Yes, I was going to post that at least in the 1980s, I don’t think I ever saw a non-orthodox Israeli male politician in a suit jacket–just limp white short-sleeved shirts unbuttoned at the neck, and with their reading glasses hanging under their chin from one ear by the stem.
Rather obviously, because the United States is culturally European. Before the development of the three-piece suit politicians and businessmen in the US wore whatever was in fashion for these groups in the US.
And what would “American” formal wear look like anyway? Perhaps something like the Western suit, but that’s mainly just a suit with a hat and bolo tie.
Some posters have hinted at the answer, but nobody yet has managed to give even a half-way full answer.
The reason that all Western politicians and most businessmen, lawyers, etc., wear suits is because of tradition. The tradition has declined in strength over the last several decades.
Example:
Buddy Holly. Here is a rock musician–a ROCK MUSICIAN!!–wearing a very conservative suit and tie.
As you can see, it used to be so strong a tradition that even “rebels against society” followed it.
It was even stronger back in Victorian times. A gentleman was considered undressed if he were in shirtsleeves, rather than wearing a coat, in the presence of a lady. A suit, or at least something strongly resembling a suit, was quite literally everyday attire.
That’s just where we are at the moment in the cycle.
There is a continuous cycle in which:
(a) at a particular time, there is a notion of what is considered to be “formal dress”; and
(b) there is a less formal variation; and
(c) people - younger people, mostly - start to adopt the less formal variation for use on formal occasions; and
(d) older, crustier people grumble about this; but
(e) in time the less formal variation itself comes to be regarded as standard formal wear.
In the seventeenth century men of status wore full-bottomed wigs, heavy frock coats, knee breeches and silk stockings. These clothes were completely impractical for doing any kind of physical work in, or even for riding a horse, and they signalled that the wearer’s wealth and power were such that he didn’t have to do any kind of work, and had carriages at his disposal. The clothes were brightly coloured.
When these men, or their sons, went hunting they developed a stripped-back version of the coat, with narrow tails, which was more convenient for use on a horse. Typically it was coloured red, but in time a black version - the tail-coat - came to be accepted as standard formal wear.
The trousers worn for horse-riding also came to be accepted as formal wear. So, by the nineteenth century, we have a greatly simplified standard formal attire - black tail-coat and (usually) grey striped trousers. The bright colours disappeared as ostentatious displays of wealth came to be frowned upon.
Another couple of generations, and the tail-coat is replaced by a shorter jacket, for relaxed daytime wear (though tails are retained for formal functions in the evening). When the jacket and trousers start to be made in matching fabic, we have the lounge suit - the title is telling. In time this comes to be acceptable business attire. Although you and I may call this a business suit, in the tailoring trade it’s still known as a lounge suit.
Simlarly, more formal high collars get replaced, over time, with more relaxed turned-down collars, and in due course this becomes acceptable in a business context.
There is no reason to suppose that this cycle will stop. Right now, there are different standards of business attire in, say, accountancy or law, where a lounge suit and a tie is still standard, and in, say, software, where lots of professionals wear an open shirt and chinos. History tells us that the more relaxed usage will spread and become standard.
Politicians will most dress to indicate seriousness of purpose and high professional standards. They will want to signal this both to their domestic constituency and to the statesmen from other countries that they meet from time to time. Hence, lounge suit and tie. At the moment, anyway.
They need somewhere to put their flag pin.
It certainly seems to have slowed down, however. While there are some differences due to fashion, men’s business attire in its basic look hasn’t changed tremendously since the 1930s. Andmen’s suits in 1850 were closer to what they look like today, 260 years later, than to what they looked like just 60 years earlier in the 1790s.
Is it the same reason that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and Jay Leno (!) etc. wear a suit and tie, along with your local news anchor and weatherman? They are SERIOUS people!
Well, I dunno. The big switch from 1790 to 1850 is the move from breeches to trousers, and probably reflects the decline in horse-riding among the commercial classes over that period. The waistcoats those 1850 guys are wearing look a lot more like the 1790 waistcoat than anything that might have been worn with a suit in the 1930s - and of course waistcoats with a suit are pretty rare nowadays. And the 1850 coats are somewhere between the 1790 coat and the twentieth-century coat. Plus, the 1850s guys are still in high collars. All in all, I’d see the 1850 guys as being a bit closer to the 1790 guy than to contemporary norms.
The other change you have to factor in is, who is wearing these suits? In the 1850s a lowly clerk or a shopkeeper would dress much like the guys in your picture. Even a grocer’s assistant would dress like this, but without the coat and with an apron. But people in analogous positions today mostly don’t wear lounge suits. Is “standard business attire” what the chief accountant and the chief executive wear, or is it what is normally worn in an office/commercial environment? Because, if the latter, the lounge suit has already ceased to be standard business attire, having been replaced with something more casual.
It still is. Jon Bon Jovi often appears in a suit and tie, especially now that he has made a serious bid to buy the Buffalo Bills.
Wait wait wait… so everybody should just go naked? Or only people whose policies you despise?
And apparently you’ve managed to miss any bit of news showing politicians from our left, or female ones.
They don’t all in Ireland.
The Knesset has becomea bit more formal in recent years - probably due to Israel becoming a more cosmopolitan, less socialist country - although it seems that plenty of MKs still come to vote in their shirtsleeves.
In 1985, Joseph “Joschka” Fischer famously wore Jeans, a lumberjack shirt, no tie and sneakers when he took the oath of office as minister of the environment for the German state of Hesse:
Fischer later went on to become German foreign minister. By that time, he had switched to three piece suits.
Actually if you walk the streets of many African cities you might be surprised by how common western-style suits are among the urban population. Ties aren’t that common but your typical middle-class Kenyan, say, will probably be wearing a suit with a collared shirt.
If I were a statesman, I would totally bring back the waistcoat and pocket watch.
The thing is, I am weird. When I see someone in a suit and tie, I do not trust them. It’s the same with people phoning me and telling me I have won a free gift or something similar.
Yeah, the boxy African suit is a classic. A lot is going to vary by area. In many Muslim areas of Africa, the grande boubou, an intricately embroidered robe is considered standard formal dress. And in some areas, a matching wax-print outfit or local fabric might be accepted. But I think a suit will blend in just about anywhere.
Same here.
I agree. I grew up in the poorer south. If someone approached you wearing a suit, that meant you were probably going to get screwed (banker, lawyer).
To me, wearing suit did not bring with it trust or respect. It feels like you are trying to make the outside look respectable because the inside isn’t.
I have to wear a suit every day now for my job. I feel dirty wearing it.
I watched a (surprisingly deep) discussion among some fashion designers on one of the female-oriented channels my wife likes a few weeks ago about the evolution of the man’s suit. The consensus was that nobody knows were it’s going and that the person who figures it out will be the first fashion trillionaire.
Indian politicians generally wear “local” formal dress, most commonly some variation on kurta/pyjama. Nehru is obviously pretty famous for doing so, though in reality he wore a sherwani rather than a modern Nehru jacket. Incoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi nearly always wears traditional garb.
