Why the Big Suit?

I’m not big on suits now, but I used to think it meant you had a real job when you wore a suit. When I first arrived in the Big City years ago I had three suits. I wore them every day to my job as a glorified secretary. I looked ridiculous. I wanted to be an account exec. The suits were hand me downs from my brother, who was a lawyer, so I thought I was way stylish.

Not too long after that I decided that account work was for dorks and that I really wanted to be a Creative,^TM one of those cool guys who wore jeans to meetings and never seemed to get enough coffee. I became a copywriter. Years of meetings later I was still wearing jeans. Then I started making some money. I started to eat better lunches (not pizza), hanging out in film editing houses where sweets and sandwiches kept coming in. I also bought better jeans. The jeans started to have bigger waist sizes. I became creative director (for a hot minute) and found myself in the unfamiliar situation of having to wear a suit to present my work to the Client®.  I already had a suit in my closet poised for the odd wedding or funeral that might pop up, but that rag was feeling a little, um, dated. So I went out and bought a New Suit.^SM

The new suit was an understated dark blue, no stripe, Italian number. Nice fabric, two button, ventless. Sweet. No sooner had I returned from the store when I discovered that my awesome job running the creative department was over. For whatever reason I was back to actually doing the work. Bummer. I was a jeans-wearing grunt once again.

Today I have a meeting with another Client.^TM  This time I’m a Strategist,^SM which means I generally talk more and produce almost nothing but PowerPoint decks. For this meeting, where I will actually meet a person, I need to wear a suit. So I took to my closet in search of that Italian number. I took it out and tried on the jacket. When I looked in the mirror I saw David Byrne from Talking Heads. The shoulder pads jutted out like a linebacker. I looked like a kid dressing up for Halloween. And the pants revealed something else: I was a fat Creative Director. I could probably have put these pants on without unbuttoning the front now. I looked like either a very stylish homeless guy or Tom Hanks in the last scene of Big. The suckiest part of this picture is the price tag dangling off the cuff of the suit. I hadn’t even worn it once and it had to be retired.

Now I remind you that this meeting is Today. There is no time to get this thing tailored, but another suit or make amends to the Fashion Gods. I have to return to my reliable-yet-dated suit. This is not good news. I wanted to look good. These clients are Bankers.^® My perception of bankers is that they consider dry cleaning an annoyance the rest of us must tolerate. They take a new suit every day fresh from the wrapper, put it on and go. The creases and stretches are inconsequential to them. In with the new. What it also means is that what I say has to outshine my lack of a New Suit.^SM I have to sound better than I look.