What is the “tycoon style”? Why the bland style of billionaires has come to an end

IThe business casual revolution of the 1990s and the rise of tech billionaires in the early 2000s supposedly ushered in a new era that freed employees from the shackles of dress codes. Mark Zuckerberg turned hoodies and jeans into a symbol of New Economy meritocracy, the uniform of hacker prodigies that revolutionized the suit-and-tie aesthetic of traditional Eastern industries. Many imagined that in the digital economy, the most successful companies would allow talented employees to wear whatever they wanted while jumping in pools of colored balls.

But as Facebook engineer Carlos Bueno wrote on his blog in 2014, Inside the MirrortocracyWe simply traded our handwritten dress codes for softly codified dress norms. The new world is actually not so free. The cognitive dissonance is clearly visible on the faces of recruiters who pretend that clothing is no big deal, but are distinctly disappointed if you show up for a job interview in a dark wool business suit. “You are expected to conform to the rules of The Culture before you are allowed to demonstrate your true worth,” Bueno wrote. “What wearing a suit really indicates is – I’m not making this up – nonconformity, one of the gravest of sins.”

As the rich became obscenely richer, it seemed they became more and more determined to appear as bland as possible.

This reality became abundantly clear earlier this month at the Sun Valley Conference, often billed as “summer camp for billionaires.” Since this tradition was founded in 1984, organizers have gathered some of the richest and most influential people for a multi-day conference. A trove of top CEOs, tech entrepreneurs, billionaire financiers, media moguls and others show up for the invitation-only gathering to privately decide the future of our world.

Among this year’s attendees was Jeff Bezos, who continued his remarkable transformation from geek to muscleman. Looking like a successful Soul Cycle instructor, he strolled around the resort grounds in pearl-grey jeans, a tight black T-shirt and an array of colourful bracelets (apparently from American luxury company David Yurman).

David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Brothers, at least made a respectable attempt at putting together a look, wearing a tan corduroy jacket with slim, straight-leg blue jeans, smart white sneakers, and a white scarf tied gaily around his neck. But most of the male attendees arrived in polos, T-shirts, and simple button-down shirts. Sam Altman, the billionaire chief executive of OpenAI, wore a plain gray T-shirt with blue jeans and a black backpack slung over both shoulders, looking like he had arrived for freshman orientation.

It’s not that the outfits are necessarily bad, though many are, but one wonders if perhaps we’ve lost something in the transition away from the suit and tie. A few generations ago, men of this social class would have worn something more visually interesting. In the 1930s, Apparel Arts, a top-tier men’s fashion publication that advised men on how to dress for various settings, recommended the following for resort wear: double-breasted navy blue sport jackets with polka-dot scarves and high-waisted trousers for Cannes, mocha-colored linen beach shirts and wide-cut trousers with suspenders for vacations on the French Riviera, and white shawl-collared tuxedo jackets paired with midnight-blue tropical wool trousers and white silk tuxedo shirts for semi-formal evening wear.

The advantage of these garments has nothing to do with respectability or class, but rather with their ability to confer a distinctive silhouette. The fitted jacket is especially useful in this regard. Made from many layers of pile fabric, canvas and padding, which are sewn together with quilted stitches and then shaped through the use of darts and expert ironing, a fitted jacket confers a flattering V-shaped silhouette even when there isn’t one. The presence of a silhouette is why Stacey Bendet, founder of fashion company Alice & Olivia, is consistently the most stylish person at these conferences (this year, she wore flared trousers, long leather coats, giant sunglasses and Western-style hats, each element working to create a distinctive shape). By contrast, Tim Cook’s basic polo and skinny jeans did little more than recreate her body shape.

In his book La Distinction, Pierre Bourdieu correctly recognized that the notion of good taste is nothing more than the habits and preferences of the ruling class. Of course, he was not the first to make this observation. In the early 20th century, the German sociologist Georg Simmel noted that people often use fashion as a form of class differentiation. According to Simmel, styles spread downward as the working class imitates its perceived social superiors, at which point members of the ruling class move on to something else. However, the publication of La Distinction in 1979, based on Bourdieu’s empirical research from 1963 to 1968, sets him apart, particularly in our understanding of men’s style. These were the final years of the suit and tie. By the time the book was translated into English in 1984, the suit was in its last throes before men’s dress changed definitively with the rise of casual Fridays, tech entrepreneurs, and remote work.

Today’s ruling class is hardly a source of inspiration in terms of taste. The prevalence of tech vests, which have replaced navy blazers, demonstrates that socioeconomic class continues to drive sartorial practices, albeit in less attractive ways. The irony is that while elites increasingly dress like the middle class preparing for a run at Whole Foods, wealth inequality in the United States has worsened in every decade since the 1980s, the last era in which men were still expected to wear tailored jackets.

If there’s one thing that clarifies all of this, it’s that the history of 20th-century dress is about how influences have changed. As the century progressed, men began to take their sartorial cues from a variety of social classes—artists, musicians, and workers—and not just those with financial or political power. Many of the most inspiring fashion moments during this period related to the way young rebels struck a rebellious pose against the establishment: young swingers and hep cats; bikers, rockers, and outlaws; beats and beatniks; modernists and mods; drag and dandies; and hippies and bohemians, among others. In recent years, Zuckerberg and Bezos have made an effort to break away from wool conformity, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang looks quite dapper in head-to-toe black uniforms that include several leather jackets. But in general, these days it’s best to look elsewhere for sartorial cues. The ruling elite may shape our world, but don’t let it shape your wardrobe.