Only Portfolio.com would mourn the loss of "the Patrick Batemans of the world" ... and maybe The Beggar (What can we can, they keep us on our toes.) Anyway, Portfolio's point is that businessmen are less frequently dressing to impress -- a trend which it paradoxically attributes to an increasingly competitive workforce, wrought by a struggling economy and global competition, along with the rise of the bean-counter/tech geek:
"Between 'His Girl Friday' and casual Friday, between black-tie and BlackBerrys, our workforce morphed from 'Man Men' into marathon men ... If you look good, you're obviously not working hard enough. Outdoing the next guy in terms of looking put-upon is the new pissing contest."
Will the pendulum swing back in the direction of sartorial refinement? Depends on the industry, for sure, but casual, functional, and sensible are three trends that will only gain momentum for as far as we can see. Or, as that crazy son-of-a-bitch Patrick Bateman would put it, we're "long" on casual.
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