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" I always wanted to be an adult, ever since I was a kid. I blame TV. I would see Darrin Stephens mixing a pitcher of martinis when he got home from work or Maude&amp;#039;s husband, Walter, pouring himself a Scotch and all I could think was, I want to live like that. I liked a world filled with cocktail parties and nightclub floor shows and giant table lighters. And I knew the uniform for any grown man living in that world was a suit and tie. And so, at the age of 11, I convinced my mother to buy me a Pierre Cardin three-piece suit. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s going to grow out of it in a month!&amp;quot; my father ranted as I stood there fully haberdashed in a shirt, tie, and pocket square, looking like the world&amp;#039;s classiest ventriloquist dummy. And he was right. I did grow out of it in about a month. But, oh, what a month it was! I wore that suit everywhere \u2014 to school, to the grocery store, to restaurants. I got lots of stares and many derisive laughs from both peers and adults alike. But I didn&amp;#039;t care. Pearls before swine, I thought to myself. I felt great because I felt like a grown-up. But then the next two decades conspired against my Beau Brummell\u2013like ways. When I went to high school, in the late 1970s, disco was in full swing and anyone who was into it dressed the part. I know I did. Angels Flight flare pants in tans and creams, faux-silk shirts in bright and wild patterns \u2014 I was tall and skinny, and because of the stretchy polyester, everything was hyper-fitted like poor man&amp;#039;s bespoke. In the mid-1980s, when I started doing stand-up comedy, I became enamored with freer-flowing Williwear suits, which I would don onstage with the sleeves rolled up. Unfortunately, as the decade went on, stand-up comedy became more casual, and so I abandoned those suits for vintage bowling shirts and jeans, which I felt lent me a more accessible persona. My stand-up career took off, but I missed my suits. It was only after I created the show Freaks and Geeks, in the late 1990s, that I decided to go back to my sartorial roots. The epiphany happened in a meeting with a studio one day. I was in my jeans and oxford shirt (worn open over a T-shirt like a makeshift blazer), and the executives I was meeting with were all in suits and ties. (Which is why they were always derisively known as &amp;quot;the suits.&amp;quot;) And I suddenly hated being so identifiable as &amp;quot;the artist.&amp;quot; As they pilloried me with notes on my new script, I immediately decided that from that point on, I would dress like the enemy. Their suits gave them power, and I wanted to even the playing field. And so I went out and bought a bunch of new suits. The first batch were functional, purchased from an anonymous men&amp;#039;s store in the mall where the salesmen were more interested in making the sale than in fitting you properly. As years went on, I fell in love with Ralph Lauren \u2014 first the more-generous-fitting Polo line before discovering the Italian-fitting Black Label and finally slipping into the luxurious Purple Label line. This eventually became a gateway drug to the wide lapels of Tom Ford and the wallet-emptying, but soul-satisfying, skin-like fits of bespoke three-piece suits from Anderson &amp;amp;amp; Sheppard and Thom Sweeney. The more suits I owned, the more I realized the best besuited look a man can achieve comes from a harmony of three details: fabric, construction, and fit. If the suit fits you like a glove and it&amp;#039;s well made, you simply feel better about everything in life when you&amp;#039;re wearing it. The irony is that shortly after I purchased that first batch of mall suits, all of the Hollywood power brokers decided they didn&amp;#039;t like being identified as &amp;quot;the suits,&amp;quot; and so they switched to jeans and T-shirts, trying to look more like the artists. But my mind was made up. I was sticking with it. I felt better in a suit and tie. It was my professional uniform. It was my way of showing respect for the power I was being given as a director, a way of letting the cast and crew know there&amp;#039;s an adult in charge. I had always loved pictures of old Hollywood, in which not only Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks would be in a suit and tie on set but their crew members would also be nicely dressed as they hung lights and moved equipment around. It was how I always hoped the people who made the movies I loved looked, and so I wanted to bring that little bit of formality back to the town. In the 12 years I&amp;#039;ve been doing it, outside of one incident in which a producer tried to convince me not to dress up because he said I was putting myself above the actors \u2014 seriously \u2014 I&amp;#039;ve been thanked by both cast members and crew people for showing them a little respect by dressing like a leader and like the adult I&amp;#039;d always wanted to be. And, selfishly, yes, I&amp;#039;ve also just really enjoyed wearing my suits \u2014 just like I did before I grew out of that Pierre Cardin three-piece. Paul Feig is the creator of Freaks and Geeks and the director of Bridesmaids. He owns well over 50 suits. if only they were all in style.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/style/a15995/confessions-of-a-suit-092612/>