10. My Adoration for the Suit and Tie

Reinventing the meaning of the suit for myself

It’s the time of that season that rolls around far too quickly, when the seasonal wardrobe switch button is clicked and certain pieces come out to see the light of day once again. Amidst all the sudden changes, there are certain pieces that never go into hiding year round, and those are my suits, even though they get hardly any wear in the summertime unless they are made of linen, I’m traveling somewhere with more mild temperatures or I’m going to an even post-sundown. With fall being such a short season here, I feel super rushed to fit them all into my day-to-day outfits to showcase all their glory before I have to hide them under the heavy coats that call out from my hallway closet. My love for suits is one that started way back in the early days of my blogging career (around 2009). Although those posts are all lost to some internet glitches, you can be sure you would have found vintage suits galore speckled throughout the pages of my little online world. It was the confidence and the offbeat nature that drew me in. I’m pretty sure it all started with me being an avid thrift shopper my entire teenage-hood and the shops being highly stocked with second hand suits from decades past that seemed to have a lot of potential for a curious girl like me. Also, the archival photos of Molly Ringwald in an oversized blazer, neat button up, and top hat against a silk baby pink backdrop for the Pretty in Pink promos changed something in me. That was the girl I wanted to be. That photo brought to life the quirkiness that I related to in the women that I admired most in the movies I watched. Think Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, Julia Roberts accepting an award at the 1990 Golden Globes and images of Chinese-American film star Anna May Wong wearing suits on the streets like no other in the 1920’s. Can’t get more ahead of her time that that!!

It’s always been interesting to me how I feel my sexiest in a suit. I feel cool. I feel comfortable. I feel a sense of freedom. I feel in control of many things in a suit. It may have something to do with taking reigns of what caters to the gazes that we must succumb to in this world, both by men and women. In history, the suit signifies traditional gender norms, toxic boss culture, the grind of “working for the man.” When I wear a suit, an outfit normalized in male dominated spaces like the offices of the financial district (American Psycho anyone?), I like the idea of twisting what it represents into something completely different for myself. I want to wear a suit and do everything in that suit that one typically isn’t intended to do while wearing a suit. Do you catch my drift? LOL. I want to grocery shop in it. I want to go on a date with my husband in it. I want to meet my girlfriends for an orange wine in it. I want to browse the bookstore in it. Heck, if I had a dog I would walk my dog in it haha.

When I wear a suit, I’m in a way making it clear that I am not dressing for anyone else’s gaze, but my own. Maybe to others, I’ll look more attractive or more beautiful or more delicate in a dress or in something more body conscious and soft and fluid, but in a suit I feel like I’m shifting that gaze to other aspects of myself that I respect and value even more. It was curious to me that I did get called beautiful by a man walking by when I was in my suit and tie look the other day out shooting in Dumbo, but it was in a very respectful, non creepy way. Was it the suit?

A few weeks ago, I thought that I lost my entire collection of ties, and was really bummed out, until they turned up at the bottom of a box that I must have accidentally chucked them into during a deep cleaning. After a long sigh of relief and dedicating a good hour mixing and matching tie, suit and button down combinations for fall, I emerged fully re-inspired to get dressed again rather than exasperated and exhausted by it. Despite the look being worn by women for around the past century, we saw suits and ties make a splash on the female body on the YSL runway in Paris this most recent season, and all of a sudden the epitome of sexiness and femininity comes in this new form for the masses. Already, I’m already seeing suits and ties showing up on sites like Madewell, Zara, Mango and Artizia. Just like that, ties are the new low-cut front blouse. The new low waisted mini skirt. Interestingly enough, I’m seeing it online everywhere, but not enough out on women in real life. But when I do, I love how much that girl stands out from the pack to me.

Back to the stereotypes instilled by suits. I’ve always been a woman who never related to The Girl Boss messaging that took over for quite some time (around the start of the Nasty Gal era) never appealed to me. It felt somewhat toxic to me, as it felt it limited what a woman had to look like, act like and think like to run a successful business. And most of the time, business comes with a lot of exploitative and patriarchal practices, because well, money is money. I love being my own boss, but I never found myself with strong ambitions to own my own business as an extension content creation, I never imagined myself with a roster of employees, I never was impressed but more bored by investor talk or monetary speculation. I guess it’s my inner anti-capitalist. The term “building my brand” was something that kind of repelled me instead. It was something that I wish I heard less of within content creator circles as it made me more stressed than inspired within an industry that already has too many brands that it’s near impossible to keep count. My brand, if you want to call it that, has always been simply storytelling and maintaining and air of relatability because that is what I crave out of the platform. Someone once told me that my page was “aspirational but also attainable.” That stuck with me because I realized that if I ever alienated my followers, I would feel like I am letting them down and myself down. If I can offer a spark of inspiration or kick off a more in-depth conversation about something of personal importance (little or small) through the words I string together, my outfits I post, my visual travel diaries that I curate, the little thoughts in my head trying to make sense about what it feels like to be a fish out of water or an introvert in a sea of extroverts that connects with someone feeling the same, then I feel like I’ve done my job. In fact, I feel like lucky that this is my job. To connect. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. And the nicest thing is that I can turn off whenever I want to, whenever I feel the need to. Yes, I enjoy the hard work that goes into the behind-the-scenes of this content creation life, but I also just as much I do not allow it to fully define my life and I cherish the time that I have to not work on anything at all. Me wearing a suit is turning what a suit was made to mean and turning it on its head.

Once again, the fashion landscape is changing. As “boho is back” in an exciting way (I got my start working at the Free People headquarters, so I appreciate this) at the same time the repetitiveness of “clean girl” minimalism is slowly on its way out (a sense of sameness has made fashion feeling boring across all lines) , there’s sure to always be something new that will come fill in its place (for either bad or good, you can be the judge). Nonetheless, I continue to find the middle ground being claimed by the strong presence and timelessness of a suit and tie combination. A combination that has kept its composure since the earliest days of women wearing suits in society. I love what a woman in a suit stood for back then, and I love what it stands for today. And the best thing, is it can stand for whatever we want it to stand for. And I’d love to see more of this look on the streets!

So here are a few mix and match suit looks that I’ll be wearing this week because I feeling confident, bold and unapologetically me in them. In case you are lacking in this department, I recommend heading to your local thrift store to do some good old vintage silk tie digging. Trust me, you won’t be going back to life before having a few good ties in your life to play around with.

The Frankie Shop blazer, Vintage tie, Aje button-up shirt, The Kooples menswear pants, Longchamp bag, Charles & Keith shoes

Helsa Studio corduroy blazer, Vintage tie, brown button-up shirt, Soeur brown velvet pants (shop similar), Vintage Fendi bag from Vestiaire, Pedro Garcia shoes

The Kooples suit, Banana Republic leather bomber jacket (shop similar), Vintage tie, Dorothee Schumacher button-tup, Mrs. Hosiery socks, ATP loafers