The M-59 corridor holds FANUC, Webasto, Volkswagen Group of America and Comerica within a short drive of each other, and a certain kind of Rochester Hills career runs across all of them. The suit that career needs is not the one the catalogs photograph. It’s the one that can do a nine o’clock conference table and a two o’clock walk down a line, without looking wrong at either end.
Nine o’clock
Sitting, mostly, and being looked at across a table by people who are not looking at the suit. It has to be quiet: navy or charcoal, plain, nothing that draws a question.
Two o’clock
Standing, walking, going up a step, putting on safety glasses. This is where a suit that was bought for sitting starts to fail, because a jacket cut close enough to look sharp in a chair binds the moment the arms go up. Ask the consultant to check it with both arms raised, which nobody ever asks and everybody should.
Five o’clock
Whatever it looked like at nine. That’s the whole test, and it’s a cloth question: an Everyday Classic, $139 to $159, is the tier built to resist wrinkling and travel, which for a day with a plant floor in it is the honest recommendation rather than the expensive one.
Also for Rochester Hills: The Pinning Ceremony and the Two Men in the Photograph. More on style consulting, or plan your visit to our Oak Park showroom.
