alt Hacker NewsSuits Are Better Tech Than Modern Clothes
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Reading posts like this makes me painfully aware just how neurodivergent I am.
It took me until... late twenties? to understand that most people _aren't_ feeling physically uncomfortable in anything long sleeved (or with long pant legs), and that they're just more... patient? tolerant than I am?
It just straight up isn't an inconvenience to other people!
I am very, very, very glad I have a career (and live in a climate) that lets me get away with shorts and short sleeves on 99,9% of days.
100% agree. Its a tragedy that most men only wear suits for special occasions. When a suit is your daily driver, you'll get it tailored and set up correctly... its basically like walking around in pajamas in how it feels, but you look way way better than casual clothes. Sadly I like sunshine so I moved away from places where wearing a suit was normal, to a place where people offer their condolences if you're in a suit (either a wedding or a funeral)
You can also get custom-made jeans and T-shirts. They fit better, you can pick the fabric, you can choose details, plus tailors tend to be fun to chat with. I could spend a whole day browsing the local fabric market chosing fabric for my next shirt.
I find it baffling, but custom-made shirts are cheaper than off-the-shelf.
Certainly some valid points. My main issue with suits is your choice of materials is essentially just wool and polyester. Polyester is something I avoid at all costs, but wool is both expensive and delicate. I don’t want to have to dry clean clothes, it’s inconvenient and generally involves toxic chemicals.
Cotton is nice in that it’s natural, cheap, and durable. In theory there is nothing stopping you having regular pants or jeans custom tailored to your body shape.
> Buttons > Zippers
I disagree. Yes, the failure mode of buttons is better. But the opening/closing process of zipper is much more convenient/faster than for buttons, and I dress and undress a lot more often than I need to replace a button or zipper.
I own a lot of zip hoodies, some of them > 10 years old, and for none of these the zipper has ever failed. The only zipper that have failed on me are on bags (e.g. messenger bags or similar)
I would like to note that suit pants are ridiculously comfortable, and generally a fitted suit is far more comfortable than nearly anything else I wear daily. I don’t understand what crimes society has committed to achieve the outcomes of modern fashion.
I find there is no clothing more uncomfortable than jeans. I simply don’t get their appeal. Washing makes them lose color, their material is rough. Maybe a good choice for workers, but not for wearing them every day. Alternative trouser choices (including those of suits) look better, are usually more comfortable and, at least for me, are good for years.
That said, the other issue of mothern clothing: sneakers… sure there are some high end ones that look amazing. But most of the time they just look cheap. The trend of making the soles white means you almost always look like wearing dirty shoes, as those rubber soles are almost impossible to whiten up again. Compare that to a good goodyear welted shoe: if the leather is good, you can wear them for a decade and just let the soles be replaced every few years. Leather shoes are not too comfortable in the first two weeks of wearing them, but with movement the leather softens and adapts to you. Even paying hundreds for them is ok: you’ll rarely have to replace them.
Tailored suits fit better than off-the-rack street clothes? That is not an argument for suits, it's an argument for tailoring.
Some of my observations:
I think suit trousers are more comfortable than jeans. It’s like wearing pyjamas.
Buttoned up shirts are superior to t-shirts. You can open up extra buttons for ventilation. You can roll your sleeves up and down. There is often an extra front pocket. The collar last longer and it can even be repaired.
People say that your clothes are your expression. But actually it its other way around. You are an expression by your clothes. Your clothing tells you how to walk, behave and talk. You find yourself acting as a different person when you change your clothing.
I am always in the market for a good tailor.
Finding clothes that don't suck has become increasingly difficult. I have a hard time believing that some of this isn't on purpose. It's one thing to use cheap materials and labor. It's another to persistently get the geometry of the human form this wrong this often. Even the obesity crisis does not explain what I am seeing on the shelves at Walmart and Academy.
The hallmark for me are men's shorts. I have to go into obscure athletic retailers to find something that isn't obviously designed to slow me down and antagonize me. Adidas & friends stopped making things that fit correctly 3-4 years ago. I happily pay $100+ for a pair of shorts that don't suck in 2026.
For me wearing a suit is the worst in terms of clothing. One reason is the buttons. I hate wearing something with buttons. Just why. Instead I will just wear a white T-shirt. and then the jacket also has silly buttons. I just want single color, no writing, no button, no zippers, flexible tops. Also looks best in my personal opinion. Suits look unnecessarily complicated. I am aware that this may be on the scale, thanks.
Well-tailored suits also make you look sharp af. The day I got the most compliments for my clothes was when I was wearing a suit for my college farewell and smoking (no, it's not a cool habit, I'm just an addict) at a tea stall.
Where I live, you can get made-to-measure shirts. I think it’s overkill to wear suits just because your body proportions are unusual.
My life quality became so much better when I discovered loose / yoga pants. Your sizes change week to week a bit in a way that it counts, and you get into random body positions in which things get tight without you immediately noticing. No clothing should have buttons on it.
A suit is the antithesis of good clothing. Its only appeal is the socially constructed notion that it looks "good".
