Male TV presenter wears same suit for a year. Nobody notices.

November 17, 2014 6:54 PM

What happens when a male TV presenter wears the same suit all year? Nothing. (SLGuardian)
posted by turbid dahlia (64 comments total)

(I don't have a TV but I still think this is neat)
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:56 PM on November 17, 2014

Won't it smell?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:03 PM on November 17, 2014

That's a fantastic demonstration of how men have it so much easier in fashion. But the one caveat is that if you are a fashion conscious man your options are sometimes a bit restricted. You have this one generic outfit that works for everything, but sometimes you are kind of stuck with it. It would be cool if his next experiment would be to wear a dress for a day and see if he can do it without it coming off as a joke.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:04 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm just aghast. For years I've assumed that Karl Stefanovic was an utter twit. This seems to suggest that beneath the banal exterior lurks a fully formed, thoughtful and considerate human who actually cares about the horrible treatment of his female colleagues. I'm at a loss for words.
posted by langtonsant at 7:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [103 favorites]

On the other hand, in the United States, a man can be criticized on feminist grounds for a preference for consistent dress.
posted by Hatashran at 7:18 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

The idea here is that men have it easy buttoned must spend. So much time dressing,et. But preening is what the species does to advance what she considers to be to her advantage... She does not have to do this but chooses to and men expect this of women and so play the game...she could wear the same outfit and see what happens
posted by Postroad at 7:20 PM on November 17, 2014

Did he also where the same tie each day? What about the same color shirt? I couldn't figure that out from the article.
posted by NormieP at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

We just had civic elections here. One of the mayoral candidates was a relatively androgynous 40-ish woman who received a lot of criticism at the beginning of the campaign for her looks, her hair, her clothes, you name it. At one point, in an attempt to change her image, she did a photo opp at a local drugstore. She wanted to publicize the fact she was buying pantyhose.

She won and is now our new mayor. She ran one hell of a campaign, beating the incumbent mayor who enjoyed the backing of the municipal unions and a pre-existing centre-left machine.

So victory must be sweet, although once again, following the election many of the online comments are about her looks, her hair, her clothes...

Totally unfair, but then again in all fairness her predecessor, a middle-aged white male, did start off his tenure as mayor wearing ill-fitting polyester slacks and hairy tweed jackets with elbow patches. But he had to up his style once he became mayor, so perhaps it's not all racked up to sexism...
posted by Nevin at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

On the other hand, in the United States, a man can be criticized on feminist grounds for a preference for consistent dress.

...Zuckerberg is being criticized for being a little unaware of the same thing Stefanovic was illustrating.

We put too much focus on clothes. Unless they are clearly offensive, like the half-naked lady shirt that is currently being talked about, they probably shouldn't be used to judge the character of a person as much as we do, only their fashion sense.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:23 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

On the other hand, in the United States, a man can be criticized on feminist grounds for a preference for consistent dress.
posted by Hatashran at 12:18 AM on November 18 [+] [!]

He's not being criticized for wearing the same dumb t-shirt for eternity, he's being criticized for his reasoning- only silly frivolous people think about clothes and it's %100 a waste of time and it means you're not completely doing your job.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:24 PM on November 17, 2014 [17 favorites]

If it helps, I also judge men by how they dress.
posted by oceanjesse at 7:25 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

men expect this of women and so play the game...she could wear the same outfit and see what happens

Generally speaking, men really don't give a crap. Have her go single style for any extended period of time and see how long it takes the male audience to notice. And then to care. Letters? I seriously doubt it.
posted by IndigoJones at 7:26 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

If it helps, I also judge men by how they dress.
posted by oceanjesse at 12:25 AM on November 18 [+] [!]

No, it doesn't. Because you (an individual) judging men is in no way tantamount to society as a whole determining the worth of a woman based on her appearance, and how easily it is consumed by male viewers.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:29 PM on November 17, 2014 [30 favorites]

NormieP, it was a different shirt and tie and (presumably) jocks and socks every day.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:29 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Generally speaking, men really don't give a crap. Have her go single style for any extended period of time and see how long it takes the male audience to notice. And then to care. Letters? I seriously doubt it.

