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The Wardrobe, Decoded
Power dressing, at the point it stopped meaning anything.
Isis Mussenden designed the film, and the wardrobe is a catalogue of late-eighties Wall Street signifiers — structured suits, pale shirts, loud silk ties, braces — assembled with a precision that is itself the joke. Bateman's clothes are the most detailed thing about him, and there is nothing underneath them.
Why we can't let it go
Patrick Bateman is the only wardrobe on this site that is meant to be empty. Every garment is a status marker — the suit, the tie, the watch, the card — and the film's whole argument is that the markers add up to nobody.
Which is why it still resonates. This is a wardrobe about performing competence, and the pieces are genuinely good: sharp shoulder, high-waisted trouser, contrast collar, a tie doing all the colour.
Worn today it reads as extremely deliberate rather than corporate, mostly because nobody dresses like this for an actual office any more. Which arguably makes it more effective now than it was in 1987.
01
The Office
A meeting about a business card
Wide shoulder, high waist, and a tie doing all the talking.
01Structured Shoulder SuitPadded shoulder, roomy chest, high-waisted pleated trouser. A slim modern suit is a different film.
Find it
We haven't chosen the exact pieces for this look — but every garment above is described precisely enough to find. Open any one and we'll go and look for it.
We haven't chosen the exact pieces for this look — but every garment above is described precisely enough to find. Open any one and we'll go and look for it.
The eighties silhouette is the point: a wide, structured shoulder and a high-waisted, pleated trouser with a full leg. A modern slim suit is a completely different look.
Contrast collar is the single fastest signal — a coloured or striped shirt body with a white collar and white cuffs. It costs nothing and it does more than the suit.
The tie carries the colour, in silk, with a large knot. Everything else stays pale.
And the details matter more than the labels: braces rather than a belt, a plain white pocket square, a simple metal watch on a leather strap. It's a wardrobe about precision, so anything sloppy undoes it.
Written and edited by
Narek Avdalyan
· Updated 16 August 2026
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