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Put on the Suit: Casual Culture Blamed for Men’s Clothiers Bankruptcy Wave

Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank and Brooks Brothers, join a growing wave of major retailers — specifically men’s clothiers — falling into bankruptcies, not from the COVID-19 pandemic, but due to the casual culture that’s swept American business.

Put on the Suit: Casual Culture Blamed for Men's Clothiers Bankruptcy Wave

Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank and Brooks Brothers, join a growing wave of major retailers — specifically men’s clothiers — falling into bankruptcies, not from the COVID-19 pandemic, but due to the casual culture that’s swept American business. Did Steve Jobs in a mock turtleneck and Mark Zuckerberg in a hoodie lead, or merely reflect, the death of the business suit that’s led to this mortal threat to our American haberdashers? Have we lost anything by ditching the jacket and tie?

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Bill Whittle Network · Put on the Suit: Casual Culture Blamed for Men's Clothiers Bankruptcy Wave

46 replies on “Put on the Suit: Casual Culture Blamed for Men’s Clothiers Bankruptcy Wave”

I’m with Bill on his thoughts about those that attack us so called Boomers. Who cares? It is definitely their loss. Our generation enjoyed so much back in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were the best memories ever for any young boy back then.

Boomer and proud of it!

In grade school all the girls wore petticoats. Those are long gone. Several years ago my wife searched high and low for a slip. She finally found one at J.C. Penny. That store is now gone and the mall it was housed in has been turned into rubble. We lost our Macy’s in March of this year.

While what we wear may influence our behavior, our behavior toward others should not depend on others’ appearance, lest we forget the significant lesson offered in Pretty Woman, or that Undercover Boss show.
Wear what you like, but remember that cops wear a uniform for a reason. As an educator (that’s the current term, btw–gives me leftist cred), I see a distinct difference when sports teams have to dress up on game days–some even carry over that lesson to finals. Looking good? Feeling good!
….then there’s the “professionally disheveled” look from the VSCO girls…compound your arrogance by not caring about expensive things..

Before listening to the show, I stared at the cover pic, trying to determine whether the two men were, indeed, the same person or whether they were simply look-alikes. I decided the latter. Now I can see that it’s the former. Wow.

Professional is the word I would use. Someone at a business, at a desk, on an assembly line, who was dressed sharply, even in jeans, is the person you want to see for something you need done right.
I saw this at H&R Block. I walk in to their office to get my taxes filed. I want the best, well trained person. I want my taxes done right the first time. Get every penny back that I can legally. I know that the IRS won’t be giving it a second glance because of who filled out the paperwork. A professional in a button down shirt, tie and perhaps a blazer on the back of the chair.
I learned it in the Air Force blues. Anyone could throw on the uniform, but the professional airmen were the ones with the creased uniforms, the tight haircuts, the ones who went that extra mile to ensure everything was ready to go. Professional.
I think that is the word you were searching for.

The word I was thinking of while listening to this episode was “tradition.” For instance, going to Sunday services back in the late 1960’s was always a shirt and tie occasion.

At any given time, I can tell you which item in my wardrobe is the job getter, the one that makes people view you in a serious light. When people started wearing PJ’s outside, it sent the message to me that the wearers were people without hope of respect from society, let alone themselves. Another hallmark was the practice that developed in the eighties of dressing little girls as hookers. I paid more for school clothes for my daughter from Land’s End so that she could look like a child.

The image we project is often very much connected to the level of respect we feel for those around us. Our culture has none of that.
When my great grandmother was a child children learned to play the piano or recite poetry in order to entertain guests and have a broad pool of personal resource from which to connect with others.
Now, children learn to play video games…all of the time…In order to entertain themselves.
I’m not vilifying video games completely. I just think our culture is so relaxed that we have fallen asleep.

That is a really good point, about how our culture has evolved from entertaining (serving) others to entertaining (serving) ourselves. Thanks!

I remember an article I read , I wish I could credit the author but he referred to a still picture from Saving Private Ryan of Tom Hanks in full WWII battle dress taking to Steven Spielberg , his boss, but Spielberg was dressed like a 1956 12 year old , baseball cap , jeans , polo shirt and the writer wondered ‘ How did we get from there to here?’
My son-in-law owns a high end men’s clothing shop and very rich people know what Bill was saying about power and confidence , I’ve been there when such people were picking out each detail of their clothes.
I’m retired and all my kids are married but I’d love to have an excuse to wear tux again, maybe I should get married again myself .

