Why are men in suits considered well-dressed? Because Western norms say that a suit is a proper way of dressing, stupid!, someone will probably answer. Yes, but why did the norms choose a suit, and not a Saudi-style dress, Spanish breeches or a spandex suit?
I think the suit evolved into modern Western official clothing because it mimics a strong, muscular body. In a suit, fat men look a little less fat. Thin men look a little less thin. When men put on a suit, that is the light version of putting on a fake muscle suit, Halloween style.
If everybody habitually wears a muscle suit, no one will know who is muscular for real under the suit. Exactly that is the point of wearing a suit. Who is actually well-built is irrelevant. Clothes in general are supposed to replace actual looks with intentions. A suit shows that a man intends to look strong and hides how he actually looks. It conceals who actually has man-breasts and a flabby belly under the costume and who has exactly that muscular body the suit tries to fool us that all its wearer has. Young and old, thin and fat: important men all dress up to look a little bit more like Superman. Also those who actually look rather much like Superman. The effect is not perfect. We can still roughly tell who is athletic for real and not. But we can do so much less than when the same men wear T-shirts. Suits spare us a lot of knowledge of actual looks.
Female power!
Men in power dress up to look physically powerful. That is quite straightforward. The abstract power of businessmen and politicians is symbolized by a light version of a muscle suit. Men step into a generic muscle shell to symbolize their powerful status.
Women in power wear no muscle shells. Instead, they wear a sexiness shell. While men in power take on a slight muscular shape, women in power take on a slight hourglass shape.
It is rather irrelevant if the women in question actually are hourglass-shaped. Ideally they shouldn't be so too much. Instead they are supposed to be rather thin, with the hourglass symbolism as a mere shell, with their real bodies left to the imagination. Male muscles are not supposed to show, they should only be symbolized. It is the same with female sexiness. Women in power should not show that they actually have any attractive secondary sexual characteristics. They should only wear clothes that slightly symbolize those desirable female features: A jacket that suggest a narrow waist and broader hips. Indiscreet bright colors. High-heeled shoes. And a white shirt with one or two buttons left unbuttoned.
Those omitted buttons are interesting in itself. Not closing all buttons would be considered outrageously sloppy for a man on any occasion that is not super-casual. But for women, leaving two buttons is a part of being seriously well-dressed. It is like they are pointing to the fact that they have breasts, without showing the slightest glimpse of those very breasts. The breasts are to be symbolized, not to be shown.
Here we have Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, beside Ashton Carter, former defense secretary of the United States. Ashton wears the shape of strength, which makes him a little gorilla-like. Ursula wears the shape of sexiness. Her breasts, or something looking like her breasts, are accentuated by the shape of her jacket. Her shirt is unbuttoned. Her jacket is technically too small: the sleeves end 10 centimeters above her wrists, making them look long and bony. Ashton is dressed to look as big as possible. Ursula is dressed to look as small as possible. She symbolizes her power through looking weak in an undersized jacket and shoes that forces her to adopt a slightly tripping gait.
Shoes for whores and executives
Those shoes women in power wear are the strangest part. They are not indistinguishable from the shoes of an average stripper: The heel is mostly not as absurdly high and it is often, but not always, a bit broader. The shoes of women in power also have less ornaments.
The typical shoe of a female politician or executive is not a copy of the typical shoe of a stripper, but a light version of it. A little lower, a little less frilly. But fundamentally, it is the same type of shoe: A small, high-heeled shoe that enforces a tripping, short-stepped walking style and makes running perilous.
Why do female executives and female prostitutes wear the same kind of shoe? Why are they supposed to walk in the same constricted way? The answer "all women do" doesn't hold, because we don't. High-heeled shoes are only for show. And obviously, prostitutes and executives want to stage the same kind of show. A show of attractive hip movements and helplessness.
It all says something about what female power actually is. While male power is connected to physical strength, female power is connected to manipulation from a position of physical weakness. For Ashton Carter and Ursula von der Leyen, that is supposed to be purely symbols. Ashton is not supposed to hurl stones and stage a display of strength like a real gorilla. Ursula is not supposed to seduce anyone. Still, they choose to look like they could do that, in order to look powerful.
Throughout history, lower social classes have tried to imitate the look of higher social classes the best they could. But I think today's political and financial elite are doing the opposite thing. Today's elites buy bleak costumes designed to give the impression that the bodies underneath look like the beauties on display on Instagram and the MTV. Beauty belong to the young and healthy. All the rest, including the highest elite, do their best to imitate their impressive silhouettes.
There’s European influence to the suit.
Here in Texas where it’s very hot and humid (and I don’t work in a standard office), nice shorts for me are the most common. Brand name running shoes are a fitness indicator as well.
I was struck by how much Ashton Carter blended in with the line of military dress uniforms behind him. My guess is there is an element of militarism in mens suits. Also, high heels make women appear taller than they actually are which conflicts with your idea that they dress to appear smaller. Overall, while interesting, none of this is particularly surprising. Both are attempting to exploit wired-in preferential tendencies that evolved in us over the last million or more years.