This should be called "How To Dress Like Mark Zuckerberg." This is the standard college student/wannabe entrepreneur uniform, but you will find a lot of contexts where a t-shirt, hoodie (!) and hemp Vans aren't going to cut it. Unless you are Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs.
Jeans and t-shirts are OK in a lot more places than they used to be but on the East Coast or in many other countries dressing so far down is disrespectful. If you are under 25 a hoodie is not out of place but for anyone older a hoodie looks juvenile. So do Vans. And try getting into some of the nicer restaurants in New York or San Francisco wearing a t-shirt and hoodie. Unless you're Mark Zuckerberg.
If you are going to wear jeans in a professional context you should dress them up with nice shoes, a dress shirt or button-down, and a blazer or sport jacket. And not gray. Gray jackets are for car salesmen and floor managers at Car Toys. If you only have one jacket it should be navy. Think Richard Branson, but if you're not Richard Branson don't expect to be taken seriously dressed like you don't give a shit.
Clothes don't make a lot of difference if you look dirty or poorly-groomed. The dirty hipster look is fine for watching an indie band at a faux working man bar swilling a PBR, but not at many other places. And go easy on the tattoos and piercings and big rings in your ears. Err on the side of caution when you only get one chance to make a good impression. Your business plan and elevator pitch count for nothing if you immediately offend your audience or distract them with your affectations.
You might think it doesn't really matter, but you won't know when you're not being taken seriously or laughed at because people who have manners won't say anything.
You get at an importent point. However, it is important to add Richard Hamming's orthogonal idea: "I wasn't dressing properly. I had to make the decision - was I going to assert my ego and dress the way I wanted to and have it steadily drain my effort from my professional life, or was I going to appear to conform better? I decided I would make an effort to appear to conform properly. The moment I did, I got much better service."
Contexts in which dress matters may disproportionally be contexts to avoid, but there are contexts that are worthwhile in which dress is very important.
I'm a partner in a digital agency and used to think that if I dressed better, we'd sell more work.
The inverse turned out to be the case. We actually lost one potential job for looking "too corporate" (their words). Recently, our largest client noted something similar: that they sort of expected to see me in a hoodie, and would feel weird if I showed up in a suit.
The point isn't to look sloppy. Instead, it's to make the clothing something that they don't even think about.
As long as you don't look like you belong in a slum, I'm not going to care what you wear. It should be about the good/service you're trying to sell. Google has talked about how people come in dressed like they're going to the beach then blow them away in job interviews where the guy in a suit and tie was so-so. Overdressing is just compensating.
When I posted the precursor to this post on HN, yesterday, some asked whether it belonged here. That's a fair question, but I think they do.
When we started our company, I spent a lot of time thinking about clothing and worrying about whether we were dressed right for meetings with (seemingly) important folks. With time, I realized that it really didn't matter much, so long as we didn't look sloppy.
The suggestions in this post can save you a great deal of time/money, without having any negative impact on the growth of your business. It certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I wish I would have read something like this when our company was starting out.
"Unless you work in a really dirty setting, I suggest only washing [jeans] once every three to four months, in cold water, hanging to dry. Doing so will leave them looking new for years."
If that's the schedule for jeans, I'd hate to hear what the schedule is for shirts and underwear. Seriously, you need to have a little bit better hygiene than that. And yes, clean clothes are part of your personal hygiene.
For me, t-shirts are every three days. Underwear and socks are daily.
As for your comment, I responded the same way as you, initially. Someone challenged me on my thinking, though, and I've come to the conclusion that they were right.
First off, how often do you have a leather jacket cleaned? Right. It just doesn't warrant this, given the nature of the material and the use.
Socks and underwear smell by the end of the day. Try wearing a pair of jeans for a few weeks and see what they smell like. You might be surprised that they're generally fine (barring any spills, etc.)
Jeans and t-shirts are OK in a lot more places than they used to be but on the East Coast or in many other countries dressing so far down is disrespectful. If you are under 25 a hoodie is not out of place but for anyone older a hoodie looks juvenile. So do Vans. And try getting into some of the nicer restaurants in New York or San Francisco wearing a t-shirt and hoodie. Unless you're Mark Zuckerberg.
If you are going to wear jeans in a professional context you should dress them up with nice shoes, a dress shirt or button-down, and a blazer or sport jacket. And not gray. Gray jackets are for car salesmen and floor managers at Car Toys. If you only have one jacket it should be navy. Think Richard Branson, but if you're not Richard Branson don't expect to be taken seriously dressed like you don't give a shit.
Clothes don't make a lot of difference if you look dirty or poorly-groomed. The dirty hipster look is fine for watching an indie band at a faux working man bar swilling a PBR, but not at many other places. And go easy on the tattoos and piercings and big rings in your ears. Err on the side of caution when you only get one chance to make a good impression. Your business plan and elevator pitch count for nothing if you immediately offend your audience or distract them with your affectations.
You might think it doesn't really matter, but you won't know when you're not being taken seriously or laughed at because people who have manners won't say anything.