Comments on: A Good Suit Is Hard To Find

Question: A Good Suit Is Hard To Find

jtajta — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:36:48 -0800

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!

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:52:52 -0800

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.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:59:00 -0800

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.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:16:08 -0800

See Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus...

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:18:50 -0800

Also,

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society."
- Mark Twain

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:24:48 -0800

"Every girl crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man"
~ ZZ Top

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:43:55 -0800

"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

By: yz

yz — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:09:39 -0800

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.

By: brheavy

brheavy — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:26:13 -0800

"I cannot and will not, cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." - Lillian Hellman

By: yohko

yohko — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:42:11 -0800

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.

By: DevilsAdvocate

DevilsAdvocate — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:47:09 -0800

"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

By: dios

dios — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:53:59 -0800

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.

By: ObscureReferenceMan

ObscureReferenceMan — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:58:06 -0800

There are a few at quotationspage.com.

By: kidsleepy

kidsleepy — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:09:19 -0800

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.