My Necktie Problem, And Ours

Mark Kleiman discusses a proposal to ban necktie wearing by EU officials in the summertime. Speaking of which, we've just this week seemed to have commenced in earnest the awful DC tradition of 90+ degree days with high, high humidity. The trouble with the terrible DC summer, however, is that it's hard to sum up in one simple statistic.

The heat is bad, yes, but it's also the humidity. But there are more hot-and-humid cities out there -- Atlanta, say. What makes DC different is its aspiration to be a northeastern-style walkable urban center where you can walk four blocks, get on a Metro, ride a way, then find yourself just a four block walk from, say, some destination somewhere. Which is fine, except you wind up arriving for your work-related event looked sweaty and ridiculous. All of which could be mitigated by attire except that DC is also one of the most formal of American cities at this point. I'll always remember this July 12 breakfast with Chuck Schumer from last summer for exactly how uncomfortable everyone (the Senator included) looked in our jackets and ties and remembering who, exactly, we were all trying to impress by dressing like that?

Comments

There are few American cities without humidity problems any more. Maybe Las Vegas. The dew points for Phoenix are preposterous. 110 degrees and a 55-60 degree dewpoint? Hell on earth. El Paso until a few years ago had decent humidity, but irrigation raises local humidities and you really need irrigation in the Southwest if you're going to grow anything other than snakes. (Which explains Las Vegas.)

Las Vegas has dew points in the 30s. That's arid. Of course, the other day it was 116 and at that temperature people dessicate like potato chips.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 10, 2007 8:44 AM

As a summer intern in the district who is used to the cool breeze of Southern California, all I say to say in response to this post is "amen."

Posted by Jason | July 10, 2007 8:44 AM

I used to walk from my house to the metro. It was a 2 block walk, then cutting through a mall and then another 2 blocks. By the time I got to the metro, I would be drenched in sweat. Since Metro stations are apparently super-heated - even in summer, and the AC on the trains is hit or miss, I would be just as sweaty by the time I got to work. So now I drive - it's much easier.

Posted by Dan | July 10, 2007 8:47 AM

I'm from Atlanta, and I feel your pain (I'm one of the people here who use MARTA). Even thoug Atlanta is hotter than DC, DC is way more humid way more consistently in the summer (I'm originally from Virginia) due to the proximity of water. Some of the most miserable days I've ever spent humidity-wise were in DC or Williamsburg, VA.

Posted by Tim | July 10, 2007 9:05 AM

Getting a little extra pointlessly cutesy with the titles, I see.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 10, 2007 9:08 AM

Sometimes I get to feeling jealous of you and Ezra Klein and other guys my own age who, like me, care about politics and journalism, but unlike me are actually working and writing right there in the thick of things in Washington while I'm up here writing for a small town newspaper in Vermont. But today, the forecast is for 80-degree temperatures and I'll spend most of the day in my air conditioned office except for an interview to which I can wear shorts, so today is not one of those times.

Shorter me: neener neener neener!

Posted by Cyrus | July 10, 2007 9:11 AM

I'd be interested in someone sociologically inclined setting up a spectrum of formality in dress in American cities. I would guess the spectrum starts with Vegas and LA on one end, with a DC-NYC-Boston cluster on the other end.

But where are places like Chicago and Detroit, or Atlanta, Houston, Cinncinati, for that matter?

Posted by Ben Cronin | July 10, 2007 9:30 AM

Guayabera shirts are considered acceptable in lieu of a suit in some Florida cities. It's one of the few ways in which we're not totally nuts down here.

Posted by Betty Cracker | July 10, 2007 9:33 AM

DC is only one of the most formal of American cities if you are stuck in politics or law down here. You don't see people walking around NIH, NSF, and Goddard wearing suits and ties.

So, like Cyrus, I, too, will reiterate: "neener neener neener."

Posted by Tyro | July 10, 2007 9:37 AM

I live in DC and walk to work. It's about 30 minutes each way. From May to September, I have to wear running shorts and a t-shirt on the way to work, then change into a suit in the office. It's totally ridiculous, the way American upper-middle class culture (politics and law division) embraces unto the point of mandate clothing intended for a colder climate at a colder point in history.

