http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeslifestyle/2012/03/26/why-adults-should-ditch-the-shorts-wear-suits/2/Why Adults Should Ditch The Shorts, Wear Suits
By P.J. O ’ Rourke
When I board an airplane these days, all the middle-aged men are dressed like me—when I was an 8-year-old. They’re in shorts and T-shirts. And it’s not just on airplanes. It’s in business offices, teachers’ lounges, and churches. The priest is still wearing a cassock, but who knows what he’s got on underneath?
Sometimes, mainly in cold weather, we’re spared the sight of middle-aged men in T-shirts and shorts because they’re wearing T-shirts and jeans. Jeans fit the mature male one of two ways, both dirigible in nature. You make a public impression that’s either Hindenburg or Goodyear blimp.
The point of turning Casual Friday into Dress-Down-Month-of-Sundays is to be more comfortable. But, possessing a middle-aged man’s body myself, I’m more comfortable covering it than displaying it like flabby laundry on a clothesline.
And where do you put your things? I can’t leave the house without wallet, car keys, house keys, lighter, cigar case, cigar cutter, nicotine gum—because I’m giving up cigars—clean handkerchief, spare clean handkerchief for ladies in distress, and a fountain pen in case business correspondence starts being conducted on paper again. I have ten pockets in my suit and need them all, including the little one inside the jacket flap to ensure that I forget where the theater tickets are.
Those who work and travel in what’s basically their underwear require the giant Boy Scout backpacks that you see grown men huffing under in airplane aisles every time you turn around. And when they turn around, you get smacked right in the Scotch and rocks.
Comfortable means “easy.” So: Nothing’s easier than matching a pair of pants and a jacket that look exactly alike. I’ve got a closet full of blue suits and black wing tips. Any tie goes with a white shirt. I can get dressed in the dark. And—what with blinding hangovers from drinking on airplanes to soften the shock of first-class seats filled with graying, jowly urchins—I often do.
The kid-who-stayed-40-years-too-long-on-the-playground look doesn’t inspire trust. If dressing up as a third grader is your idea of how to treat yourself, what’s your idea of how to treat me?
And what’s the rest of the world’s idea of how to treat you? When I was growing up, I was told, “The way you dress is the way you’re regarded.” See Dennis the Menace in the funny pages of your local newspaper to discover how you’re regarded.
Another maxim from my youth was, “Don’t dress for the job you have; dress for the job you’d like to get.” Checked the ad listings lately for WANTED: GRADE-SCHOOL-RECESS BULLY?
With the overgrown-brat image, we also shed our adult authority. The only advantage to being a middle-aged man is that when you put on a jacket and tie you’re the Scary Dad. Never mind that no one has had an actually scary dad since 1966. The visceral fear remains. When I set my jaw and stare over the top of my tortoiseshell half-glasses, everyone under 50—from waiter to law-firm partner—thinks, “Grounded for life.” This doesn’t work when you’re wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
And (we’re not getting younger) you can’t go to the grave wearing shorts and a T-shirt, either. The one place where a dress code reliably obtains is among morticians. You will be wearing a suit when you’re dead.
If your family and friends have never seen you in a suit before, there’s a chance that you’ll be mistaken for the funeral director. You really don’t want people leaning over your casket, asking, “How much is this costing us?”
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