Situations for wearing and perceptions of suits

The uniform impression of a suit can carry numerous connotations. In business suits settings it can communicate respectability and taste. In different milieus, the connotations of corporate life that the suit represents convey unadventurous conformism. Extreme variations on the suit can convey the opposite. Because wearing a suit conveys a respectable image, many people dress in suits during the job interview process. An interview suit is usually a conservative style, and often made of blue or grey colored fabric. Interview suits are frequently composed of wool or wool-blend fabric, with a solid or pin stripe pattern. The style of an interview suit, however, will depend on the organizational culture of the industry in which a person seeks employment. When used to refer to management staff in corporations as "suits", the term "suit" can express contempt for the perceived absence of autonomy imposed on members in a uniform elitist bureaucracy. It may also be a comment on the perceived amorality of those who work for corporations.

Dress code

Clothing is a feature of human physical look, and like other aspects of human physical look it has social importance. All societies have dress codes, most of which are unwritten but understood by most members of the society. The dress code has build in rules or signals indicating the meaning being given by a person's clothing and how it is damaged. This message may include indications of the person's social class, income, profession, cultural and religious relationship, approach, marital status, sexual availability and sexual direction. Clothes convey other social messages including the stating or claiming personal or cultural identity, the establishing, maintaining, or defying social group norms, and appreciating comfort and functionality. For example, wearing luxurious clothes can speak wealth, the image of wealth, or cheaper access to quality clothing. All factors apply inversely to the wearing of inexpensive clothing and similar goods.

Business casual

Business casual is a popular dress code that emerged in white-collar workplaces in Western countries in the 1970s in response to the power disaster of that decade. Government permission to raise thermostat settings in office buildings led managers to approve employees to give out with ties and jackets that had been part of predictable business clothes. Many information technology businesses in Silicon Valley were early adopters of this style of dress. It has partially supplanted business casual wear suits and neckties, sometimes called global standard business clothes, which were previously the regular clothes for managers and professionals. Trousers complete the package; jeans are rarely acceptable in workplaces as part of business casual clothes, but some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs are known to wear jeans as part of the business casual look.