I wouldn’t wear a suit everywhere. I live on the West Coast of the USA, which is very casual. That makes wearing a suit a fashion statement. If I wore a suit in Japan, then it wouldn’t look like I’m making a fashion statement. It would look like I just got off of work and didn’t have time to change.
Japan is different from the USA and Europe because they have two sartorial lineages: a native one and a Western one. While it’s not possible to counter-signal with a suit in Japan, I feel the equivalent would be to wear traditional clothing like a samue or jinbei, which have their own set of challenges.
That Onion article is savage. It’s hard to imagine any culture and circumstance where wearing a business suit ironically would work. That said, I did successfully wear a suit ironically once. It was part of a running joke someone else started.
While it’s not possible to counter-signal with a suit in Japan, I feel the equivalent would be to wear traditional clothing like a samue or jinbei, which have their own set of challenges.
Yep. It can be pretty funny watching the contexts in which you can get away with a happi coat or a kimono/yukata; I can only speak from Japanese media rather than personal experience, but one thing I’ve noticed is that it seems a non-retired man wearing a kimono can still get away with it today as long as they are a sufficiently accomplished humanist or literary scholar (but not STEM). It reminds me of the ‘tweed jacket’ professor archetype here: you can still get away with wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches etc, but you’d better be a professor or a novelist or something of that ilk if you don’t want to be quietly judged for it.
Demonstrating that wearing a suit in some contexts is a thing you can’t countersignal. I’m reminded of the classic Onion article, “Why Can’t Anyone Tell I’m Wearing This Business Suit Ironically?”
Japan is different from the USA and Europe because they have two sartorial lineages: a native one and a Western one. While it’s not possible to counter-signal with a suit in Japan, I feel the equivalent would be to wear traditional clothing like a samue or jinbei, which have their own set of challenges.
That Onion article is savage. It’s hard to imagine any culture and circumstance where wearing a business suit ironically would work. That said, I did successfully wear a suit ironically once. It was part of a running joke someone else started.
Yep. It can be pretty funny watching the contexts in which you can get away with a happi coat or a kimono/yukata; I can only speak from Japanese media rather than personal experience, but one thing I’ve noticed is that it seems a non-retired man wearing a kimono can still get away with it today as long as they are a sufficiently accomplished humanist or literary scholar (but not STEM). It reminds me of the ‘tweed jacket’ professor archetype here: you can still get away with wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches etc, but you’d better be a professor or a novelist or something of that ilk if you don’t want to be quietly judged for it.
Another option is to go full Victorian, with coattails and a top hat.