Ditch the suit & tie: How casual wear is redefining formal fashion

I have nothing against people wearing suits and ties. I have nothing against people engaged in self-flagellation either. In fact, in both cases, I admire the effort and skill involved in pulling off something that gives the subject self-worth. But being ticked off for not wearing a 'suit-tie,' and then attributed some fiendish attempt to disrespect a gathering of suits is something I find utterly churlish.

At the weekend Oscars, host Conan O' Brien (in a navy-blue shawl lapel tux) and Adam Sandler in a blue hoodie and basketball shorts mocked White House Armanipulation. The point isn't that Sandler was wearing a $175 neon blue Aviator Nation hoodie over a Hawaiian shirt in a sea of tuxedos and looking like 'a guy playing video poker at 2 am'. It was that O'Brien — who later revealed that the two of them had prepped for the Sandler-conceived gag — was ribbing the 'other ambush' that happened in the White House a few days before.

When a toady media Real America's Voice — yes, that's the name of the channel — reporter asked Zelenskyy, 'Why don't you wear a suit? You're at the highest level in this country's office, and you refuse to wear a suit. Do you own a suit? A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the dignity of this office,' my mind wafted decades back.

In Class 11, I had joined a new school where the winter uniform included a blazer and grey worsted trousers. It was not for winter term at Ecolint La Chataigneraie in Geneva, but for a school in Kolkata during the city's notoriously