It's pretty easy in the South as many people mention the church they go to shortly after they've met you. It's almost like a litmus test.

FinanceBrah:

These are all pretty obvious symptoms of skipping leg day. More seriously, this is an example of why business wear exists.

A common thread among different cultures is that formal wear was designed to separate the educated classes from the rest. Society has formalized many of the social cues used to identify people of high status and social capital. Some of the more prevalent things this applies to are your accent, speech patterns, and your body language. (Small example: Once you learn a bit about fine clothing you can easily tell who comes from an academic or old money background just by looking at their suit.)

BTW the only way to escape is to stop skipping leg day, then focus on your self improvement.

Doing leg day, however, makes buying fine clothing infinitely more difficult

I love how I read your username and then read the first sentence of your post which talked about lifting

Not enough time for a full write up so this is going to jump around a bit.

For starters think about what shoes you wore to school as a kid. Was there a particular style you "had" to have or you wouldn't risk being seen by anyone "important" you know? This really hits at the core of the entire concept of designer wear that I won't delve into. (Ladies, I see you on the 4/5/6 trains, I know that Hermes, LV or BV bag you flash around is fake, get at me brah. Don't buy shit just to impress people. Save up and don't forget you need leg day too.)

Back when clothing wasn't sold off the rack textile mills would sell fabrics direct to the public and people would make their own clothes. High-end mills would try to differentiate themselves by offering unique fabrics you could only buy from them, eventually this led to mills having exclusive tailors and the rise of the "finished" retail to consumer model of clothing begins to take off.

Consider the Oxford shirt, a shirt which neither comes from Oxford, nor is it English. The materials "Yale", "Harvard", "Oxford", "Cambridge" were models used by a textile mill in Scotland to brand their fabrics and were later adopted by students who were trying to show a bit of school pride. The other fabrics never really took off and Oxford became their most popular model of fabric. If you were to look at a bespoke shirt from 1900-1950 and it was Oxford fabric it meant the wearer had a good tailor or came from a small social circle where this fabric was known. Even in the 1960's-1980's the chances are your "Oxford" shirt wasn't a real "Oxford" because by that time manufactured production made textile production highly commoditized.

By far the more common example many of you are already familiar with would be neckties. Many neckties still worn today come from symbols employed to show ownership to a specific province, trade guild, university, fraternity, or military unit. There is an extensive list of popular patterns and knots used to show association so I won't attempt to summarize them.

Still, fabrics for fine clothing persist in being highly dependent on sourcing materials from unique sources to preserve the bespoke nature of the item. Grenadine ties for example are a unique woven tie that uses silk or wool made in a special loom which gives it a rough texture. You won't find a cheap necktie made in Grenadine because only two mills in the world still make it and low end brands (and buyers) have no clue what Grenadine is or why you'd want it. (You'd want it because it looks fly as fuck that is why. Why else?) As a result, only boutique manufacturers bother to sell Grenadine because fashion is their main consideration instead of cost or inventory lead time.

So, what are some things you may notice people focus on today? I don't know were to start so here are some short thoughts;

Fabrics. -The wool companies like Brioni, Canali, and Kiton use is extremely obvious because it is difficult to fake the high thread count without resorting to synthetics. Look at the Republican presidential debates from a few months ago and tell me who has the bespoke suit from a made to measure designer and who had an intern run down to Bloomingdale's to pick something up real quick.

Colors. -Quit wearing black to interviews unless you want to be a limo driver or a mortuary. This is how everyone knows nobody taught you how to buy a suit.

Trends. -You'll notice trends politically connected people might follow can become a "thing". Right now many politicians have been wearing fuschia ties during foreign state visits and it looks like shit since most of them are too old and lack the complexion for that nonsense. Funny how after Bush got into the presidency "everyone" started wearing J.Press in the Hamptons but I don't see anyone trying to wear Obama's soccer mom style jeans because some things just look terrible.

Shoes. -The size of the square toes is inversely proportional to the chances you can afford that dream yacht.

Watches. -If you have an expensive watch from a brand the college girls you chase around have never heard of then you already have a yacht and this doesn't apply to you. For everyone else, there are only a few brands that make the internals themselves and they command a market premium accordingly.

Social capital=more money=nicer watch. Actually, that probably applies to everything somehow.

Mark Hanna:

Business Insider is clickbait garbage.

All of these psych studies are interesting to be sure, how they help is by making you aware of how your brain works. With awareness can come better decision making and judgment.