I think both men and women would notice the first day she showed up in the same outfit. I guess there is room for another experiment here, but I'm pretty confident in my hypothesis.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:31 PM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]

There was kind of a missed opportunity here. The female partner should have repeated an outfit for as long as it took to cause an uproar (I would place the over/under at 1 day). Then when the dude came out with the one year reveal he really could have rubbed the sexist's faces in it.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:36 PM on November 17, 2014 [32 favorites]

I think both men and women would notice the first day she showed up in the same outfit.

They would totally notice and I'm sure the comments would be rolling in by the second day - remember the anchor that was criticized for her weight?
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:44 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

IndigoJones, I can confidently tell you that my (male!) student peers notice and complain when I wear the same thing too often (more than twice a week, or two days in a row), particularly if it's a distinctive cut/pattern/colour. "You wore that last week" "that's a bit much, isn't it?" "don't you wear any green?" They also really don't like the fact that I get away with wearing heels in labs -- I follow the letter of the closed-toe-shoes-only rule -- but they also complain that the last remaining female student other than me doesn't dress any different from how they do.

Some of these dudes come to class with shirts still stained with last week's pasta sauce, and I know because I was there when they spilled the sauce to begin with. Do I say anything about it? No. That would be rude.

So, yeah, I totally believe this dude got away with the same suit on-air for a year -- and I absolutely believe that his co-hosts can't get away with repeating clothes once a week, if that. It's unimaginably worse when you're public-facing. When I worked customer service and we had regulars, they absolutely commented if I wore the same shirt or the same hair ornament. This had nothing to do with TV or any kind of busy retail -- we just had regulars, who came in unpredictably, and they (usually men) remembered what I was wearing and felt free to comment on it even if it'd been a week or more since I'd last seen them.
posted by E. Whitehall at 7:47 PM on November 17, 2014 [61 favorites]

Generally speaking, men really don't give a crap. Have her go single style for any extended period of time and see how long it takes the male audience to notice. And then to care. Letters? I seriously doubt it.

The *entire reason* he did the experiment was because his female co-anchors got CONSTANT abuse about their hair and clothing choices.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:48 PM on November 17, 2014 [38 favorites]

(I think age differences played into the retail situation, though. I was a teenager at the time and these were much older men in their 40s, 50s, 60s.)
posted by E. Whitehall at 7:53 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Won't it smell?

I'd assumed he'd regularly dry-cleaned it at least, but apparently not. That's dedication.
posted by chortly at 7:54 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I keep meaning to text Channel 7 to tell them the Sunrise Cash Cow needs drycleaning. Her paws (she doesn't have hooves, I dunnowhy) have gone all mousy-coloured and it's really noticeable when you see her appear in the studio after the intro clip where she was new and clean.
For some reason, I never find the time.
posted by gingerest at 7:58 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

i think this dude is totally awesome for doing this and of course people would notice immediately if his cohost did this even two days in a row. i'd love to see someone put together a page that shows every day of this (and then maybe also trawl for shitty comments towards the cohost and put them alongside the photos).
posted by nadawi at 8:06 PM on November 17, 2014

I'm pretty sure the new anchor on SNL's Weekend Update has been wearing the same suit jacket, shirt, and tie during every episode this season. It has become annoying distraction for me even though I know it might be part of some overarching joke. Maybe everyone should just wear a gray jumpsuit.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:11 PM on November 17, 2014

Generally speaking, men really don't give a crap ... Letters? I seriously doubt it.

We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese: The *entire reason* he did the experiment was because his female co-anchors got CONSTANT abuse about their hair and clothing choices.

Not disagreeing with you that males absolutely notice this shit, but Lisa Wilkinson does say in that article that most of the letters were from women.
posted by dontjumplarry at 8:15 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

The sartorially critical letters, that is.
posted by dontjumplarry at 8:17 PM on November 17, 2014

Sorry, I missed the "male audience" qualifier in IndigoJones's post--I thought they were saying that there's no way men would notice, and no way people at all would write angry letters about the female hosts' clothing.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:20 PM on November 17, 2014

Not only did he wear the same suit, he wore the same pantsuit!
posted by blue_beetle at 8:24 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

nadawi, this might hit the spot for you. It's a YouTube video, but of screenshots of the full year of suit wearing. There are a couple of variations but I suspect most of them are just due to studio lighting (and of course a couple of times he does actually wear a different suit so I guess the story isn't exactly 100% accurate).
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:25 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

only silly frivolous people think about clothes and it's %100 a waste of time and it means you're not completely doing your job

