The Journal — The Journal

The idea of "power dressing" in the 1980s was an approximation — women's clothing designed to signal authority by borrowing the visual language of men's suits. Broad padded shoulders, boxy silhouettes, the explicit statement that here is a woman dressed like authority is supposed to look. It worked, in its moment, but it was an approximation.

Ready-to-wear suits are designed for a body that most women don't have. The shoulders are cut for a standardized width. The waist suppression assumes a specific proportion between chest and hip. The sleeve length accounts for an average arm, which fits almost no one. The result is a suit that requires significant alteration before it fits acceptably, and even then, the alterations are adjustments to a pattern that was never yours.

A suit that can only be worn to formal occasions is a limited garment. A suit that can be worn on a Tuesday afternoon, to a casual dinner, to a creative meeting — a suit that travels down the formality register as easily as it travels up — is a wardrobe foundation rather than an occasion piece.

The bomber jacket and the suit trouser is a combination that has moved from fashion experiment to wardrobe reality over the past decade. What was once a styling anomaly — the casual silhouette of a bomber against the formality of tailored trousers — has become a legitimate and intelligent wardrobe approach for men who want to span multiple registers without a full outfit change.