Clothes don’t make the man

Matt Pearl

One of my favorite parts of having become my own boss is being in control of the dress code.

It’s an insignificant thing to cause me such excitement, I know. For several years as a teacher in area school districts, I dressed in a semi-formal type of apparel most days.

And it was with good reason: a teacher who dressed neatly and avoids wearing too casual of clothing not only sets a good example for students, but also gives the subconscious cue that he or she is successful and an authority figure.

But most of the time around the office, I wear jeans. Blue, comfortable jeans.

Oh, sure, sometimes I wear a nice pair of slacks and a collared shirt to show that I’m respectable–but if folks don’t have basic respect for me by now, I doubt I can earn it with a pair of Dockers.

Still, when I look back at old black-and-white pictures and see the men in their suits, ties, and hats, I sometimes wish we lived in an age when folks still dressed up to go to work.

There was a time when a man wouldn’t dream of going to an office job without a coat and hat, and a white shirt pressed with starched collar. I have wondered at times what the psychological effect dressing nicely has upon people in a society.

I have related before in my writings the importance I feel it holds for students to dress appropriately for school. I stand by it: there’s a reason most schools won’t let students wear pajama pants and slippers to class.

As far as we members of the adult world, the effect seems often to be the same. When we think we look nice we behave better, work harder and seem to command more respect.

But we live in a very informal age. Billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg walk around in jeans and T-shirts, and the young folks watching take the lesson from what they see: they start to believe that there is something wrong with formality, and that the new generation of successful young folks all can succeed in a pair of Levi’s.

What they forget is that it takes time to earn the right to wear casual clothes to work: and it took a lot of difficult work for Zuckerberg to become a billionaire–and thus earn the right to wear whatever he wants to the office.

Lest I digress into a rant about the delusional expectations of millennials–an argument that in and of itself is unfair in many ways–I’ll instead say this: each of us is, to some extent, a product of the age in which we live. None of us can escape our culture, nor control the times into which we were born.

What we can do at times is pause, look back into history and decide what to keep and what to throw away.

For my part, I like to see folks who work to maintain a neat outward appearance. There will always be room in this world for people who go the extra step to look and feel their best, and this is a truth that transcends time.

That being said, I am going to keep wearing my blue jeans to work, and occasionally dressing up to show my respect for the formality of days now past. I will also keep another additional truth in mind:

Clothes do not, as they say, make the man. When my attire speaks to my being casual or relaxed, I say that such a message is accurate. It is therefore up to me to, as I sit at my desk or as I go about my work covering events in the area, to remain professional in my thoughts, words and actions. I’m jeans outside: suit within.

Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City, Albany, and Grant City.