Which is a dumb thing to say because it's so obviously not true. He'd be getting bags of swag all the time, Valve shirts and crossfit shirts and shit. He is making a conscious decision to wear only grey shirts. It's just wall to wall grey shirts in his closet. Any kind of fully-formed human being would look at an unending expanse of grey shirts and even if it was only subconsciously, even if it was only for a split second, they would think to themselves, y'know, that's a lot of grey. Not even grey shirts, just grey. Hey, maybe I'll throw some black in there or whatever. After all, since it's so completely unimportant, then what does it matter if they're not all grey? I guarantee he owns more than one model of footwear, so obviously this stuff does matter to him, so what on earth would possess him to pretend like it doesn't? Christ, what an asshole.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:32 PM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

chortly: "I'd assumed he'd regularly dry-cleaned it at least, but apparently not. That's dedication."

Dedication, or, you know, disgusting.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:34 PM on November 17, 2014

Eh, he has access to a wardrobe department, so I'm willing to bet he wears a proper undershirt-shirt combination and that suit is natural fabric, so it'd breathe. As long as he's not doing super hard labor in the jacket and gives it time to air out and wears deodorant, it shouldn't get too smelly. You really don't need to dry clean suits that often as long as you follow those guidelines.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:56 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Ignoring the gross stuff about people commenting on Lisa Wilkinson's clothing for a minute, I'm pondering what this implies about fashion in general.

His blue suit is so generic that I'm honestly not surprised his experiment lasted a year. He could have gotten away with five copies of the same white shirt and the same monochrome tie every day if he wanted to, and maybe he would have been called out on it after a few months. Had he tried the same thing with a distinctive tie of any sort, though, my gut says it wouldn't go on more than a week or so before people started noticing.

I think part of the issue is that the female uniform is a lot less, you know, uniform. Male TV anchors have a few choices of suit cut available in a handful of dark shades, in stark contrast with Wilkinson's varied and memorable wardrobe (like just about any TV personality in her position). It's conceivable that someone would own quite a few blue suits that all look basically the same, but it's less likely that someone would own several nearly indistinguishable dresses, right? I dunno, maybe not. But women's clothing tends to be more individual, even when it's not strictly unique. Two women in the same dress is a scandal; two men in the same suit is a business meeting.

That's interesting in itself, I think; that women are not just playing by different rules, they're often playing a totally different game. I'm totally okay with this, to be honest. If a man's range of personal expression through fashion is reduced to various goofy ties and novelty cuff links, maybe that's the real problem.

So bringing the sexism back in, I don't think the solution is more scrutiny of what men wear, of course – though I think that would be an likely consequence of The Death of the Suit, were there not an heir to the throne – but noticing and complaining are obviously pretty far separated, and when someone does the former, they should think twice before doing the latter. I'm sure at least one person noticed, to the extent that they began to think of him as Karl Stefanovic Who Really Likes Blue Suits, but ostensibly that complaint was never filed. This was a nifty stunt, and I hope it stops some people from acting like assholes in the future.

All that said, on the other hand, thought experiment: How many days in a row could Rachel Maddow wear the same grey pantsuit?
posted by WCWedin at 9:10 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]

I really like having the wardrobe versatility that comes with being a woman, but every time I have to dress a certain way to give a certain impression or navigate a set of only partially marked pitfalls it stops being fun entirely. I think I'd rather just have the whole "own a decent suit or two" thing; men do have a fair amount of fashion options if they choose to exercise them in non-professional settings for fun, and it'd be nice to not have to look up what the fuck all the variations on "semi-formal" mean. Though the fact that I live in pretty casual city does mean everyone here has a bit more available, appropriate clothing-wise.
posted by NoraReed at 9:27 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

I only really notice suits when they are weirdly shiny or when they fit oddly, like zoot-suit-baggy or ultra tight. Otherwise I just feel kind of sorry that he's stuck wearing one if it is a low-level employee, and some gentle class hatred if it's an executive type. So I'm sure someone could wear the same suit for a year and (smells aside) I would never notice.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:41 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

He probably wasn't wearing the pants anyway. I don't know how sweaty you get under all the TV lights, but you could definitely wear the same jacket for a year if all you do is just sit there in it, wear a clean shirt and never eat anything.
posted by Dr Dracator at 9:49 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

Well, an anchor is suited for one thing.
posted by clavdivs at 10:03 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

All that said, on the other hand, thought experiment: How many days in a row could Rachel Maddow wear the same grey pantsuit?