I saw a documentary about Savile Row not too long ago, and you’re right, that kind of clothing and service is not going anywhere. It’s not just about the very rich dressing conservatively, it’s definitely about power, confidence, and self-respect.
If you want to wear white tie again, go to opening night at the opera!

There is a website called “The Art of Manliness” They have many articles on wardrobe and dressing like a man (as opposed to a boy). One of the articles is a list of 100 things to do / own to up your style. One of the items is watch a Cary Grant movie and see what of his you can incorporate into your own.
It’s a pretty good site with some interesting content.

Two of my favorites, as well.
Charade and To Catch A Thief might be my two favorite movies.

Take some young milenial who thinks dressing up is stupid and tell him he is going to be acting in a play or video. Dress him up in a really great custom made suit for the part and then make sure that during the time on set and such that there are mirrors everywhere. He will begin to look at himself in the mirrors and his attitude will change. He won’t admit it, but just watch him.
Then ask him if he wants to keep the suit at the end of the shoot!

I’ve been ranting on this subject for decades. I can tell you that from a personal perspective, I recently upgraded my church clothing to skirts and it makes a big difference to me. I suspect that seeing people wearing shorts and flip-flops to church (not to mention bare shoulders for females) really revolted me.
In general, I wear a hat and gloves all the time when I go out because I am extremely light sensitive. Living in Texas, denim is always considered appropriate (church jeans are dark wash, no holes), so my normal going-out-of-the-house outfit is a dark blue turtleneck shirt, old-fashioned jeans with no stretch, a denim jacket, leather gloves, hat, and these days I’ve added a veil, which really helps when the sun is bright, and since the “mask regulations” I also wear a navy blue silk scarf bandana-style (which I’ve occasionally used in the past just for sun protection). (Add bank robber jokes here, not to mention vampire jokes.) Anyway, the point of this silly description is to say that since Covid, when I go out I frequently get compliments, usually on the order of how “put together” I look, (Very occasionally, jokes about beekeepers or something.)
I’ve always been a comparatively formal dresser, and when I was working in an office environment was truly appalled at the clothes that women wore to the office.
Also, I remember more than 25 years ago, going into Lord & Taylor and not seeing a single garment anywhere, in any department, that I would have worn. Period. The clothing had high price tags but was cheaply made from cheap-looking fabrics (almost all polyester), and the shapes, colors, and patterns were unflattering.
Don’t get me started on people wearing unrelieved black for formal occasions, especially women–to weddings, even!!! Or for Christmas! And then not bothering to wear black to a funeral.
It is, indeed, all about respect. Our culture has been so co-opted by people whose political goal is disrespect for everyone and everything that we have lost all sense of self-respect and the dignity of the human person.
Now that I’ve had my rant, I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s comments. 🙂

Enjoyed your comment. I retired from teaching about 15 years ago. Every day was dress-up day. We looked like professionals because we were!
I volunteer at a used book store and enjoy being able to dress up when I go to work. Feels Good. Also there’s something so attractive about a man in a nicely tailored suit and tie. It is what it is.

Ah, yes. If men only knew how attractive a well-fitting suit makes a man, they’d never wear anything else. 🙂

Thanks for the tip, ladies. My wife does appreciate when the occasion calls for a little more.

This is definitely a lamentable change. I’m definitely way too young to be a Boomer, but I always try to dress to impress (pattered somewhat after Frank Sinatra or, for the younger crowd, Neal Caffrey from the show White Collar). I only own one pair of jeans — the same pair I’ve had since 2003. If I wear jeans ten days in a given year, it’s a lot (same goes for shorts). Mostly, I wear Dockers if I’m going casual. I’m in a button-down (but not necessarily dress) shirt almost every day, although I might wear a polo shirt to be extra-casual (I own t-shirts, but never wear them).

When I was a child, I always had suits for church, and I did go to a Catholic elementary school that had a uniform. When I started working for Sears in high school, I wore a suit or jacket and tie every day. For awhile when I was in college in the late 90s, I wore a suit every day just for the heck of it.

My first job out of college was as a high school teacher. Most male teachers wore a school polo shirt, but I wore a suit every day. When I started teaching college in 2007, it was almost unheard of for a male professor to wear a tie, much less a suit, but I always did. When you start to do that, you find that you make a reputation for yourself and get taken more seriously.

When I went back to teaching college part time, I got a full time job with a software startup (office was open-floorplan refurbished factory). I wore a suit every day, even though most of the 20somethings I worked with came in cargo shorts or jeans with graphic t-shirts. Even the older folks didn’t dress for work, except for the salespeople — but only when they were going out to do client demos.

