Suits on hot days


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It was 38 degrees celcius today, which I think is about 100 degrees fahrenheit. When I looked around during Sacrament meeting, about 30 - 35% of the men who would usually be wearing a suit jacket during church wore not wearing one today. What is the practice in your ward when it comes to wearing suit jackets at church on hot days?

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Guest LiterateParakeet

It doesn't get that hot where I live...yay!  But I know that in missions where it gets that hot, the Elders are not required to wear suits.  One of my sons is in Ghana and he wasn't even required to take a suit coat.  

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Here there is air conditioning, so it's not so hot inside.

We don't get 100, but we did have a long hot spell and the a/c handled it quite well.  Nobody changed their wardrobe at all.

But I suppose the easy solution if it's so hot inside, is, take off your jacket.

dc

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It gets into the 110's here for several weeks every summer.  DH always ditches his suit jacket when it gets that hot.  While the building does have A/C, the drive to church is short enough that the A/C in our car never gets a chance to get very cold and DH is soaked in sweat by the time we get to church.  DH actually didn't even own a suit jacket until about a year or so ago and he's been a member 10 years.

 

Where I live, most men are not wearing suit jackets when it gets that hot.  The members of the bishopric and stake presidency do, but I'm assuming they are required to.  I've never heard of anyone being taken to task for not wearing one.

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As a missionary there were days we were allowed to leave the suit coats at home.  Those days were directly related to the temperature.  I can't imagined that has changed (although the temperature that triggers it might have, but we are talking about the idea here)

 

As for local leaders I would imagine that in many ways comes down to the desires of the Stake President and Bishops.  I doubt there is some church wide requirement.   But rather more of a teaching correct principles and allowing them to govern themselves.

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In sunny Florida, the Bishopric wears suit jackets all year long. Most everybody else don't except for a few weeks in January/February when the suit jackets become their "coats". My 2 sons wear their suit jackets all year long, my husband don't. I don't really know why my kids wear jackets when they're one of the very few that do and we've never told them they need to.

In the Philippines, it was really weird... People wear short-sleeve white shirt and ties like Americans - including the bishopric. Only a few wear the Barong which is the traditional "suit". I guess they just take the example of the missionaries. There's no AC in the building except for the Relief Society room.

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It was 38 degrees celcius today, which I think is about 100 degrees fahrenheit. When I looked around during Sacrament meeting, about 30 - 35% of the men who would usually be wearing a suit jacket during church wore not wearing one today. What is the practice in your ward when it comes to wearing suit jackets at church on hot days?

Our ward is highly mixed economically.

Even when it's colder, many of the brothers wear a shirt'n'tie because it's the best they have. Some wear jeans as their Sunday best.

My suit is a 52-weeks-a-year thing. Not because it's comfortable, but because it's the best I have. A slight sacrifice to show respect for my Lord and Redeemer.

Well, 51-weeks this year. I'm sick today, and won't be wearing much at all: pyjamas and a bathrobe.

Lehi

Edited by LeSellers
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Guest MormonGator

If I show up without ripped jeans and a t-shirt, take it as a win and move on. 

 

I had to wear a tie daily from 6th grade-on. Hated every minuted of it.  Unless it's a funeral or in the rare cases I have to do business more, I don't wear them. 

Khakis and a button down are it for me. 

Edited by MormonGator
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In sunny Florida, the Bishopric wears suit jackets all year long. Most everybody else don't except for a few weeks in January/February when the suit jackets become their "coats". My 2 sons wear their suit jackets all year long, my husband don't. I don't really know why my kids wear jackets when they're one of the very few that do and we've never told them they need to.

Between 2008 and 2014 I had a job that required a suit, plus the climate in the UK meant that jackets are generally worn at church throughout the year. So for six years, I'd been wearing a suit for six days per week and now I'm not comfortable wearing anything else to work or church. Since moving to Florida, I'm definitely the outlier when wearing a suit and people tend to just stare at me incredulously.

Initially I was taken aback at how few people wear suits at church here.

Edited by Mahone
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If it's too hot, take the jacket off!  It's just common sense.  

 

Now, that being said, missionaries tend to work under certain restrictions because, at their young age, common sense is sometimes lacking (like the Canadian elder who went out on P-day wearing checkered Converse sneakers and a faux leather jacket adorned with punk rock band buttons.) They are given "uniform" requirements to match the "marketing" image the Church wishes to project and the cultures in which they serve.

 

When I was a missionary in Southwest France in the early 1980s, EVERY respectable man wore a sport coat or suit jacket if he was out in the evening--even if it was nearly 100 degrees.  It was an expectation in the culture.  Seriously, if it was possible to land people on Venus, where it's 800 degrees, it would be old Frenchmen they'd send.  There would be these old guys sitting out on the park benches in wool blazers and a beret when it was well over 90 degrees!  

 

Because of the culture, the mission president insisted we follow the custom.  It was often a trial of our obedience to mission rules to ride out to a proselyting area on bicycles in the evening heat and then have to put on a jacket--which leads me to an anecdote about obedience.

 

One of my companions had really severe scars all over him from where he was attacked by a vicious German shepherd dog one hot, steamy evening.  He and his companion discussed not wearing jackets, but then they decided they'd keep the rules and do as the mission president had directed.  Later, after the dog attack, the doctor at the hospital told him that the fact that he had been wearing a jacket probably saved his arm.  Keeping the rules gave him protection he wouldn't have had otherwise in that situation.

 

Obedience brings blessings.  However, if you're not a missionary having to keep mission rules, take the jacket off if you get hot in sacrament meeting!

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Guest MormonGator

Mine are all linen of this highest quality. Each shirt cost well over $100.

 I'm with you. I like nice things, and when I have to wear a suit (ug) I have some expensive ones. 

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Guest MormonGator

Mine are all linen of this highest quality. Each shirt cost well over $100.

 I'm with you. I like nice things, and when I have to wear a suit (ug) I have some expensive ones. 

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My suits are all semi decent but inexpensive ones from the British equivalent of JC Penny.

I enjoy expensive clothing as much as the next person, but once you've had several suits ripped on the edges of server racks and powered on a high performance, but old router whilst standing behind it and come out covered in several year old dust blown out by the fan running at the max RPM, you quickly make compromises in choice of attire. I have to wear suits, but they will never cost me more than a couple of hundred dollars.

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