Whenever they play an older clip of Rachel she usually makes some sort of joke about only owning 3 blazers. She did an interview that seems to make it clear that she's consciously decided to go this route:

"It’s why I have a conveyor belt of gray blazers—I try to look exactly the same every day. Don’t focus on what I’m wearing. Focus on what’s coming out of my face."
posted by cirhosis at 10:15 PM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]

I don't think an anchor on American Today could pull this off, but that's probably just because we've got like ten times the population. I know Brian Williams would get caught, there used to be a blog named The Brian Williams Tie Report that reviewed every tie he wore on NBC Nightly News until recently, so there's at least one person who cares here.
posted by Small Dollar at 10:30 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

I feel compelled to point out that Karl Stefanovic is the dude in the Yeah Fuck Yeah gif.
posted by breath at 10:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

And the guy who told the Dalai Lama the pizza joke which makes this all the more surprising.
posted by prettypretty at 10:52 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

I like most of the youtube comments on nickfromfulham's various QI videos, but I've noticed that 90% of the comments that mention a panelist's clothes are aimed at the female panelists. Stephen Fry wears far more colourful and interesting male clothes and gets far fewer (and more polite) comments than Jo Brand.
posted by viggorlijah at 11:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Angela Merkel tends to wear variants on the same suit, to try to avoid having her clothing choices more closely examined than her politics. Needless to say, that doesn't always work out.
posted by frimble at 3:10 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

I once taught an intro engineering class for an entire semester wearing the same garish Hawaiian shirt. Not one student said a thing, not even on the anonymous course reviews.
posted by Wet Spot at 3:54 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

FTA: According to Wilkinson, most of the emails commenting on her on-air sartorial decisions have come from women. “I don’t know how we’ve got into that space,” she said on Today. It’s not too hard to figure out: in a toxic climate, where a woman’s appearance is often deemed the only noteworthy thing about her, it is inevitable that the harshest critics may also be women.
posted by Renoroc at 4:40 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

women enforce the patriarchy. it's still sexism even if women are doing the shaming.
posted by nadawi at 5:41 AM on November 18, 2014 [32 favorites]

I feel compelled to point out that Karl Stefanovic is the dude in the Yeah Fuck Yeah gif.

This was the first thing I thought upon seeing who it was, and I'm (pleasantly) surprised that the guy behind that goofy GIF is also the guy who thought the letters his co-anchor got were bullshit.
posted by chrominance at 5:54 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

we just had regulars, who came in unpredictably, and they (usually men) remembered what I was wearing and felt free to comment on it even if it'd been a week or more since I'd last seen them.

That's the attitude in a nutshell -- that women are still supposed to dress for men's aesthetic pleasure. It doesn't matter if they drop in at random times a week apart -- somehow it's remarkable that you didn't choose a different dress / hair dec / necklace / whatever. Yecch.
posted by Gelatin at 5:54 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

we just had regulars, who came in unpredictably, and they (usually men) remembered what I was wearing and felt free to comment on it even if it'd been a week or more since I'd last seen them.

That's the attitude in a nutshell -- that women are still supposed to dress for men's aesthetic pleasure. It doesn't matter if they drop in at random times a week apart -- somehow it's remarkable that you didn't choose a different dress / hair dec / necklace / whatever. Yecch.

This doesn't solve the underlying sexism, but I feel like the French have a good solution to this, wardrobe-wise. A capsule wardrobe built around a small collection of well-fitting basics in neutral colors (black, white, gray, tan), which are then varied up by a few accessories. No statement pieces. You are repeating clothes all the time, but because they're neutrals, they're practically invisible.

That's the other big reason why suit guy got away with it. His suit is an invisible neutral. Had he been wearing a colorful plaid sport jacket, I guarantee that someone would have noticed it.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:26 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

In the liner notes to "Stop Making Sense", David Byrne wrote:

If you wear the same outfit every day, people will notice you more.

