as I mean it.
Brooks Brothers is easily that expensive if you buy the good ones (Golden Fleece). Those are about $2k, but you can get them on sale. Even on sale they’re more than $1200. I like Brooks Brothers a lot, but I don’t really consider them “high end.” If you want to exclude bespoke, I’d look at brands like Kiton. Here’s a place in Seattle that has some good stuff: http://marios.com/
Hickey Freeman. $1200 won’t even get you in the door.
Another factor in cost these days is label appeal. There are many OTR suits that are more expensive than MTM suits of similar quality would be, simply because of designer appeal. Custom-made has lost a lot of its style cachet because anything but a standard conservative look has become very expensive.
FBI Special Agents (and a surprising number of LEOs in mid upper tiers) often make more 6 figures with overtime, and they are usually required to be in excellent shape. If I was a single man in excellent shape making over 6 figures a $ 1200 suit would not be an absurd purchase. A good suit will take you long way in making a good first impression with sophisticated women, and in being taken seriously by your peers and others you work with. There are also a lot a people it won’t matter to, but having it vs not having it is rarely a negative.