<story><title>Goldman Sachs, Patagonia, and the Mysteries of “Business Casual”</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/goldman-sachs-patagonia-and-the-mysteries-of-business-casual</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>leroy_masochist</author><text>This essay is trying to take something pretty simple and extrapolate a whole bunch of deep metaphysical meaning.&lt;p&gt;The simple thing is this: up until about 25 years ago, investment banks were overwhelmingly populated by Ivy League grads who went to private high schools in the Northeast -- i.e., preppies. This cohort is still &lt;i&gt;way&lt;/i&gt; overrepresented on the Street, but in the 80s it was literally like 70% of the warm bodies in bulge-bracket investment banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms. Thus, the fact that people on Wall Street still dress super-preppy is largely a function of the basic &amp;quot;dress like your boss&amp;quot; phenomenon. The people running large firms learned sartorial norms from their bosses in the 90s when they were analysts, and analysts today are learning from them.&lt;p&gt;Fashion groupthink pervades pretty much every career field. Military officers are keeping the braided leather belt industry in business through their demand for appropriate civilian attire; engineers in SV dress like slobs; people in the apparel industry wear tight black things. The observations in the essay strike me as a bunch of &amp;quot;so what&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;At least he quoted Matt Levine, I&amp;#x27;ll give him that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skizm</author><text>&amp;gt; SV dress like slobs&lt;p&gt;Fair, but I&amp;#x27;d say most (at least more than other industries) people in tech dress how they want. Businesses everywhere are trending toward more casual wear simply because, given the choice, most people would rather dress down. Tech just jumped right to the logical conclusion faster: dress how you want and how you&amp;#x27;re going to be most productive as long as you&amp;#x27;re not disrupting others.</text></comment>
<story><title>Goldman Sachs, Patagonia, and the Mysteries of “Business Casual”</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/goldman-sachs-patagonia-and-the-mysteries-of-business-casual</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>leroy_masochist</author><text>This essay is trying to take something pretty simple and extrapolate a whole bunch of deep metaphysical meaning.&lt;p&gt;The simple thing is this: up until about 25 years ago, investment banks were overwhelmingly populated by Ivy League grads who went to private high schools in the Northeast -- i.e., preppies. This cohort is still &lt;i&gt;way&lt;/i&gt; overrepresented on the Street, but in the 80s it was literally like 70% of the warm bodies in bulge-bracket investment banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms. Thus, the fact that people on Wall Street still dress super-preppy is largely a function of the basic &amp;quot;dress like your boss&amp;quot; phenomenon. The people running large firms learned sartorial norms from their bosses in the 90s when they were analysts, and analysts today are learning from them.&lt;p&gt;Fashion groupthink pervades pretty much every career field. Military officers are keeping the braided leather belt industry in business through their demand for appropriate civilian attire; engineers in SV dress like slobs; people in the apparel industry wear tight black things. The observations in the essay strike me as a bunch of &amp;quot;so what&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;At least he quoted Matt Levine, I&amp;#x27;ll give him that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dboshardy</author><text>What you said is true, but why can that not also mean that power is tied to dress&amp;#x2F;appearance?  There&amp;#x27;s nothing that deep or metaphysical here, it&amp;#x27;s pretty straightforward.</text></comment>