On Suits

I've never been much of a clothes person. I have historically based my fashion choices first on not wanting to look like someone else and secondly not wanting to spend more than 15 seconds thinking about it. So when I lived in Oregon I wore basically nothing but Hawaiian shirts, and then when I moved to California I started wearing sweaters and my dad's old wool jacket.
Now that I work in an office with a dress code, I have to keep up appearances. I keep my hair short, wear a tie and even bought a belt, after not owning one for years. Looking like everyone else is a different sort of thing. It feels very culturaly specific -- the nuances and rituals associated with dressing nice are fascinating, and comforting in a way. Knowing exactly where the end of my tie should fall (the middle of the belt buckle) gives me confidence that even though I tied it while skateboard down the middle of the street on my way to work, I'll look like a respectable part of the office. It's the same thing with changing out of my skate shoes into the work shoes I keep under my desk. In a very small way, looking professional makes me feel more serious about my job, and more ready to be taken seriously.
The fascinating thing is that looking professional varies from place to place and culture to culture. That's probably a little less true now that suits are standard business attire in most of the world, but what was regarded as professional, serious attire in other times and places would be totally unacceptable in my office today. If I came dressed as a samurai or wearing a fez, I would probably not get away with it.
That bit of historical perspective lets me see wearing a suit and tie as a way of respecting and blending into the culture that surrounds me. It feels a little bit like wearing a costume, but for some reason I like knowing that if I were suddenly transplanted in another time or place, I would not look like part of the establishment as I do now -- perhaps in the distant future in a tie-dyed police state run by facsit hippies I would be arrested for having short hair, being clean shaven and wearing a collar. (I would like someone to make that into a movie!)
For those of us who have always resisted looking or acting just like everyone else, it's useful to realize that clothes are just a tool, and you can use them to your advantage just like anything else. After all, even the best-dressed of us all is still naked at the end of the day!