After that, I worked as a teacher for the Dept of Corrections and taught in a state prison. I still dressed in a suit every day. I even made “cufflinks” that contained no metal (fancy plastic coat buttons with a shirt button sewn to the back so it could be buttoned through my shirt and look like cufflinks) because that’s just how I am. I had to do without the tie bars and pocket watch chains, though. Needless to say, I was the only civilian employee who showed up in a jacket and tie except for the superintendent. He got to wear his pocket watch, though, but I guess that’s what happens when you make the rules.

Now, I’m teaching at an all-girls Catholic high school. The school uniform for the girls is pretty much unchanged from the late 1950s (embroidered blazers, long skirts, saddle shoes, etc). They’ve done away with the white gloves and hats, and they wear a white polo shirt under the jacket now instead of a blouse, but it’s still miles ahead of what the other Catholic schools wear. The girls are still teenagers, but the difference that “dressing up” makes in their demeanor and behavior is astounding. It sounds like hyperbole to say that “there are no discipline problems” but I’m not kidding. “Serious infractions” include arriving late to school, sharing homework with friends, wearing nail polish or earrings (both prohibited), or wearing a hair tie that isn’t the appropriate color blue. Imagine teaching in a school where the juvenile delinquents are the ones who keep breaking the hair-tie-color rule! The school has a reputation for the quality of the students, and I truly believe that the classy uniforms are part of that.

I’m still a “young man,” and I own only one pair of jeans, but I’ve got sixty colored dress shirts, thirty sport jackets, and twenty five suits (almost all three-piece, though I don’t always wear the vest).

When I first started teaching high school, I set a goal to amass a collection of 180 ties, so I could go a whole school year without ever repeating a tie. I didn’t quite make it then, but at last count, I have 210 ties currently.

I’ve also got an affinity for classic men’s hats — homburgs, boaters, fedoras, and trilby (but always worn like Frank Sinatra…never like Incel McNeckbeard), but that’s another story entirely…

I lament the loss of hats in our culture, for both men and women. They are so attractive and functional.
In Texas, hat-wearing stuck around longer than in most places, but these days most “cowboy” hat wearers have converted to baseball caps and it seems that people think that “take of your hat indoors” rules don’t apply to baseball caps.

I have a great Stetson Fedora. Love it. More of a fall / winter fabric and I need to get a spring summer one.

Here’s me strolling the boardwalk at Ocean Grove NJ after post-Mass brunch

Very nice!! I love the linen jacket too, very tropical. My nephew also wears fedoras. He also teaches high school, always wears a tie and often a vest but I don’t see him wearing a jacket with it often.
My current uniform for mass (though I haven’t gone since March, unfortunately) is wide-brim hat with flowers and veil, knit turtleneck, nice jacket (silk, wool, or linen blend), floor-length skirt, medium-heel leather boots (not cowgirl), kid gloves, linen hanky, and dark glasses. Oh, and silk scarf as needed.
When the lockdown started, I had just a few weeks previously joined the schola for the OF Latin mass, singing mostly Renaissance polyphony and chant. (Though occasionally other periods, such as one week a trio singing “Lift Thine Eyes” from Mendelssohn’s Elijah.)
Oooh, sorry, how did I get from dressing nicely to music? I guess I can turn any discussion to music if I set my mind to it.

BTW I wanted to respond to almost everything you said, but I restrained myself.

As a rudimentary practitioner of BJJ, from the little that I have learned, you will never get me to wrap a tie around my neck again. Most people don’t appreciate just how much of a liability that is in any type of confrontation. I suck at BJJ and I will choke someone with a tie faster than you can believe. I even give the side eye to robust collars on shirts for the same reason. I rarely wear a coat and I live in Michigan. There are practical considerations here far beyond the topics covered by Bill and Scott. I’m against ties for the same reason that I believe people should carry a gun.
If that sounds ridiculous to you, go to your nearest BJJ gym with your stiff necked shirt and tie on and ask the head instructor to explain what someone can do with that handle around your neck.

Your argument against ties is the best one I’ve heard; it’s a matter of safety. It is also a sign of our times – a decline in civilized culture, and I find it lamentable. I love a beautiful tie on a man! But by all means leave it at home, if you are going out there to confront SJW crowd!

There is another aspect to this, more people working from home where you don’t even need to do casual work clothes. Our video meetings not only show people dressed for the gym or worse, but neglecting basic hygiene as well.
My grandfather had a shop manufacturing women’s dresses for high end labels in NYC back in the day. He always dressed well. There is something to be said for looking like you give a damn about how you look. I tend to think if someone is slovenly in their appearance, they are slovenly in their work. The suit and tie is not needed, but the fit and condition of the clothes should matter.
As to the actors Bill mentioned, they undoubtedly had fashion consultants telling them how to dress to appeal to their audience and improve their brands.

