Yes, but if you do the same with an engineer or IT personnel, you’ll know that you’re talking to a management functionary. He won’t actually be doing your work. He probably doesn’t even know how to do your work because he’s passed his technical half-life and just pushes accounting numbers around all day. You’re talking to someone coiffed and dressed to deal with the customer, who probably will agree to anything you ask no matter how technically preposterous and then will bleed you dry trying to give it to you. You’re talking to the wrong person. But you don’t know that because the suit says he’s important.

The reason people go out and buy new suits in every down turn is that they have go on job interviews to get new jobs. Their old suit is moth-eaten, stained with food from their cousin’s wedding, or just doesn’t fit any more. They need a new one as the suit is expected. Once they get the job, they’ll go back to khakis and polo shirts. They’ll buy a new suit in 6-10 years when the business cycle repeats.

Hunh? If one remembers history, one knows that the suit and tie DO change, and HAVE changed, and WILL change. There was a time before the suit, and there will be a time after the suit. It is the propagandists of “timeless style” and “permanent fashion” who indulge in a willed ignorance of the history of dress.