Anyone have an opinion on wearing suspenders? I figure that it would not matter much as you wear the jacket all day.
Don't do it. If you unbutton your jacket at any point, they will see you're not wearing a belt. That is completely disrespectful. And they won't see your suspenders, they'll just assume you decided to go beltless. My father always told me to wear a collar and wear a belt. Even if your pants fit perfectly.
Your misunderstanding the point. Of course no one is going to recall what you wore. Its about making a good, subconscious first impression. Interviewees who are well dressed in something that fits well provides an impression of professionalism
I think us "materialistic" members are getting a lot of flack. I think a factory churning out 10,000 suits a year for dirt cheap is material since all that material will end up in landfills within 3 years. A tailoring house that makes 900 suits a year and pays its employees well for their skills is not material. When I stop and think about the products I buy, I want to know if it will end up in the landfill, did it support quality employees, does it enrich culture, does it prop up big business?
As someone who enjoys history and economics, I notice there's always this race to the bottom. Let's make things cheap! Let's exploit labor. Let's fill landfills. And when I say "culture", I mean it. You have no idea how much history is present in what you wear. The question is this: in the thousands of years of perfecting the process of clothing through rigorous times (you try living from the 1600s through the 1800s...), are all those advancements better than the advancements during the industrial age (1890s) and the global age (today) and all the cheap labor that the global age allows?
In other words, do you think the rubber that goes into shoes today is better than the leather soles of shoes that were perfected in an age where roads were not the norm? I rather have my old leather sole technology made by hands of a skilled artisan over that of new age rubber technology made and installed by a computerized machine and inspected by a 12 year old Malay girl who is paid a dollar a day.
Probably the few things you encounter on a daily basis that has history is food, money, paper, and your clothes. The majority of your other belongings can be traced back a few decades. Just look at the Forbes billionaires list. Today, they are communications and technology moguls. Go back a few hundred years and the majority of the rich people were cloth and textile barons (and bankers/financiers).
I rather have quality over quantity. There's nothing materialistic about that. In fact, I can guarantee you that I have much fewer items of clothing than most of you if you take into account time. I don't partake in the American tradition of throwing away clothes. In fact, I just spent the entire day yesterday relining 4 pants. And by hand.
In the end, it is just a hobby. Just like any of you may love television or video games, some people just like old fashion things, art, and architecture. And not to mention capitalizing the beginning of sentences and using periods. Some people enjoy prosciutto-wrapped chicken breasts and some people like McDonald's Chicken Club (it's sad one of those is copyrighted and required capitalization). It is all a matter of values.
What is the rule for sitting down with a three button suit? Unbutton all the buttons or what?
For the purpose of interview, unbutton all. But if you have a choice in the future, get a double vented suit and you'll never have to worry. Double vents are also much better in all respects.