(I have an Israeli co-worker, who tells me that when the weather got this hot in Israel, traditional western suits got shelved in favor of safari-style suits with short sleeves and shorts. I wish we could do the same here.)

Posted by cminus | July 10, 2007 9:54 AM

As late as the seventies, the UK foreign office listed DC as a tropical service post, and paid a small hardship premium to its diplomats there -- though I have also heard that was a backhanded way to deal with Washington's swinging cost-of-living...

Posted by Davis X. Machina | July 10, 2007 9:57 AM

This reminds me how a couple of Republican Senate committee staffers were explaining to me how I had to get myself a seersucker suit. Is it really that big of a faux-pas in DC to eschew dark suits in favor of lighter colors and materials?

Posted by Tyro | July 10, 2007 10:00 AM

Wuss.

Posted by ostap | July 10, 2007 10:14 AM

Whatever happened to business casual? Just a few years ago it seemed to be almost universal. But then there was a major shift, and now the suit is back, big-time.

Posted by Peter | July 10, 2007 10:27 AM

Its significantly about hiding the male body.

Posted by Dan | July 10, 2007 10:44 AM

Whatever happened to business casual?

The recession of 2001 caused the major shift away from business casual. I found that funny because the spread of business casual as a reaction to a tight labor market was basically a tacit admission that allowing less formal dress was a form of additional compensation while suits and ties were a form of hardship to be required of employees during slower economic times when employees were much less mobile.

I presume that if the economy were to go into free-fall, at first there would be a "no facial hair" rule added to the employee handbook. If the eocnomy became even weaker, flooding the labor market more, companies would then add a rule of "1 inch maximum hair length for men." Finally, at the nadir of an economic depression, companies would limit their hiring to those over 6 feet tall with thick, Romney-style "executive hair."

Posted by Tyro | July 10, 2007 10:49 AM

Is it really that big of a faux-pas in DC to eschew dark suits in favor of lighter colors and materials?

No, but somehow that never occurs to people when it's time to complain about "old-fashioned" business attire, complete with a false dichotomy between beachwear and dark wool suits. Guess what, "old-fashioned" folk wore summerweight attire in hot weather. And why exactly is a tie intolerably hot? One's collar and tie are not supposed to form a garrote. But what the hell: go ahead and eschew a shirt, wear shorts and flip-flops to the office, and order mashed potatoes for lunch and eat them with your fingers. It's all arbitrary anyway.

Hmm, sorry, I clearly need more caffeine.

Posted by mds | July 10, 2007 10:59 AM

Its significantly about hiding the male body.

Not necessarily. It's also a holdover from the days when "more fabric = wealth." Though these days part of the conspicuous consumption aspect is contained in the "afford to cool your building down to 65 degrees in mid-summer = wealth," also.

Posted by Tyro | July 10, 2007 11:01 AM

The person who said DC is dressy for the politics and law types had it right. I work with government, and it's all suits, all the time - or at least shirt, tie and jacket. I have friends in law and government for whom it's the same thing. Some of my friends, however, work in the private sector unrelated to government or law and they dress casually.

I don't think business casual has gone anywhere, particularly in NY and elsewhere. I used to work in NY/NJ and it was business casual. Government, for some reason, is still stuck on suits. Honestly, there are some people who just do not look good in suits, for whatever reason they just don't fit them right. A well-dressed business casual would look much better. It's when business casual starts slipping into cargo pants and flip flops that the trouble begins.

Posted by Dan | July 10, 2007 11:13 AM

Everyone looks good in suits, but few look good in cheap, ill-fitting suits.

Posted by yoyo | July 10, 2007 11:18 AM

By 'everyone,' I meant males.

Posted by yoyo | July 10, 2007 11:23 AM

My friends who work in law firms and on the Hill have the very-formal-dress problem, but a great many of us work in much more casual environments - nonprofits, publications, consulting firms (especially the Internetty sort). Being in labor, myself, I like to go for the "Sherrod Brown look" - button-down shirt without the collar buttons or top button buttoned, necktie knot at around the second button, sleeves rolled up.

I'm surprised, MY that you've found yourself in such formal environments - isn't it fairly rare that a blogger has to wear a suit?

