When you dress well, every day is Sunday

In a video I recently appreciated a great deal, Gianluca Spadoni used a simple but very powerful image.
Dressing well, especially when we hold positions of responsibility, should make us think of our grandparents putting on their good suit on Sundays.

That idea has stayed with me.

For many of our grandparents, there was one good suit. They kept it for Sundays, for a ceremony, for an important visit. In short, it was for a moment they wanted to give a certain weight. Putting it on was, you could say, a small ritual. It communicated (to the world, but also to themselves) that the day deserved care.

That is no longer how it works. That code has all but dissolved. Workplaces have become more informal, and the boundaries between office and private life have grown thinner. And let’s be honest: there is not much left that is sacred, inside or outside churches.

We live in an age that tends to desecrate everything. An age in which many codes have weakened and the gestures that once signalled importance now seem superfluous.

Listening to Gianluca’s words, though, I can’t help thinking about the principles that lay behind those old habits. And about how much the things that matter deserve the utmost care. The utmost attention.
For us entrepreneurs, this truth should never be forgotten: especially when it might seem obvious.

How much does what we wear matter?

In 2012 Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky introduced the concept of enclothed cognition, observing in a series of experiments that wearing a lab coat associated with attentiveness could change performance on attention tasks. The concept was later explored in other studies, including on formal clothing, while subsequent replications scaled back some of the original findings.

Does this mean that if you put on a jacket you will think better? No, but it certainly shows that clothes carry meanings, and that those meanings shape the way we read a situation. That is why they can also contribute to how we feel within that role.

Clothing as a statement

So let’s get straight to the point: clothing is, also and above all for this reason, a statement. A statement we make to others (that is, to everyone we will meet during the day) and to ourselves (reminding us of the weight and responsibility of our work).

From this point of view, a suit is a little like a bottle: it may tell us nothing about the quality of the water inside, but it says a great deal about the form in which that water is presented.

Heritage as responsibility

The Sunday suit belonged to a system of gestures through which people gave importance to a moment.

We can lose the form and keep the principle, if you prefer. For me, this means approaching a working day remembering that the things that matter deserve attention. It might be a suit, a shirt, a jacket, a well-chosen pair of shoes. For someone else, the same care will take a different form. The point remains the gesture.

Dressing well every day, in this sense, is a way of saying (again, to ourselves and to others): what I am about to do has value to me.

Behind what may look like superficiality, then, lies a principle.

When the person leading the company walks into the room

Not to mention the public responsibility that comes with a leadership role. For a CEO, every appearance shapes how others perceive not only their managerial ability, but the company itself. Words, gestures and behaviour all feed into the overall reputation surrounding the organisation.

Clothing is a very small part of this system, but it never goes unnoticed.

The joy Gianluca spoke of

And then, beyond all that, Gianluca is right: going to work and holding the positions we hold should bring us joy. And when something truly makes us happy, presenting ourselves well comes naturally! Every day is, and must be, like meeting the great love of our life.

For many of our grandparents, that great love had a set day: Sunday. For us, it should hold true all week long. Because perhaps Gianluca is right: if you dress well, every day is Sunday.