wear a suit every day

Making pancakes. Took my jacket off in favour of an apron, but the tie stayed on.

Today I went to see a friend whose marriage is dissolving. Once there, I realised that I was wearing these cufflinks, which he and his wife gave me for being one of the readers at their wedding. Since I have more cufflinks than occasions to wear them, it was actually the first time I had used them. I don’t think he noticed; but it goes to show that you can still be dressed inappropriately no matter how smart your clothes are.

Babysitting. A few tears and some messy eating, but mostly okay. (And that was just me, boom boom.)

So on day eleven I went to Sunday service at church. This is more remarkable than it sounds, given that a) I’m an atheist b) it was a Brazilian congregation, and I am not Brazilian c) it was conducted entirely in Portuguese, which I don’t understand. But at least I was appropriately dressed, for once.

Moving day for a friend. Suit didn’t get in the way as much as expected – and looked less out of place given that my fellow removal man also showed up in jacket and tie!

So I was having a conversation this morning about how my suits and ties (which are, on the whole, pretty conservative) don’t really match either my personality or the ways that I normally dress. Which is true, but misses the point as far as this particular project is concerned: I want to wear a suit that’s as neutral as possible.

Part of the intention is to see what effect the formality has on my interactions with people – something I think would be compromised if I was wearing something that gave away more about my personality, or for that matter, which I felt less more comfortable in. But I do think I’ll be looking for some new threads once it’s over.

Taking the compost out in the snow wearing a nasty suit whose buttons have all fallen off: priceless.

So yesterday was the first day that I couldn’t really be bothered with the suit – not so much the suit, but the rigmarole of grooming that goes with it. It turned out to be an unexpected playday and I’d rather have just put on the first clothes that came to hand than get into the ritual of shaving, hair arrangement, smoothing and tucking. (I realise this will sound ridiculously whiny to anyone who actually has look presentable every day, but there it is.)

Didn’t help that the suit for the day was the cheapo disposable, which feels more like dressing down than dressing up. Clearly it’s not just the action of wearing a suit that’s important (for me); it needs to be a suit that feels like I’m making some kind of effort. Or else it might just as well be a tracksuit.

Hardware, hardwearing. Cold today, hence the lousy jumper.

So today was the first day I wore the “disposable” suit I bought for the purposes of this project. Dedicated though I am, there’s no way I’m going to destroy any of my existing (expensive) suits for housework and the rest. So I bought a cheapo suit from Tesco (and yes, I am conflicted about that, thank you for asking) for such purposes.

It’s not bad value at 25 pounds; less than it cost to buy the shirt I wore it with, and with change left over for a two quid silver polyester tie. That said, the material is pretty nasty, albeit probably durable, it doesn’t fit well and there are innumerable little quality issues with it. Not least the aforementioned detachable button feature.

The fact that (I thought) it looked cheap undoubtedly affected my carriage today. There’s probably quite a bit that could be said about social attitudes in general, and my moderately-affluent middle-class snobbery in particular. But it’s past my bedtime, so just one observation.

During the course of the day I had to go down to Hounslow West to pick up some money for my builders. I’m pretty sure that in my normal suit I’d have felt a bit wary; it’s not the best area to be wandering around with large sums of cash. But I felt dressed down, and therefore not a target.

Almost certainly an illusion: both that I was ever a target, and that wearing a nominally cheap suit made me less of one. But it’s of such illusions that self-image is made.