Slowly but surely I think modern mass manufacturing is going to move towards personalised mass manufacture. I think in the meantime the clothes industry needs to do a better job of sizing, that is providing more detailed measurements so they can be selected better. At some point I ought to be able to buy a pair of trousers where I have defined more than just waist and length and especially true for tops based on chest or generic sizing. We can do this a lot better, its not intrinsic to suits they are just worn enough that bespoke services exist in quantity.
My counter argument will be argued by Alan Watts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kd68ijKxW0
It's not saying that suits are necessarily bad but that we can do so much better.
Suits are too restrictive. It is efficient but totally lacking in redundancy and resilience.
I've tailored t-shirts before I discovered a brand called 2tall which fits well enough.
I wore suits for the first 30 years of my life, but I can't stand them and they're terrible in warmer climates, I'm never wearing shorts with a suit. And that's part of it beyond the suitability (pun intended); there are unsaid overtones about wearing a suit that imply formality, status, etc. that I just do not want in my life.
I would sweat my ass off! I'm a guy who wears shorts and a t-shirt in autumn and spring. I can't imagine life in summer in a suit.
Wear whatever the fuck you want, and don't judge people for what they wear. It's that simple (barring a few exceptions around safety and whatnot).
You can get clothes adjusted/altered, even cheap store bought ones. I often have to get new jeans altered because my legs are chonkier than their length justifies. Some stores still have people on site who can make alterations for you. Some don't, but it's easy (at least in my town) to find little shops that do alterations/mending.
> Everyone wears street/modern fashion, and I don’t want to really go to a friends house in suit and tie. It sucks but that is the way things are.
Just wear the suit and tie if you want to. This is such a non-issue.
I don’t like ironing, for me, it’s a waste of time. And I like to be able to trip into brambles. I get suits for special occasions but not as a daily driver. Too much maintenance and upkeep. You can tailor anything to your tastes!
The funny side of suit fitting. Zumbach The Tailor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0iSR1H02E0
Screw suits. Screw modern clothing.
I want colorful, ornamental, kingly robes, flowing around me like an 15th century sultan.
I wore a suit for years at work. I liked it! Even a with scratch built tailored suit, the trousers would wear through though.
Eventually, can't remember why, I stopped
This friend group, of which I was not a part of, would “suit up” for a night out. Fun little tradition it seemed to me.
Lol this is a pretty wholesome, funny snapshot of an engineer reverse-engineering another field. And all the specific claims are right on, of course! A few elements are missing, though:
1. Suits are nice & durable because they're expensive. After my first "holy shit you're paying me how much??" job I replaced all my college tees with ~$1K in super high quality tees, and the difference is obvious to say the least. I do care for them a bit more (i.e. hangdry them), but still: more comfortable, more durable, more attractive.
2. Suits are tailored because they're expensive. You can get anything tailored! Expensive jeans also receive this benefit by default.
3. There are shitty suits. Presumably this guy has never looked for the very cheapest set at H&M in desparation!
That said, this guy's a smart cookie. And the comment about ties is just joyously relatable
Fuck that, you can have pry my t-shirts, hoodies, cargo shorts, and kirkland stretchy jeans from my cold dead hands.
Are they back though?
A tailored suit and shirt costs an order of magnitude more than a pair of jeans and a t shirt, so yeah, no shit?
a lot of people use fashion as a means of self-expression and suits tend to function as a vehicle for uniformity.
“ Even if I feel physically more comfortable in suits, and they are functionally better, I won’t use them when it’s not needed. The only reason is that it’d be socially awkward.”
If you’re an Ashkenazi orthodox Jew, it’s the opposite. Wearing suits every day is the norm. Along with a hat in some denominations.
(In 1930s it was also the norm for many men to do both.)
Womens suits dont have much practical pockets, so that point is moot.
I have a friend in his 30s that always wears a suit, to work, to the club, to hanging with friends. He is one of the more successful people I know as far as both quick career climbing and getting phone numbers of women he approaches.
Agreed. It is finally time to go back into wearing suits rather than the era of cringe-worthy hoodies.
While at it, don't forget to put on your fedoras.
TLDR: I have unusual extremities to torso ratio hence I find custom fitted suits more comfortable. Some nonsense about button and pockets that are not exclusive to suits.
Why is this on HN to start with and how the hell did it get to the front page?
>Suits are made to be able to be tailored to the wearer’s measurements. But modern clothes aren’t. For example, even though there are high, medium, and low rise pants, I can’t adjust their rise to my proportions.
To me it seems like this is really the only point OP have, which seems to have more to do with how modern clothes are produced? (factory, based on some averaged out categories of body type)
Other than that it seems like all the things he say are "better", you can find modern variants that do as well.
And the women's cloth rant is weird. Isn't that... Same for (most common) women's suite too? Pockets being too small is enough of an issue that I know some women just buy men's jeans (smallest size) instead, if their proportions are not too different (hip) from average for men.
Also, I didn't see any defense for neckties. What's good about that?