The State of the Union Office (Or: How is the downturn affecting lawyer dress?)
[Ed. note: This post is by guest writer LIAM HILL (no relation to Kashmir), who will be writing a series of posts about fashion and style. Fashion is a popular topic these days. See, e.g., the undershirts post (200 comments).
Perhaps it's because Fashion Week is about to get under way in New York. You can follow goings-on over at our sister site, Fashionista, which will be covering the collections live from Bryant Park.]
With the economic downturn, lawyer layoffs, and pushed-back start dates, I've been wondering about the influence that such turmoil has had on -- what else? -- office fashion. I tend to agree with Mark Twain, who said, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." (Well, unless you're in the middle of Times Square, with a guitar and a cowboy hat.)
Leaner times tend to bring out the Brooks Brothers aesthetic, and business casual once again goes where it belongs -- away. Ties and coats return, flip-flops and "commuter shoes" stay home, and "white shoe" again can once mean white shoe (but only on Fridays). Although many will resist the siren song of a more formal workplace, the trend is inevitable. I know you won't believe me, but apparently those who want to take your job already do. At least according to Turnbull & Asser.
Read my interview with James Cook (pictured), Bespoke Manager of Turnbull & Asser, and share your thoughts on the current state of men's fashion, after the jump.
Since I am built for comfort, not for speed, buying off the rack is a poor option. I prefer my clothes bespoke. So, the only place to seek an answer to this sartorial inquiry is from, what is arguably, the best place in New York to get the bespoke treatment, Turnbull & Asser.
James Cook - not the pirate -- manages the bespoke services at T&A (acceptable abbreviation?). I sat down with him to discuss the trends in office fashion. You should read his responses in a British accent; it gives the piece that extra piece of authenticity.
ATL: What trends have you seen in your time at Turnbull & Asser?
JC: In the 90's, many Americans came into Turnbull & Asser in London and every single person was talking of the dot com craze and how they would never have to buy a tie again. They were only ordering shirts. And then there was a massive crash, and everyone went back to a tie because the Bank Manager showed up, or the Finance Minister. Gradually people started wearing less and less ties again until this recession.
You notice in this recession that people are dressing up again. Every time that [an economic downturn] happens, people have to get suits and shirts. They have to sharpen themselves up again.
Everyone forgets about history; the shirt, the tie and the suit never change. I don't know why people think it is okay to be casual at work.... [I]f I show up and my bank manager isn't suitably attired, I am not going to trust that person with my money. Same thing with my lawyer.
ATL: Have you seen in your clients a trend towards more ties and business attire?
JC: People are sharpening themselves up again. They are concentrating on more ties. More younger men, the young guys we look after, all are in suits and ties. We don't advertise at Turnbull & Asser, but we get a lot of young guys that are coming in to emulate their bosses. They get a recommendation from their bosses about their tailor. A lot of the young guys coming in all want smart shirts, and they're buying ties -- especially in this period in life, where people are all sharpening themselves up.
ATL: With the economic downturn, how has this affected your business?
JC: We have had a lot of people coming in and buying new suits, ties and shirts. August has been very good for us. A lot of these people are buying our kind of clothing; these people are going out to interview, and they need to be seen. It is not just how good they are at their jobs, it is how they look. They are representing themselves and their new businesses.
ATL: What are you seeing from your lawyer clients?
JC: Most lawyers that we look after, they are buying shirts and ties; they look sharp [because that] is what is expected of them, really. Anyone who works should dress up because they are trying to get to that [next] level.
Even though things are casual in the office, more men are dressing up because they don't want to be casual. When you keep to the suit, the gray and the navy, it is more of a uniform. But more and more men are buying distinctive ties to separate themselves from the others in the office. People are coming in to buy something special. People say you never judge a book by its cover, but you take someone more seriously when they are suitably attired. If you are wearing a suit and tie, doors open for you. If you show up casual, you aren't going to get into certain places.
*************
Turnbull & Asser, a mainstay on London's Savile Row, provides services to the likes of LeBron James, Dubya, the Prince of Wales, and Tony Bennett. They also outfitted Ronald Reagan and Sir Winston Churchill, whose purple velvet jumpsuit is on display in their Midtown shop (pictured below).
Winston Churchill. Purple. Velvet. Jumpsuit. You read that right.
