Clothes make the man.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

-      Mark Twain

Dear Chuck,

My boyfriend has his very own style, which I really like (jeans, chequered shirt and converse all-stars are standard fare). I have a work function coming up where partners are encouraged to attend and the dress code is semi formal. All of the firm’s hierarchy will be there and I really need my boyfriend to look sharp. The two issues I have are that my boyfriend doesn’t own a suit and would be so uncomfortable wearing one that he probably wouldn’t enjoy himself.

As a man of sharp sartorial tastes, do you have any suggestions on how he could dress comfortably but still look really good?

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

Wasn’t this scenario played out in an episode of Sex in the City? Ignore the fact that Chuck just displayed an uncanny recall of a chick television show and focus on how that played out: Miranda took her bartender boyfriend out to buy him a suit, he felt uncomfortable having her pay, insisted on paying for it himself then crumbled under the weight of the cost. Steve decided he was out of Miranda’s league and they broke up. Or something vaguely resembling that scenario, Chuck cant really remember the specifics.

You could follow the above example or you could bring your boyfriend along in his jeans / shirt / sneaker combo, but you’ll likely torpedo your career in front of the company higher ups as they instantly realise that you’re dating a fuck knuckle who doesn’t understand dress codes and you don’t have the influence to make him. Some sort of leader you’d be if you couldn’t even control your man when you have the power of pussy over him!

That’s what they’d think anyway.

So how do you get Cinderella to the ball? If your dude doesn’t require a suit in his job, then it seems pointless to go and buy one, although according to Chuck’s principles of life, every bloke should own at least one: every guy faces a time that he requires a suit - weddings, funerals, partner work functions.

If purchasing a suit is not something that sits well and he’d rather spend his hard earned on a nice cardigan or some other item from the Kurt Cobain fashion catalogue that he gets his ‘very own style’ from then you have a couple of other options. Option 1 is renting a suit although just typing that is enough to make Chuck vomit in his own mouth. Do you realise how much DNA is in a rented suit? You could dry clean a rented suit with napalm and Chuck would still never wear one. Think about rented suits – the only time they are ever worn (high school dances & weddings), the bloke generally gets laid or at least engages in some form of heavy petting. Those suits have enough semen samples in them to power an entire episode of CSI.

The second option is to borrow one off a mate. Now in bloke-world borrowing a suit is totally acceptable on the proviso that it is returned dry cleaned with the standard male payment of a carton of beer. Sure there is a chance that there’ll be DNA in the suit but at least you’ll know who the father is.

There really isn’t any other way around this issue Chuck is afraid. If your boyfriend tries to go alternative chic by wearing skinny black jeans, white shirt, skinny tie and faux ye olde leather jacket he’ll just look like a knob who didn’t have the brain power to find a suit for a semi formal event. This in turn will reflect poorly upon you. It comes off being disrespectful and you’ll be tarred with that brush no matter how much time and effort you put into your frock. Ignoring dress codes to events is one of Chuck’s pet peeves actually. If the organiser has gone to the effort of stating a dress code, how hard is it to follow through on that request? If someone doesn’t want to follow the dress code, they really shouldn’t show up.

And that Lisa is the reality of the situation. If your boyfriend doesn’t feel comfortable wearing a suit and it’s going to ruin his evening then A) you probably need to leave him at home and B) get his head checked. It’s only a pair of pants and a fucking jacket with shoulder pads in it!