The suit is dead for any number of reason, dittos bespoke clothing.
Why do you think the suit is dead?
I wear a suit (not always, but often enough to have an opinion).
I've never bought an expensive suit, but I nor do I buy cheap suits. I guess I generally spend around $500.
I work with people who spend $2000 on suits though. These aren't bespoke, but are from nice fabrics and cut very well (eg, Hugo Boss etc). I'm no suit expert, but I can tell the difference.
I can't say I've seen any particular decrease in suit wearing over the past 15 years I've been working, although ties are less common that they used to be.
In my experience location and field of work makes a bigger difference to suit wearing than anything else.
Don't know about other places, but at least in NoCal high status people don't wear suits. Since the only function of a suit is status signaling, it seems just a matter of time until everyone else catches up and suits will be replaced by bike jerseys or whatever.
I know it may not seem that way sometimes, but NoCal is not the entire world - nor does the entire world take their cultural cues from NoCal.
The suit is very much alive in NY, in London, the entire legal world, and in many other places. That's just during the day.
For formal events / outings it is SF that is the extreme outlier. In the rest of the country if you are going to a fancy restaurant, a wedding, an awards dinner or the like you wear a suit. The original rational for the suit actually still holds for these occasions - it removes the need to constantly chase the latest fashions, as many woman and all hipsters must.
Suits change according to fashion too. Most of us just don't notice and walk around happily oblivious to the hipsters/fashionistas judging us and sniggering between themselves.
When I bought my wedding suit, my fiancee dragged me to multiple shops and eventually had a lengthy discussion with a Saville Row tailor over whether to have one button or three buttons (two? I have no idea), as she believed one button suits would be coming back into fashion on the higher end, but most of the brands did not offer one button suits at the time. She was right. She had similar opinions about the cut...
I, for one, wear suits simply because I enjoy them. I like how they look. More and more, as I get older, oddly. In my 20s you would have had to force me into one.
It's definitely true that there is status signaling involved, whether it's conscious or not, although I would hesitate to say that it's the suit's only purpose (and in my case, that's a side effect, not the purpose). You could make that argument about any clothing if you go that far.
But...I've definitely noticed being treated subtly better when I dress for occasions. Go to a nice restaurant dressed for an occasion, and you'll tend be treated like it's an occasion (obviously your milage may vary - act like a jerk and you'll be treated like one, no matter what you're wearing).
"Extreme" outlier may be going a bit far. I live in the Southwest (NM). I found myself at a formal, Conservative Jewish funeral a couple weeks ago and half of us were wearing jeans. I was slightly overdressed just in slacks and a nice button-up. One out of the last four job candidates that's interviewed here came in anything fancier than that. I've been to four or five weddings out here, and never seen a shortage of bluejeans; seems like only the people in the wedding are expected to dress up out here. The only people I see consistently dressing in suits are lawyers, but they can waltz into court wearing cowboy hats and bolo ties with their suits without arousing a weird look.
We all have different experiences I guess, but the further West you go, the less formal the attire, and California isn't really as "extreme" as you may think.
Maybe it's just me, but wearing jeans to a wedding or funeral and not wearing a jacket and tie to a interview immediately signal disrespect and that the guest/candidate is too lazy to put in the requisite effort.
It might. But out here in the Southwest, we don't dress like Saudis even though their garb is better suited to the climate. For a lot less than $4000 New Englanders could wear mountaineering suits and that would probably retain heat and repel the elements better than a suit, but I doubt that one's coming around either.
Ultimately it's just a cultural difference, and searching for rationality behind it isn't going to bear fruit.
Norcal is a nice place to live, but it is not a fashion mecca.
In Southern California though the suit is totally impractical, unless you like to be drenched is sweat. Most of the world is the same at < 35 degrees latitude.
I'd go so far to say the suit is a minor cause of global warming ... all those high rises with no windows running AC all day. Mostly unnecessary.
Don't know about other places, but at least in NoCal high status people don't wear suits.
There seems to be a kind of inverse snobbery about smart dress at the moment, as if the 50-year-old CEOs of huge tech firms think that by taking off their tie we're going to think they're one of us, or the 25-year-old founder of a trendy start-up is going to convince us of their business savvy by wearing a T-shirt and trainers while giving a presentation.
Since the only function of a suit is status signaling
Really? I happen to think that smart dress looks better on me than casual anyway, but even without that, suits are fairly practical garments. A well-made suit is comfortable to wear all day. Suits have an easily removable jacket if you're hot, yet provide useful shelter for the elements if it's cold/wet outside. They have plenty of handy pockets for pens, phones, etc.
>>Really? I happen to think that smart dress looks better on me than casual anyway,
Your argument appears wrong because you assume the definition of a 'smart dress' involves wearing a suit.
The definition of 'smart dressing' has been changing rapidly. The very fact that demands for suits is less, shows the trend of clothing around the world.
Back during the days of slavery/aristocracy- costly clothing was automatically a status signal. What you are seeing currently are just echoes of that culture.
I would consider it stupid to spend so much on costly clothing. I am hiring people to write program, not for modeling.
NoCal is bizarro world for people living pretty much anywhere else. It is also tiny. High status people who are high enough status to get recognized regularly don't need status symbols to signal their status.
But that breaks apart in bigger environments, and out comes the suits.
Status signalling via wearable fashion is alive and well. There are hipsters living in my neighbourhood who spend well over $1k (average decent suit cost) on their outfits.
If anything, I suspect people on average are spending more on clothes around here.
Why do you think the suit is dead?
I wear a suit (not always, but often enough to have an opinion).
I've never bought an expensive suit, but I nor do I buy cheap suits. I guess I generally spend around $500.
I work with people who spend $2000 on suits though. These aren't bespoke, but are from nice fabrics and cut very well (eg, Hugo Boss etc). I'm no suit expert, but I can tell the difference.
I can't say I've seen any particular decrease in suit wearing over the past 15 years I've been working, although ties are less common that they used to be.
In my experience location and field of work makes a bigger difference to suit wearing than anything else.