I am a bit surprised that Bill did not bring up his description of how George Washington would dress if her were alive today. Not going to dig into the archives, but George was a well-dressed man for his day.

Ah, yes, and then there’s Beau Brummell, who invented what evolved into both the modern business suit and what we now call white tie. He made a comment about the old saying that clothes make the man, “but I, I make my tailor.”

My school principal always insisted on all teachers coming to work well-dressed: men in good slacks, nice shirts and ties, shaven, neat hair; women in dresses, skirts and blouses or a nice pantsuit, hair combed. Some chafed at the idea but admitted to me that there was a definite difference in student attitudes and behavior compared to other schools at which they had worked where you could come in jeans and a t-shirt, e.g.

I miss elegance.

I’m not talking only about suits and ties, though they are certainly elegant clothes. I’m talking about looking good in whatever you’re wearing. A polo shirt and casual slacks can be elegant if they fit well and are in excellent condition. Hell, overalls and flannel shirts can be elegant in the right circumstances – think of pictures you’ve seen of farmers proudly working their own land. Jeans and a T-shirt can be the same given the context in which they’re worn. Even skimpy bikinis (up to a point) can.

Elegant dress does show respect for an occasion and for the people around you. More importantly, though, it shows self-respect. That you think enough of yourself to take care to make yourself look good – clean, tidy, and composed. That your attitude toward living is, “I’m going to be my best today.”

The disappearance of dressing well is also a symptom of the growing lack of care for doing things well. Another symptom I’ve encountered seems like a meaningless thing at first glance but shows this disregard quite clearly: at McDonald’s, I often find that the napkins in their dispenser have been loaded backwards so that it’s difficult to pull them out. There’s no reason for this inattention to detail. I worked at various McDonald’s all through high school and college and it takes no time to simply observe which way you’re holding the napkins and then load them to face the right way.

I did that as a matter of course, without thinking about it, but now the staff members just don’t give a damn about doing things well. How often do you get a sloppily put together burger at places like that, half off the bun, condiments dripping off the sides, cheese only half covering the meat? I used to make 40 quarter pounders in 5 minutes all by myself and they were all perfect. I cared about the quality of my work, as much for my own satisfaction as for the customers’.

On the rare occasions that I go out – before I retired I was self-employed creating software from home, plus I’m a hard-core introvert – I see people looking like hell. Nearly every one of them. For example, I like karaoke. The people I see at the venues where that happens don’t appear to care even a little for themselves. Even if you don’t have a lot of money (and I don’t, by any stretch of the imagination, though I get by contentedly) you can still maintain a small wardrobe that is well-kept and presents you positively. I don’t understand why people don’t do that.

It makes me sad to see the lack of care and respect that’s omnipresent in the world.

I discovered a very long time ago that when software is written while wearing a tie always has bugs. The tightly buttoned shirt plus tie restricts the blood flow to the brain and restricts one’s ability to breath. Thus it restricts the ability of the brain to function resulting in fuzzy thoughts and software bugs. I haven’t worn a tie and a button down shirt for over 30 years.

A uniform is nothing but a symbol of power and control and tribal membership. It does not make the person yet the uniform is treated as a primary. The fact is a uniform has nothing to do with anything earned. It is a demand for respect without having to prove you deserve respect. Alternatively, it is proof of your submission to tribal authority and your refusal to think and act for yourself. It all depends upon the decorations on the uniform. The individual wearing the uniform is held to be irrelevant.

Your uniform has NOTHING to do with your actual ability to perform. Prove you can do, then I will respect what you have done without reference to the uniform you are wearing. Otherwise take your uniform and go for a long walk on a short pier.

Any respect I have for someone is and has never been dependent upon their attire. Just because someone looks pretty does not mean they warrant respect.
This perspective, in my mind, is akin to my emphatic agreement with Martin Luther King’s famous proclamation: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

There’s a thing in theatre called a “rehearsal skirt”. For period pieces, it’s a stand in for the actual costume for the women to wear because actresses tended to not wear such things in day-to-day life. And wearing a skirt is different from wearing jeans.

I’m a Jeans and t-shirt guy. I’m pretty sure I own a tie. Not positive. Or as the truism I’ve lived by, Never wear a tie to an interview and you’ll never have a job where you have to wear a tie.

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