Check out the slideshow below; click on each image to enlarge. A quick guide to the slides:
1 - James Cook in front of a display of bespoke collars
2 - Sir Winston Churchill's shirt pattern
3 - Necktie and shirt display
4 - Necktie and shirt display
5 - A royal commission, from the Prince of Wales, to Turnbull and Asser, Shirtmakers
6 - Autographed magazine cover from client LeBron James
7 - Purple velvet jumpsuit of Sir Winston Churchill
8 - Tony Bennett's shirt pattern
9 - Monogrammed socks display
(87) Comments
Comments
wow
The Easter Bunny called. He asked if his bathrobe is ready for pickup.
Also, wtf are those ugly purple shirts in the background.
The picture with this post isn't good for credibility.
um, it's savile row, not "seville row"
(unless we are at some shitshack in spain.)
I haven't seen that color suit since Grover wore it on Sesame Street.
So, I'm not clear on this--are people buying more shirts and ties?
I like how you asked him four different questions, but he only gave one answer.
Is this another "sponsored post?"
What do I do if my office is business casual? I am a first year associate and I enjoy wearing a suit and tie, but as a summer I got lots of weird looks walking around a business casual office.
Do I continue to emulate the rainmakers or am I forced to continue dressing like the night manager at a Staples?
These looks set the runways on fire during Bratislava Fashion Week...
I love Turnbull & Asser shirts but this post sucks. I mean, if you want to write about fashion, you might mention something about fabric and fit, especially when you're talking about bespoke. You might have explained the process by which a custom shirt is made. Since it costs around $400 a shirt, folks really have to think about these things.
But instead you just sort of say nothing and give a salesman from this great maker of shirts a chance to push their second-tier ties and suits.
Can we discuss the intricacies of lapel stitching? Or where to buy a pocket square of the highest quality? This post seems to dwell in generalities, and I, like many legal eagles, am a man of subtlety, refinement, and detail.
So, let me get this straight, people are buying shirts and ties?
I really don't see why this website is popular. Everyone has told me to come check it out. I think this site sucks.
8 - Don't worry about it. I'm sure you look sharp. When I want to look sharp, I also wear a suit and tie. Even when I'm not at work, I sometimes wear a suit and tie to practice sharpening up. Once I've sharpened up enough, I take off the suit and tie and put on some other clothes (which also are sharp) and wander the UES carrying scissors (sharp ones, of course) handing out thesauruses.
So if I continue to follow my office's business casual culture, I'll lose my job to some loser at a 15 person plaintiff's firm cause he likes to wear suits to the office? I'm shaking in my banana republic buckle toed flats.
Hey 8--there's a time and a place for everything. Dressing in your goofy suit in a business casual office makes you stand out like an insurance salesman visiting a Silicon Software Company. I bet you think your better than the folks you work with.
I wonder if people are buying shirts and ties.
Bullshit. People may buy interview clothes, but only stupid people are going to start wearing suits and ties to work in the hopes that it will help them keep their job.
Also, if one is going to be a snooty fop, one should probably know that it is "fewer" ties, not "less" ties.
Bullshit. People may buy interview clothes, but only stupid people are going to start wearing suits and ties to work in the hopes that it will help them keep their job.
Also, if one is going to be a snooty fop, one should probably know that it is "fewer" ties, not "less" ties.
Can anyone help me? I'm looking for information on whether people are buying more shirts and ties nowadays?
You may not want your lawyer in biz-cazh, but I sure as hell don't want my lawyer looking like that clown in the picture. Cripes.
Before I take this guy's word for it, I want to know the Vault ranking for all these "lawyers" he services. Or whether they're suiting up for the job or the interview -- probably the latter, if there's an uptick in business during a recession. For that matter, are they seeing more suit-buyers, or just fewer shirt-buyers, in a recession?
All in all, it's just another post documenting New York's dysfunction. A bespoke shirt isn't going to get your brief to court any faster, dood.
I have all my suits tailored by first year associates and my ties ironed by summer associates; I beat them when they screw up
Liam: Please comment on the V-Neck vs. Crew Neck undershirts. Which is correct & proper in which situation?
No real style expert would refer to Turnbull & Asser as a Savile Row mainstay. Savile Row is for suits. Turnbull & Asser is on Jermyn Street, where shirts are made.
I would like to see Liam Hill fight Liam Gallagher.
That's what I'm talking about! Picture #4, the french blue shirt with white collar. I love it that combo. That's what I want to wear it my interview and everyone on this board dissed it. Can't wait to start working so I can wear stuff like that.
21 here. I swear to god, I just can't get over this guy's suit. I guess the severely-mismatched colors-and-patterns look went out last year, so now we're on to monochromatic ensembles in pastels. Seeing this guy's picture made me think the settings on my monitor were screwy or something. And I can't decide whether dood is fat or if that's just how the suits are fitting this year. Out with the European cut, in with the Chicago cut, I guess?
