A fez is much more practical than most people know. You can hold a day’s worth of lychees in one for snacking.
I have a new embroidered tarboosh that I am holding for a special occasion.
Status indicator when worn as everyday work clothes. Also serves the function of being formal wear for everyone, regardless of class. Because there needs to be some form of clothing that fills that role. Clothes that say, “hey, this is important.” I actually think that men are lucky that in the modern world we can get away with having once set of clothing that we can wear to weddings, important client meetings, funerals, or any other stuffy event.
Going back to the status indicator point, though suits are not quite as ubiquitous in the white collar world as they used to be, I think it was a way for white collar office types to distinguish themselves from blue collar workers. Like someone above said, it’s pretty hard to do any sort of physical labor in a suit. Also suits require a level of maintenance that could have been burdensome to a working class man over time. So the discomfort is a part of the package. Limited shoulder movement, nonabsorbent fabric clinging to your inner thigh in the heat, choking necktie flapping about dipping in your coffee, and so on. Not gonna wear a tie near heavy machinery.
I wouldn’t be surprised that the association with higher status is the primary reason many women find men in suits attractive.
You poor suckers. I work in Silicon Valley where no one wears suits, including CEOs.
When I started at one company in the welcome package one of the first things I saw was an article about our founder/CEO and how he hated suits and ties, and had to be coaxed into wearing one to meet the Premier of China.
I did not wear a suit to my interview for that job, and that was entirely appropriate.
If any salescritter looks down his nose at a guy not wearing a suit, you might well be insulting a billionaire.
Speaking of salescritters, vendors trying to sell us stuff don’t wear suits any more. In the old days you wore a suit when you gave a presentation at a conference, no longer. When I was the chair and got on stage for the plenary 10 years ago I wore a suit, but we’ve given up on that also.
The only suits I ever see are on college students who are interviewing and who don’t know any better. They get a pass since probably someone told them to wear one. If an experienced person wears a suit he is either really an oddball or clueless.
I wear my suits at weddings (some) and funerals. That’s about it.
BTW, not wearing a suit is not being conformist - there are plenty of ways to dress, all of them accepted within reason.
I’m working right now. (Well, I’m logged in. I was a bit too efficient and finished.) I’m wearing cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and no shoes.
Take a look at videos of tech CEOs making presentations at user conferences and other conferences and then tell me that suits mean status.
I’m happy to say that around here money means status, working for the right company means status, being smart means status. Suits? Meh.
Okay, as a Magneto fan and a fan of nice-looking suits, I’m intrigued. Got a pic, perchance? 
Sure; clothing that is appropriate in one place is not in another. If I visit a welding shop to perform a quality audit, wearing a suit and tie would make me look like a jackass. If I wore a work shirt and khakis to do an audit in a law firm, I’d look like a slob.
In Silicon Valley it’s unusual to wear suits, though in fact you do see them. I assure you John Chambers is not showing up to a huge meeting to sell NSA $2 billion in switchgear wearing a golf shirt, and if a tech company’s salespeople try making sales in, say, Milan looking half-assed, they’re going to be looked at with all the respect one would examine a booger that had been wiped onto a bathroom wall.
Situation’s everything. You want to be 10% better dressed than the average. More is overdoing it.
Just because some people of high status don’t wear suits doesn’t mean suits (worn as everyday work clothes) do not generally indicate high status. To say it another way, wearing a suit everyday is not necessary to be high status, but (sort of) sufficient. It also gets muddled as not-necessarily-high-status workers (e.g. certain types of salespeople) try to create the illusion of respectability by wearing suits.