That seems to be refuted here. The other piece of Byrnean liner note wisdom that I recall, though:

Cats like houses more than people

seems solid.
posted by thelonius at 7:36 AM on November 18, 2014

The outcome we'd love to see come out of moments like this: "Wow, double standards. We put women up to stupid standards that men don't have to match. We should calm down and stop focusing so much on what women wear and instead focus on what they're saying and doing. Let's stop being shallow and stupid."

The outcome I expect to see come out of moments like this: "Wow, double standards. We put women up to stupid standards that men don't have to match. We should focus way more on what men wear instead of what they're saying and doing. Let's be even more shallow and stupid."

THIS IS MY PREDICTION.

HISTORY WILL PROVE ME CORRECT.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 7:58 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

the outcome i predict, "here are a bunch of tenuous bullshit reasons why this isn't sexism." with the followup of, things continuing on as they always have with women being held to ridiculous standards and the world telling them that it's not happening.
posted by nadawi at 8:25 AM on November 18, 2014 [12 favorites]

My first job out of college, I was underpaid and overwhelmed. It was a very conservative company with a very conservative dress code, so I decided to go with a uniform. I had two or possibly three skirt suits in dark, muted colors, a selection of silk shells and some necklaces, and I think three pairs of low-heeled pumps. I figured that was a reasonable approximation of how men in the office dressed. And I got called on the carpet. My (male) boss told me that it was distracting that I was wearing 'the same clothes' every day. They were clearly not the same clothes. I'd made a point of having different colors so it wouldn't look that way, although some of them were the same styles but in different colors. I told him I was no more wearing the same clothes every day than he was. I was in my earlyish 20s, so if I'd been inclined to spend what little disposable income I had on clothes, it wouldn't have been stupid work clothes.

Some time later, I got called in for my first annual review. I'd been at the office since about 5AM that day, working on an extra project that was way above my pay grade, so I was really not expecting it when the first things out of my boss' mouth were that a) the CEO was a leg man, so I should wear shorter skirts, and b) I looked really cute that day I wore lipstick to work, so I should also do that more.

So you could say that's just one guy, but the CEO at that company was a serial sexual harasser and was known for getting way too invested in the way the women at his company dressed. He'd personally send women home to change--and as far as I know, it was only women--if they violated one of his unwritten rules. (E.g., if he thought you were fat, you weren't allowed to wear pants. (And yes, he was WAY fatter than most of the women he sent home.))

Women were in on the policing as well, of course. There was this constant battle over women's clothes at that company. What is an acceptable skirt length? Are split skirts or culottes OK? Are pantyhose mandatory, or are bare legs or tights acceptable? Do shoes have to have heels, or are flats OK? Are there exceptions to the dress code when it's snowing? And, of course, we were held to such unreasonable standards that we'd trade tips and tricks for maintaining our wardrobes, too. We'd all get together and buy irregular pantyhose in bulk and share our sewing and shoe repair kits most of us kept in our desks. And that's also where a particularly clever lady shared the tip that any half-competent podiatrist would write you a doctor's note prohibiting you from wearing heels, which precipitated a company wide epidemic of foot problems. Needless to say, none of this shit was fun. We weren't obsessing on clothes because we enjoyed it. It was miserable.

So yeah, that company was an outlier, but it wasn't a complete anomaly. Nearly every place I've worked has had weird double standards that disproportionately affected women, but most were more subtle about it. That company was just top-down stupid because the CEO was such a clueless pig.
posted by ernielundquist at 8:28 AM on November 18, 2014 [25 favorites]

Also the article says he had it cleaned.

"Stefanovic, who co-presents Channel Nine’s Today show with Lisa Wilkinson, has been wearing the same blue suit – day in, day out, except for a few trips to the dry cleaner"

Not sure why we're assuming it wasn't?
posted by Carillon at 9:35 AM on November 18, 2014

Oh, you can't trust the news about much these days.
posted by Nevin at 9:39 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

I make a point of wearing a different My Little Pony shirt every day (I have about sixty), whether teaching classes or not. My students notice, and usually applaud in the anonymous evaluation (I believe the most negative response I've ever got was “distracting colourful shirts, but please don’t stop wearing them”).