Also, would it kill the guy to get a decent haircut?
Wearing a suit everyday to the office is hiding a leaf in the forest.
I really want to get a sharper look but am a little unsure of where I can buy shirts and ties. Is that one of the items they sell?
lets talk about watches
Watches: Leather band, no chronograph. Get a Tag.
a new low
26 you putz. Those shirts are NOT cool.
And forget $400 for tailored shirts. Get a good little hong kong tailor who keeps your measurements on file, and have him make them for $100 each, out of the same fabrics. Those guys all learned from the brits anyway.
26 you putz. Those shirts are NOT cool.
And forget $400 for tailored shirts. Get a good little hong kong tailor who keeps your measurements on file, and have him make them for $100 each, out of the same fabrics. Those guys all learned from the brits anyway.
33--if I am going to Hong Kong with a hundred bucks in my pocket, I am not getting a new shirt.
Basically, America has had it all wrong for the last 200 years. The best measurement of the strength or weakness of the economy is clearly the shirt and tie numbers that, up-til-now, have been ignored. Screw housing starts, eff GDP, and Bush can suck on his unemployment numbers. You give me the T&A shirt and tie revenues for a quarter and I will tell you how our economy is looking.
-- Allen Greenspan.
Let's cut the guy some slack. He probably doesn't give interviews on a regular basis, but I have no doubt that his style suggestions would be well taken by any of the douchebags complaining here.
LA doesn't do ties. For real. Believe that.
I agree that this post could be much better, particularly because it addresses nothing about fit or fabric. However, I must give props to the comments - pretty funny, people and not (too) nasty.
You would honestly pay $100 for a bespoke shirt in Hong Kong? What a loser.
This is a funny thread, I suppose because lawyers are sharper than law students. No surprise there.
To 29 (and all of your ancestors) - As I read the interview T&A does sell shirts but if Cook's shirt is representative do they come with one long sleeve and one short sleeve?
Don't buy bespoke if you are young and in BigLaw. You will be too fat to fit in to your clothes soon. Better buy some of those elastic waist pants. I'd rather have a tall well spoken individual in a decent suit or a wise sharply dressed old guy participating in oral arguments on my behalf than one of the shlubby, sun deprived beasts I see patrolling the streets in midtown at midnight when I am going home from a night out and your going home from doing the 37th round of mark-ups on a merger document that will never actually leave your office.
Don't buy bespoke if you are young and in BigLaw. You will be too fat to fit in to your clothes soon. Better buy some of those elastic waist pants. I'd rather have a tall well spoken individual in a decent suit or a wise sharply dressed old guy participating in oral arguments on my behalf than one of the shlubby, sun deprived beasts I see patrolling the streets in midtown at midnight when I am going home from a night out and your going home from doing the 37th round of mark-ups on a merger document that will never actually leave your office.
40. No, I would not (and did not) waste my time in Hong Kong like that. But these guys come to me, take my measurments, show me the patterns & fabric, and 6 weeks later... I have a shirt that fits.
American shirts are f-ing awful... 17 neck and a 35 arm, and you end up with enough material for a 42 waist. WTF? Do I look like an elephant?
TTTurnbull...
43, I'm sure that your pinstriped sweatpants with the crease are a hit at CWT.
"Turnbull & Asser, a mainstay on London's Savile Row, provides services to the likes of LeBron James..."
Great. I would love to look like an NBA player at my office. Purple, 10 button suite anyone?
12, I think so. I'm not entirely sure. I think he's saying that people react to whatever's going on by buying shirts and ties. Should I buy shirts and ties?
44: I'm with you 17/35 shirts are made for men that weigh 250+lbs and not for fit people like me.
14 - gold!
44: How do I get a taylor to fly over here from Hong Kong and sell me a bespoke shirt for only $100?
Thank you in advance.
NYC Associates:
HIt up the Barney's Warehouse sale in Chalsea. Its on for a few more days. A little hit or miss, but with luck you can get some good stuff for real cheap. I think its better for adding 1 or 2 more "fun" suits to your collection for days you are going to a bar after work vs a snobby super-suit.
I got two suits there yesterday for like $300 each that are a way better brand than the $600 ones I bought when i was retard 1st year trying to look serious.
If are a fashion snob Im sure you will find something wrong with The Sale, but for 80% of associates its worth the trip.
40. No, I would not (and did not) waste my time in Hong Kong like that. But these guys come to me, take my measurments, show me the patterns & fabric, and 6 weeks later... I have a shirt that fits.
American shirts are f-ing awful... 17 neck and a 35 arm, and you end up with enough material for a 42 waist. WTF? Do I look like an elephant?
www.mytailor.com
2-Your Easter Bunny line made my day.