Posted by SDM | July 10, 2007 11:43 AM

on the other hand, you could be here in Honolulu where 'formal' means a nice Aloha shirt (ie, not a tacky-bright thing you'd buy in the Waikiki ABC stores, though large flowers in muted colors would be unsurprising). Though Honolulu seems to have been affected a bit by the mainland: in the last 20 years, more and more people are wearing shoes, slacks, and button-down shirts.

Posted by foo | July 10, 2007 11:45 AM

I was thinking about Honolulu too, where the Aloha shirt was standard for attorneys at the (medium size, standard issue) firm I intered at unless they were going to court, in which case, they'd change into the suit hung from the back of the door. Then again, even when I was living there full time (years ago), it always seemed like the younger guys dressed a little more formally, while the older bank presidents and whatnot who had paid their dues, wore the standard issue "equivalent of a suit Aloha shirt". It might be a fashion thing.

Posted by JMS | July 10, 2007 12:13 PM

This reminds me how a couple of Republican Senate committee staffers were explaining to me how I had to get myself a seersucker suit. Is it really that big of a faux-pas in DC to eschew dark suits in favor of lighter colors and materials?

Actually, seersucker suits are quite popular at my firm. What IS unacceptable is wearing dark (chocolate brown, black, or oxblood) shoes/belts/braces with them. Bucks, people. Bucks.

Other alternatives are poplin and linen suits. Both wrinkle when you squint at them and thus require extra starching and will probably up your dry-cleaning bill, but when I sold suits they were quite popular (moreso than seersucker).

I also found that men who were new to our area insisted on wanting to buy suits in heavier weight fabrics and would turn their noses up at the all-weather worsteds. They really are MUCH lighter and if you are moving here from NY or other northerly climes, and want to update your wardrobe, I highly recommend them.

(Also, the trouser leg should break over your laces. Please.)

Posted by ajw_93 | July 10, 2007 1:24 PM

But why ban them, why not just raise the temperature and announce ties are not required?

Posted by Said Shirazi | July 10, 2007 1:25 PM

I hear you about the suits. I'm coming to D.C. next week for a formal meeting, and the chair (who works in D.C.) announced business casual due to the weather. I'm assuming the attendees did the same little jig when they got that one, all except the ones who need the suit to feel like they're representing.

Posted by Buck | July 10, 2007 1:33 PM

Fresco wool is like 10x better than regular worsted. Better even than linen.

Posted by yoyo | July 10, 2007 1:59 PM

But why ban them, why not just raise the temperature and announce ties are not required?

Because formal dress isn't about protecting others' delicate aesthetic sensibilities — it's about highlighting differences in status. If you leave the door open to ties, some will continue to wear them in order to assert that they're more serious than others.

It's all pretty dumb, but at this point I'm convinced we're hardwired for it. When Dan says:

It's when business casual starts slipping into cargo pants and flip flops that the trouble begins.

I can't help but wonder: what trouble? Is it really that the human sartorial sense is so acute that viewing the unfashionable causes discomfort? I doubt that's it. The answer I come up with is that clients or coworkers don't like to associate with someone that doesn't display the same class signifiers as themselves. Same goes for people in restaurants whining about other diners not dressing formally enough. How is someone's attire actually affecting anyone else's meal, except to make them feel less important?

I don't mean to pretend that I'm immune to it, either. I am currently wearing sneakers and a t-shirt at the desk in my office, but I dress up for meetings and dinners out. But it bugs the hell out of me that we all engage in such petty behavior.

Posted by Tom | July 10, 2007 2:38 PM

Seriously, the trick in DC is to be female. I'm from upstate New York, and I never owned a dress or a skirt until I moved here. Now I live in them from May to September. Today, which is 100 in the shade, I'm wearing a summer DVF dress and I was the only person at my bus stop not visibly sweating.

The other trick is to not be a corportate lawyer, lobbyist, banker, or any profession with a suit as the uniform.

Posted by Matilde | July 10, 2007 2:41 PM

I live and work in New York City, which even more surrounded by water than DC. (A bunch of islands, or parts thereof, and a large jetty from the mainland, aka the Bronx. Ahem.) I also work for a Fortune 10 company [sic], in the Financial District. Speaking of suits per capita and/or square foot….

