The Scotfree | Dear Men: Don’t Dress Like Sam Bankman-Fried
Dressing up is a sign of respect to others, not just to yourself.
"It’s utterly astonishing that so many otherwise intelligent people got taken in by Sam Bankman-Fried, the now disgraced former head of crypto exchange FTX who is still nonetheless invited to speak at a New York Times seminar that costs $2,400 to attend. Part of his supposed appeal was his slovenly dress: t-shirts, cargo shorts, white socks, and sneakers.
"How the heck did it come to this? It’s been this way for about a decade and a half. Mark Zuckerberg was the innovator, one supposes, but the trend caught on like a virus, with whole swaths of the professional class eschewing honorable clothing choices for the disheveled who-cares look.
"How radical was this trend? Very. For hundreds of years, higher-end clothing was a mark of social and professional achievement. In fact, ruling-class elites in history have variously despised the democratization of fancy clothing that was made possible by the market economy. The whole point of sumptuary laws of the Colonial period, for example, was to stop peasants from dressing like their betters.
By the 20th century in the United States, it was possible for nearly every man to dress in clothing that was beautiful and respectful. This is why we are so shaken by photographs of men queued up in bread lines during the Great Depression. They look fabulous, and certainly far better than Big Tech CEOs today!"All of this seems pretty simple and yet, for some extremely weird reason, it has been lost on a whole generation or two. Perhaps one of the good things that comes out of the FTX failure and the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried will be to prompt a rethinking of these clothing choices. Maybe we should start to see people in professional life who dress like slobs as red flags. If this person cares so little for his co-workers, customers, investors, and himself, perhaps he doesn’t deserve your confidence and trust either.". . .