Would someone please tell me if people are buying more suits and ties?
Everyone at CWT and Venable wear bespoke shirts. If it works for them why not give it the old college try?
Hey, what about women's fashion?
Looking for new shirts and ties. Am I in the right place?
I don't think this post adequately informs the reader regarding the recent trends in shirt and tie sales.
Who gives a f*k? I left big law for an 8-person boutique, I make 150 for 1800 hours, and I wear jeans and tshirt every day to work. I have a suit on the back of my door, just in case. And unlike most minions in biglaw, I actually am in court all the time, and ever wearing a 5-800 dollar suit I'm waaaaaay better dressed than 90% of the lawyers I see.
Lets me spend the money on real clothes for when I'm not staring in front of a computer screen. Which, admittedly, isn't all that long these days.
i hear cadwalader sean rocks the undershirt at his new firm.
What is with the multi-colored bathrobe, complete with requisite shirt and tie, in the background? Is this place the supplier for "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" or something? I'm not sure that's the look that's going to propel me to the top of the legal world, but whatever.
I want to learn more about bespoke bocci ball uniforms.
8, You are in great company, gunners also love to wear suits when it is unnecessary. Wait... I think I get it, you are a gunner!
Gunner gunner, chicken dunner.
First . . .
In line to give 26 the swirlie of his life if he comes to work at my firm.
Don't sweat it No. 8, I wear suits in a b-causual office too. Hell, I wore suites all through high school. Sure the guys on the football team gave me "weird looks", but F$&$ them, I knew I wanted to be a rainmaker.
60, can you please tell us more about how you're cooler and more laid back than those biglaw SHEEP!
Whoever said that the picture that accompanied this post isn't good for credibility is a moron.
The orange socks would coordinate nicely with the scrubs the inmates wear to court.
I learned to dress well during my 3 year tenure at UVA. This thread offers me nothing that I do not already know.
Guys at my high school used to get suits and shirts to sharpen themselves up all time time, except during a dot com craze in which case they would dull themselves down, it was no big deal.
I wore my favorite Tommy Hilfiger tie with Horizontal Stripes, only to learn that Horizontal Stripes are no longer fashionable. Is taht TRUE?????
JC, does T&A have bespoke suits in mahogany? I've looked at all the ready-to-wear shops, but I can't find one that has a suit that matches the stain on my desk.
haha 14 was funny
I wish I was made of mahogany.
I wish I was made of mahogany.
clothes might make the man but arguments and intellect make the lawyer. and if his start date is pushed back (or in my case if he never got a job post grad) fuck the state of office dress.
write about something substantrive you schmucks.
Yeah, dressing like a NBA player=surest way to show you're an ass clown.
Its a good thing they picked someone like James who can act like a normal human being, rather than the other 95% of the NBA, who act like they dress: like childish, immature jocks.
Haha. Americans commenting on office attire. American businessmen (and lawyers etc) are the worst dressed in the entire Western business world. Even NYC lawyers can't dress worth a damn. If you want to see lawyers that actually know how to dress, take a trip to the City in London...
80,
The only British people alive today are descended from pussy genes because all real British men were killed in the two world wars. Therefore, the British lawyers today are a bunch of man-chowder sucking pussies. QED.
81,
but at least they don't like shit wearing ugly, boxy suits with dark blue ironfree shirts and matching ties!
Business casual is for support staff.
Have some respect for your "profession" and put on a suit and tie.
T&A doesn't offer bespoke suits, they offer made to measure (mtm) suits and source it to Martin Greenfield in Brooklyn - the same guy that brooks brothers golden fleece mtm suits are from. They're very good, but they're not bespoke.
The clothing industry has been saying that suits and ties are back every couple of months for ten years. They are hoping against hope.
Presidents and candidates regularly show up on TV in a blazer and no tie- unthinkable a generation ago.
Business casual dominates, because no sane individual who doesn’t have to knots one of those things around their neck. Dressing like an eighteenth century gentleman with no central heating makes as much sense as nineteenth century dandies putting on a "sports jacket" to go for a bicycle ride.
In a generation the tie will either be the American lawyers' equivalent of a wig or an artifact of history.
Incidentally, can we also talk about briefcases? Specifically, briefcases for female lawyers? What sort of briefcase does a well-dressed lawyer carry?
just to throw it out there: i'm on a post bar trip in thailand and got shirts made in bangkok for about $17 each... get your measurements taken in NY and then go online and find a thai tailor to make them. it's well worth the $30 shipping charge (that's for about 5 shirts).