Michael Anton, former speechwriter to Rudy Guiliani, has written a companion book to Machiavelli’s The Prince, but it’s not about what you’d think.  It’s about clothes.  For men.  It’s called The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men’s Style.  The idea isn’t so far-fetched.  The selection and wearing of clothes is a political act, to be sure.  It’s just one we don’t notice that we’re doing.  For example, today I’m in Atlanta, working on rewrites for a speech on location.  I’m the only one in the group not wearing a tie.  It’s a bold statement that says, “Ties make me angry.”  I will, however, put on a tie for the speech.  I also have quite earnest opinions about the wearing of suits, and the cut of sportcoats, and how they just aren’t serving the same purposes anymore.  Anton’s knowledge of all this stuff is not just accoutrement.  It’s fundamental.

There’s no question that the modern suit as we know it was born in London, refined in London, and perfected in London. Anybody who is wearing a suit with shoulders, lapels, a collar, and front buttons is wearing something that is a direct descendant of what English country squires wore, that was brought to town, perfected by Brummell, and refined in the Victorian era.

The suit that we wear was the track suit of its day. It’s called a “lounge suit.” This term has fallen out of use. You still see it in formal diplomatic invitations, in the U.K. for example. It will say, “Dress: Lounge Suit.” What they mean is a suit with a jacket that matches the trousers. The lounge suit takes a short coat-meaning a coat that doesn’t come down to the knees, either all the way around like a frock coat, or only in the back like a morning coat. When it first started to be worn, it was considered informal.

You were not supposed to wear it for business, or to any kind of ceremony, or to church, certainly not to dinner anywhere. It was to knock around in during the day. It was sort of scandalous to wear it anywhere else.

I have many and contradictory opinions about clothes, but let me just say that any civilization still married to the high heel and the necktie can’t be all that advanced.