Suited in Seattle

Seattle, as a city, does not seem to put much stock in going nattily attired, choosing rather to make a casual dress-style into a badge of community. We've got our outliers, naturally, but, on the whole, we seem to like serviceable, marginally attractive, casual clothing. It fits in with our self-image as a community: educated yet egalitarian, practical yet relaxed. To a great degree, a casual style of dress is a mark of common identity among us, a way of declaring our common humanity. We're not here to "do business" so much as to make lives for ourselves. 

There's no better way to see this pattern than to try stepping out of it for a bit. And one need not step "down" to step "out."

There are communities within communities, and law is a conservative profession. Much as I'd love to grow my hair back out to the base of my spine and wear a Utilikilt to the office, and much as this is technically allowed (it's my hair and my office, dammit), there is a host of reasons why this isn't a good idea, chief among them that I would very much like to make some money some time soon. It's a matter of marketing: being a lawyer calls for looking businesslike, even in a city where billionaires typically wear fleece. 

The thing is, wearing a suit seems to edit me right out of that very same community.

Years ago, I used to make a habit of waving to strangers whose eyes I  happened to meet on the street. While I thought at the time that this was a nice and friendly gesture, recognizing our mutual humanity and so on, it yielded a harvest of odd looks, and for good reason: it was a violation of our social mores. Waving, as a friend would, at someone who is not a friend hints at a connection that does not exist, expresses a level of intimacy that has not been reached. It's like hugging random people in the grocery store. 

It makes you look touched in the head.

Nodding, now, that's the thing. Nodding at someone whose eye you catch is a simple courtesy, a recognition of the other's existence as a sentient being. It comes across to nobody as odd, and is commonly returned by everyone from bankers to the homeless (though you're apt to have a pan handled at you immediately after).

But, now, here's the catch: it doesn't work anywhere near as well if you're wearing a suit. Seriously.

Wearing a suit seems to put the wearer into another category of humanity, and anyone who thinks we're anywhere near a classless society even here on the West Coast needs to give this a try. To wear a suit, and nod, is to be more readily nodded at by other people in suits, less by casually-dressed Seattlites (to whom the wearer no longer appears to be "one of us"), and to be looked at funny by anyone within shouting distance of the poverty line.

The suit is a mark of status. It's a mark of Serious Business, an undertaking Seattlites seem to look at with maybe just a touch of scorn. It's a mark of wealth, and never mind whether the clothes are of good quality or bad.

It's also an invitation to resentment.

"Hey rich man! Can't you spare me five bucks?"

Not that I can afford to buy the local homeless lunch every day to begin with, but it's difficult to be subjected to this sort of reaction without beginning to regard the source less as a hapless fellow human being and more as a threat.

Designating one's self an outsider to some degree hath its advantages, however. Many a lawyer in the area dresses in a button-up shirt and sweater, staying closer to the "casual" Seattle look while still maintaining that businesslike image in part. It may be possible to generate more business through a "more professional than thou" demeanor, especially in the courtroom. I find myself looking forward to getting the chance.