I think of myself as a pretty rational person, as outlined on this blog a number of times. I believe in a number of systems (evolution, free market economics, the scientific method and an open society) whose emergent properties combine to produce progress, however undirected it might seem. All of these systems share a fundamental concept – they produce "individuals" (living creatures, products, theories, institutions) and some feedback mechanism coupling the "survival" and "reproduction" of these with an evaluation process to determine their "fitness".

While these systems are superficially easy to explain, they play out in amazing complexity in the real world and are thus not very easy to apply in individual cases, yielding rich fields of scientific activity for those trying to explain observations through these laws.

What does all this have to do with dress codes, you ask? Well, they’re puzzling me. I believe that all the observable traits of our society can be assigned a kind of "evolutionary score". Exact numbers, if they are knowable at all, are probably hard to determine, but the notion yields a classifier for all kinds of traits – "advantageous", "neutral" or "disadvantageous". Even assigning such a classification to individual traits, however, is not at all easy. Jared Diamond does a great job of showing these systems in action in his books.The Third Chimpanzee is full of interesting examples from the realm of evolutionary biology, and Guns, Germs and Steel explains the history of human societies through the interplay of several economic and biological factors. The Third Chimpanzee especially is abundant with examples of behaviour that would seem absurd at first sight, but provide positive "evolutionary value".

So, I’d like to assign evolutionary/economic/social value to the peculiar habit of requiring people to wear a certain type of attire for some activities. I can see no obvious reasons – just because I’m wearing jeans and a tee shirt with a geeky message on it, this doesn’t actually say anything about my knowledge of finance, my understanding of classical music or my intent to spend a lot of money on fancy drinks. However, the purveyors of bank jobs, opera tickets and night clubs tend to believe that wearing a suit is a valid economic signal. Are they right? I don’t think so. My theory is that clothing is an invalid economic signal because it can easily be faked. I assume that the existing dress codes are simply traditions that developed in a time when the social and economic status of a person was readily discernible from their appearance, and that they should eventually disappear in a society where you can buy two suits a month from your unemployment benefits. If I’m right, then we should see these codes receding, and there is really some anecdotal evidence to that point – at least in the tech industry, you’re more likely to get strange looks than extra recognition if you show up in a suit to a job interview, and music critics note that classical concerts fail to appeal to a younger audience because of their stuffy atmosphere. However, my Google search to find some research on this issue still mostly returns links to institutions’ dress codes, and as recently as 1985, Germany’s current foreign minister could cause an outrage by appearing to a his inauguration in casual dress and sneakers. Also note that the same minister is currently mostly seen sporting the required three piece suit.

I’m curious – is there research somewhere or a good theory of an actual value of such behaviour, or is it just a self-perpetuating social trait that is bound to be out-competed sooner or later? If you know a good starting point for education on the subject, please comment! In the mean time, I’m keeping up my personal dress code policy of "clean and comfortable", and the refusal to dress in funny-looking uncomfortable stuff just because someone else expects me to. With the exception of a few appearances at my former school‘s drinking-event-disguised-as-a-ball, I’ve been able to pull this off quite consistently, and I intend to stick to it until I get a rational explanation of what the point of dressing up is supposed to be (other than fulfilling someone’s expectations). Again, if I’m missing something, please let me know!