Oh, yes. In the older areas of Manhattan (such as the Financial District), ConEd's steam pipes are directly beneath both subway stations and streets. In recent years, I've seen canisters of liquid nitrogen hooked up to cool the cables below. During showers, I've seen rain literally boiling off of manhole covers. I kid you not.

By the way, I don't buy the guff about "dry heat vs. wet heat." Heat is heat. I was in Phoenix a few years ago, in the fall. An oven is dry heat, too. And where did you cook last Thanksgiving's turkey?

Posted by Glen | July 10, 2007 7:51 PM

Business casual is the bane of civilization. It gives men a reason to look likes an army of IT clones with their khaki pants and blue shirts uniform, and it gives women a reason to wear leggings/tights and neon polyester tops. People look much better in suits, and as someone pointed out, people always look better in a suit that fits properly.
The problem is that people don't know how to dress appropriately, and thus we have rules, but then the rules can't be flexible enough to accommodate most people's lack of good sense.
I worked in a formal DC institution for 4 years, and somehow we managed nicely in the summers. Some easy steps: Buy summer suits made out of linen and cotton. A heavy wool suit was not made to be worn in the summer, duh. On a day like this, you can even leave your tie and jacket at home if you want! Do you think your boss is going to have a fit and reprimand you?
And I think DC is THE most old-school dressed city in the US because of its mix of government workers, lawyers, lobbyists, international diplomats and organizations, and southern influences. But this is a good thing. This weekend in my neighborhood, I saw this older gentleman with an awesome seersucker suit, white shoes, and a proper hat. He was probably returning from church or a neighborhood stroll, but he looked comfortable and happy to me!

Posted by A-lo | July 10, 2007 9:59 PM

Dude, you blog for a living, can't you dress casually? Are you the Tom Wolfe of blogging?

For formal occasions, I recommend to all my fellow DC working stiffs to keep a suit in the office that you can change into when necessary. Don't be commuting on Metro wearing a suit in summer or you will be miserable.

Posted by Dimmy Karras | July 10, 2007 10:20 PM

Are you the Tom Wolfe of blogging?

No, because then he'd have worn a lightweight suit, and none of this would have come up.

Posted by mds | July 10, 2007 11:19 PM

As far as I've seen, Summer-time business casual is still in business in most places except for the most starchy of the starched white shirt business places. That goes for my government agency (I see about an average of two suits a month in our 100+ person legal division) as well as most of the agencies and smaller firms in DC and NYC where friends work. The only men I know who are stuck in suits all day are corporate real estate agents, lawyers on their way to court, high-stakes business consultants, and Hill-toppers who are required to maintain a level of formality. Everyone else bows in recognition to the sweltering swamp atmosphere and dresses accordingly.

Suits and other more formal ways of dressing are not about impressing others, but rather they're a form of showing respect toward others. Lawyers don't wear suits to court simply because they're old-fashioned or trying to show off, they do so to show respect for the legal system, the judge, and the opposing counsel. Wearing a suit sends the message that you're placing a level of importance on that activity that it warrants. (Paraphrasing David Sedaris: comfort is great, but it's rude to show up at a meeting dressed as if you've come to mow the lawn.)

And yes, Glen of the impressive "Fortune 10" firm in NEW YORK CITY, there is a vast difference between wet and dry heat. Having lived in both climates, and having just returned from the California high desert where the mercury was topping out at 114, I can assure you that humid air does not allow the body to naturally breathe as well as dry air does. Thus the natural body-cooling process of sweat-evaporation is inhibited or prevented by the already wet air, so sweat sticks to you like condensation on an ice-cold Coke bottle. Fact: humans are better suited to endure 110F w/ 15% humidity than 90F w/ 70% humidity, because with less humidity our natural cooling mechanisms are able to work properly. And yes, while Manhattan is surrounded by water, it's also over 200 miles to the north and not built on a swamp, both factors which tend to make a difference.

And as to neckties? Hell, just loosen the knot or buy your shirts with a half-inch bigger neck.

Posted by DC | July 11, 2007 5:54 PM