Also, my post is not as applicable to the 21st century, as many have pointed out, the IT industry has always been casual, and businesses in general are moving towards casual dress. My little theory about that trend has been that as consumer goods become cheaper, more accessible, more people can afford to wear a suit, further weakening its status indicator role. Also contributing to the decline of suits as status indicators I think is that not as many people work with their hands anymore. There are many more low paying jobs in an office than before, making the blue-collar, white-collar distinction even less meaningful. Now, many tradesmen probably make just as much or more than a good proportion of cubicle monkeys. So as office work (normally associated with suits) loses it’s status and suits become more accessible, businesses are abandoning suits because they can no longer serve it’s role as a status indicator and they’re uncomfortable as balls. Now instead we have those IDs that people wear around their neck or dangle from their belt. Heh.
A wide variety? Have you ever checked women clothes? That’s a wide variety that allows to express your own individuality. Even when not restricted to suits, and allowing very casual clothes, us men have an extremely limited choice in clothing.
20th century I’ll give you. But the distinction was only between office and blue collar. The lowliest office peons worse suits too. In 1969 I had a summer job as a messenger in Manhattan, for an accounting company. I wore a suit, because I found that I got to go up on the real elevators and never got told to go to a service elevator, which saved me a lot of time. (The subway was cheap so no one rode bicycles back then.) This would probably not be necessary now.
Outside the Valley things are different, true. I’ve actually given a sales talk to NSA, a long time ago, and wore a suit though it probably wasn’t necessary.
(They didn’t buy, thank Og. I’d hate to think what their reaction to software bugs would be.)
Someone’s watched too much White Collar.
I look for occasions to wear suits now, since leaving the workforce for self-employ. I look better in a suit than most other things and I don’t find them uncomfortable. But they are impractical for everyday wear outside an office environment.
While working, towards the end of my time, business casual (tending to a more formal business casual though) became an option in given circumstances (we were expected to be smart enough to understand those circumstances, and those who weren’t were also not smart enough to hang around for long). I still opted for suits. Being middle management, I was a boss, and that is also how I wanted my bosses to perceive me.
Have not owned a suit in a good 20 years. Have no intention of ever owning another one.
I despise ties. Stopped wearing them circa 1990.
You’re going to be so surprised at your funeral! 
One of the benefits to being a judge - no one can tell if you are wearing pants under your robes! Working at home today - never got around to putting a shirt on! 
To those who dislike ties, is it because of the choking sensation? I used to hate that too.
If so, have your neck measured. Then get shirts that have a collar at least half an inch to a full inch larger than your neck.
Don’t button up the collar. Cover up the unbuttoned collar with a well-adjusted full Windsor knot. You’ll have to play around with the knot to get it so it covers up the collar while being as loose as possible.
Now you should have 1"-1.5" of breathing room.
Have you ever been to Spain, Italy or Greece in the summer? Putting them on par with London is… strange.
Are you guys confusing tweed with wool? Because wool is the superb choice for a warm and humid climate. Meet Cool Wool.
That’s true, but jeans are more or less defined by being blue (other than occasional fashion trend toward white or black). That’s not true of almost any other type of clothing except wedding dresses.
Dunno, I’m at work at a Fortune 500 company on the West Coast, making six figures, and I’m barefoot, wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
So I think that the answer is to the OP’s question is, “Because you live on the East Coast and the East Coast is behind and you aren’t doing anything to push it forward.” I don’t even dress up to go to an interview.
Because I sometimes have no other reasonable choice.
Re Weddings, Funerals And Other Such Events
The host and/or guest of honor at such an event is generally somebody I care about. As this is their event and they are providing free food, I accede to their wishes. My niece and nephew are having a joint bar and bat mitzvah this year. As my niece inherited the fashion gene that skipped me, I will wear what she tells me.
At Work
You pay me and I’m willing to put with all sorts of crazy crap. However, if I had to wear a suit every day at work, management would find themselves the recipient of repeated essays (with proper cites) on why we should not have to wear suits.
Re ‘Get it tailored’
I’m living below the poverty line here. The idea of spending money I don’t really have on a piece of clothing I don’t want and will almost never wear and then spending more money to have it tailored is more and more ridiculous.