Needless to say, I would not fit within a “professional attire” culture — happily that is fairly unusual in Denmark, and certainly in academia. Dull clothes for dull people, say I.
posted by bouvin at 10:45 AM on November 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

Women should just be able to wear jeans, flat shoes and a shirt with buttons to work like I do every day if they want. I am a guy who likes looking decent but generally regards clothes as a hassle, and I'd be happy if I never saw a woman in some elaborate work outfit again. It's totally unfair that I don't have to worry about this stuff but women in similar positions seem to have to. Seems like a pain and I don't really get how it relates to work or why higher-ups focus in on it. I guess in some industries you are supposed to look "professional" but I work in technology and so I tend to think of suits/professional outfits as sort of a default "covering" mechanism that projects an aura of seriousness and competence even if the person underneath is dumb as a rock or a lousy employee. Unless someone is just dressed sloppily, I focus in on what they are saying or doing. Dumb person in nice clothes is dumb. Smart person in basic clothes is smart and gets the kudos (from me at least). Clothes aren't relevant.

I'm sorry about the sexism people experience (sad story a couple comments above). It does also seem anecdotally like there's quite a bit of hassling and pressure from other women. Most guys I know would have no idea what type of shoes/purses/look is "in", or who any designers are, or whatever. They might notice that a woman is well-dressed but probably couldn't articulate why. I suspect that male bosses who are commenting on women's clothes are in it for the sexism (wanting people to look "sexy") and not because they have some ultra-refined sense of women's styles.
posted by freecellwizard at 12:57 PM on November 18, 2014

Women should just be able to wear jeans, flat shoes and a shirt with buttons to work like I do every day if they want.

I do, but I'm lucky to work in academia in a field science. I've also accepted about myself that I have no interest in performing a lot of femininity, so I wear no make-up, or heels, or feminine blouses, and I don't worry about it. But again, I'm very lucky to work where I do.
posted by Squeak Attack at 1:29 PM on November 18, 2014

That's the other big reason why suit guy got away with it. His suit is an invisible neutral. Had he been wearing a colorful plaid sport jacket, I guarantee that someone would have noticed it.

Well that's the other side of the same coin, isn't it? It's a social expectation of men that they wear neutral, unimaginative attire. Even in Australia, we saw what happened when Obama wore a tan suit.
posted by kisch mokusch at 4:15 PM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

My students notice, and usually applaud in the anonymous evaluation (I believe the most negative response I've ever got was “distracting colourful shirts, but please don’t stop wearing them”).

Students seem to really dig this kind of thing. My dad's (grad) students really like the unicorn and rainbow socks I got for him.
posted by NoraReed at 6:14 PM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

The 34 Most Karl Stefanovic Things To Ever Happen (SLBuzzfeed)
posted by Small Dollar at 8:11 PM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cheers to this guy for pulling it off and making a point.

Men do wear "uniforms" or really generic clothing most of the time. Especially if it's a suit. If you don't wear anything colorful, unique or standing out, nobody will know.

This does remind me of the time one of my teachers sat in gum and then wore the same pants the very next day, though.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:27 AM on November 19, 2014

I remember a woman who decided to wear the same thing every year. Her blog seems to be gone, but here's a short article about her wearing a brown dress every day (she paired it with a cardigan and tights when necessary). I'm not sure what her job was, but it sounds like it went better than she thought it might.
posted by Margalo Epps at 3:12 PM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

My (male) boss told me that it was distracting that I was wearing 'the same clothes' every day.

Well, he was a dick.

A bit like Karl (except, you know, not at awful as he is, even if I am as awkward) I have pretty much had the same "uniform" at work for 15 years. My shirts and trousers are basically two designs each, and I have three ties. They get rotated.

No one has ever said anything in those 15 years. Not once.

(And in that time, I can't recall a time when a female co-worker has bemoaned people bitching about her choice of attire, and I have worked with women who hate shopping for clothes as much as I do).

Some time later, I got called in for my first annual review. I'd been at the office since about 5AM that day, working on an extra project that was way above my pay grade, so I was really not expecting it when the first things out of my boss' mouth were that a) the CEO was a leg man, so I should wear shorter skirts, and b) I looked really cute that day I wore lipstick to work, so I should also do that more.

Was he of the "greatest generation"?
My old boss was of that type.
But he knew exactly what the female employees were doing when they wore low-cut tops when asking for a raise.
posted by Mezentian at 4:29 AM on November 20, 2014