A Good Suit Is Hard To Find

October 16, 2007 9:36 AM

Looking for good sartorial quotes/sayings...

I'm trying to compile a list of notable quotes about men's fashion - particularly the value of a good suit. Can anyone think of movies that mention suits, or any literary moments... Thanks!

posted by jtajta to media & arts (13 comments total)

My brain immediately started lighting up around The Wodehouse Lobe, but I couldn't think of any specific quote off the top of my head. Nevertheless, a quick googlin' brought me here, where there are some amusing ones.
posted by Greg Nog at 9:52 AM on October 16, 2007

Ah, here's some Wodehouse:

Wooster: What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?
Jeeves: There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter.
- PG Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Impending Doom

I feel like Jonathan Ames has also got some great stuff to say about suits in either Wake Up, Sir! or The Extra Man. I'll check on those when I get a chance. I seem to recall one of his protagonists leaving his suits on the floor to create a pleasantly rumpled look, which I use as a half-ass justification every time I forget to hang up a blazer.
posted by Greg Nog at 9:59 AM on October 16, 2007

See Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus...
posted by nasreddin at 10:16 AM on October 16, 2007

Also,

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society."
- Mark Twain
posted by nasreddin at 10:18 AM on October 16, 2007

"Every girl crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man"
~ ZZ Top
posted by Thorzdad at 10:24 AM on October 16, 2007

"The difference between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it. "

- Lord Chesterfield

“My father used to say, 'Let them see you and not the suit. That should be secondary.”

- Cary Grant
posted by oneirodynia at 10:43 AM on October 16, 2007

A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.

(Oscar Wilde, "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" (though referring, presumably, to the application of a buttonhole flower/bouquet, not merely the suit's buttonhole itself))

And of course from The Importance of Being Earnest:

Algernon: If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

posted by yz at 11:09 AM on October 16, 2007

"I cannot and will not, cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." - Lillian Hellman
posted by brheavy at 11:26 AM on October 16, 2007

Bruce Wayne: I was getting concerned.
Terry McGinnis: I'll bet you even had a spare Bat-Suit in the trunk.
Bruce Wayne: You'll never know.
posted by yohko at 11:42 AM on October 16, 2007

"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor." -- Morpheus, in Sandman #60, "The Kindly Ones: 4," by Neil Gaiman
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:47 AM on October 16, 2007

The first one that springs to mind is the advice of Polonius to Laertes in Hamlet:

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
posted by dios at 11:53 AM on October 16, 2007

There are a few at quotationspage.com.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 11:58 AM on October 16, 2007

pretty much every episode of How I Met Your Mother.

"Suit up!"
(also: Snowsuit Up!
Flightsuit Up!
Birthday suiting Up!
You are suited in an unmistakably upward direction!)

...though upon reflection, they probably aren't the "notable" quotes you were looking for.
posted by kidsleepy at 1:09 PM on October 16, 2007