Suitable Disruption ⇥ economist.com

“E.W.”, the Economist:

People who value disruption and unconventionality are more likely to interpret these signals positively. They work where deviations from the norm are lauded, and the interpretation says as much about the viewer as the wearer. But as waves of hoodie-wearing 20-somethings flood companies, sartorial deviation is poised to become the new norm. When everyone wears a T-shirt to lectures and board meetings, how do you tell who is truly innovative and who is just posing?

I’m not sure how many of you had a group of punk rock fans in your junior high school, but I did. They were my favourite group to hang out with because they listened to the best music, but you wouldn’t know it based on the way I dressed. Or, for that matter, the way I dress now. But there were also those in the school who did the opposite: they had a bunch of chains and patches, but they couldn’t tell the Dead Kennedys from Fear.

Does it really matter? Can someone dressed in a suit not pitch venture capitalists nearly as effectively as someone who looks like they rolled into the meeting directly from their futon? Does someone who’s wearing Chucks automatically get a 10% bonus because they’re “unconventional”? The big question: should anyone make their investment decisions based on the cut of the investee’s jeans?