Would designer couture change your life?

[Phi for All]

I was talking with family about a friend's upcoming wedding, and I put forward the idea that instead of the bride spending BIG money on a one-time use wedding dress (no, your daughter probably won't want to wear your old one), while the groom rents a tuxedo, it would be a much better tradition to buy the bride either a sharp designer outfit for business or a designer dress she can wear to fancy occasions for the next several years. Buy the groom an Armani suit and he'll have something fantastic to wear for quite a while. Horrible bridesmaid dresses could be a thing of the past.

Of course, this assumes you're not already wealthy enough to spend thousands of dollars on an outfit. 

My question to you is, do you think it would have made a difference in your own life if you'd had an outfit when you were 20 that made you look and feel like a million bucks? I remember dissing formal wear when I was younger and couldn't afford it (sour grapes?), and I've never been much of a clothes-horse. But I also remember those early times when I had to wear a tux, and I remember feeling fantastic. If you owned an outfit like that, don't you think you'd be more apt to seek out places and events to wear it?

[fredreload]

I know I went a full circle, but just be yourself when you try to impress someone, I know I am not the best model, but I am feeling pretty myself lately

[Curious layman]

I think a lot of my clothes are mostly nylon at the moment (note to self- go shopping fatty). I do remember getting a really good suit for a wedding once, had to get measured for it. The difference in the fit was amazing, remember feeling really good, didn't want to take it off. Wearing a tux would make feel like James Bond so would definitely want to go to a casino and pose with a vodka martini, shaken not stirred of course

Got a really good leather jacket that makes me feel like the fonz as well. Good clothes really do make you feel better, anything that makes you feel good will give you more confidence and clothes can definitely do that. So yes, definitely.

[John Cuthber]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

My question to you is, do you think it would have made a difference in your own life if you'd had an outfit when you were 20 that made you look and feel like a million bucks?

When I was twenty I had the sense to realise that clothes shouldn't matter.

Perhaps I should have spent 30 years spreading that message.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

If you owned an outfit like that, don't you think you'd be more apt to seek out places and events to wear it?

So. at some point in my life I had to go out and buy a few suits (not designer or custom-made, but not entirely cheap, either). It can be a confidence booster in formal situations, if only because you are not the worst dressed guy in the room (that spot usually is reserved to mathematicians ;)). But spinning it around, I do not have a tux and use that as much as I can as an excuse not to go events where those are requested.

I think it would have affected my life insofar that I might have had a bit more money in my twenties, since I would have most likely kept it hidden somewhere and forgot about it eventually. I do have an ill-fitting jacket from my PhD times and I sometimes wonder why I spent money on it at all...

[iNow]

I wasn’t in my 20s, but I did something along these lines. I had a really great suit tailored for me at Nordstrom for my wedding, one I’d never have splurged for on any normal day, and I was later able to wear it again when I needed to look great at an event or in front of customer executives. Now the bigger problem is my bigger bottom, and that previously perfectly fitting suit didn’t grow or expand with me when I became a dad, and so it just hangs sadly in the closet as a reminder of my former svelte self. 

[CharonY]

Actually thinking back in my twenties, I would have mocked myself mercilessly for spending so much money on wardrobe. I could have bought a computer with it! Perhaps even a laptop the size of a small desk. I think I just did not grasp the concept of it at that time.