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Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
- donniefitz2 15y agoI always wondered what the story was behind the outfit. I thought the shirts were made by an European designer though.
- kposehn 15y agoKind of fascinating where inspiration can be drawn from.
- huntero 15y agoI was always curious why he would wear such ill-fitting turtlenecks after he lost so much weight in his sickness. I guess his supply of turtlenecks had more of a personal story behind them and it wasn't as simple as ordering a size smaller from the local department store.
- nostromo 15y agoMany articles have been written lately about how an outsider drop-out like Jobs would have never been given an opportunity to succeed in East Asia. So it's interesting that here we have a story about how Steve Jobs tried to introduce a company uniform at Apple that emulated Sony. Especially odd given the "think different" slogan of the era. In any case, I love the idea of a personal brand that doesn't change -- and also the practicality of never deciding what to wear.
- Homunculiheaded 15y agoI actually tried this my freshman year of college: wardrobe of nearly identical shirts, pants and sweaters. I was actually inspired by the idea that whenever cartoon characters opened their closets you'd see it full of just their signature outfit. I didn't use the term 'personal brand' but I had the idea, and also loved the convenience. Turns out that if you're not Steve Jobs this doesn't work so well. After I had ended the this phase I received a lot of comments from people assuming I just never changed clothes, or at the very least found it to be unpleasantly eccentric behavior. I'm pretty sure that if your true goal is a personal brand, unless you're already a very public figure, you don't want to go this route ;) On the other hand if you aren't interested in personal brand, or are already branded as eccentric this does make clothes shopping and choosing an outfit much easier.
- catch23 15y agoProbably doesn't work in school settings, but at work, it's pretty normal. Visit any UPS corporate office and you'll see people there look like they wear the exact same white shirt & black pants every day.
- VBprogrammer 15y agoOn a more practical note but along a related thread, a couple of years ago I threw out all of my socks and bought a stack of the exact same plain black socks. Now I never have to worry about matching socks, when a hole appears I just throw that sock out, when I'm getting low on socks I throw out the lot and buy them new.
- 0x12 15y agoSomeone wrote a businessplan around you and cleaned up nicely, check out blacksocks.com and the 'sockscription': http://www.blacksocks.com/g3.cms/lang/us/s_page/79110/s_name/sockscriptionus http://www.blacksocks.com/g3.cms/lang/us/s_page/79110/s_name...
- vl 15y agoThanks, nice link! This particular problem appears to be close to being solved for me. I don't see a value in subscription, but reliable source of getting same high quality (providing test socks are going to high-quality) socks of the same color/design in bundles repeatedly is definitely a win.
- betterth 15y agoHeh, except they decided to charge per-sock what I like to pay per-pack.
- mathattack 15y agoI do too. One pool of identical whites and one of blacks. Moves the matching problem from O(n) to O(1) and it's ok if you lose an odd one here or there. Unlike Jobs, nobody notices.
- tseabrooks 15y agoI own the same button up Dickies shirt (15 or so) in various different colors. I own a similar number of colored T shirts to go under my button up shirts... With these I wear one of my 3 pairs of pants( 1 jean, 1 khaki cargo pant, 1 khaki cargo short). This takes care of all of my needs.
- jcurbo 15y agoActually I've read in several places that Steve Jobs actively admired and wanted to emulate Sony, so the uniform thing is not surprising. There's some info in this interview with John Sculley: http://www.cultofmac.com/63295/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-interview-transcript/ http://www.cultofmac.com/63295/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-th...
- away 15y agoCan you show an article talking about how Steve Jobs would not be successful in East Asia?
- nirvana 15y agoTo my mind, the bow-tie Steve and the turtleneck Steve are almost two different people. Long hair, sometimes a mustache, vs. short hair, the and maybe stubble. I've been following Apple and Steve for over 20 years, and there doesn't seem to be a transition between the two in my memory.
- philwelch 15y agoSteve wore full beards during the early turtleneck era with frightening consistency.
- Jun8 15y ago"...its ability to convey a signature style..." This is important yet overlooked! There is a lot of advice for up and coming founders on HN (and other places) ranging from scalability minutiae to naming your company, which are all important of course, but there is very little advice on how to dress to create a personal signature style. Why hasn't a site that aims to do this hackers/startup founders crop up, with advice like, what sort of sweater would look good with your Timbuk2 bag, etc.
- untog 15y agoIt's funny that it really, horribly clashes with the idea of "Think Different", though.
- kposehn 15y agoNot really - he did indeed Think Different by doing exactly what most other CEO's (then and now) did not, imho.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- pyre 15y agoThe idea of imposing a standard uniform or wearing the same thing everyday can be viewed as a form of imposing conformity over individuality (mostly the uniform thing, and less the personal style thing). That said, for a US company (especially at that time), such thinking was definitely 'outside the box,' so it could also be viewed as being consistent with the 'Think Different' slogan.
- moheeb 15y agoThe idea of wearing the same thing everyday is hardly 'outside the box'. Baseball players, judges, police officers, firemen, hospital staff, waitresses, painters, plumbers, construction workers...I'll stop now. Oh wait....bums.
- philwelch 15y agoThe funny thing is that, watching some of Apple's product announcement videos, some execs wear a similar black-shirt-and-jeans outfit. Scott Forstall jumps to mind. I actually have, from a friend of a friend, a black long-sleeved sweatshirt made for Apple promoting iMovie. It's not quite a turtleneck but the resemblance is interesting.
- michaelpinto 15y agoThe point of this article isn't the damned turtleneck -- the lesson to learn is that Jobs was best friends with Issey Miyake. Think about that for a minute: How many other folks who work in tech in the valley have any friends who even work in fashion design? Add to that that this is the same guy who hired Paul Rand the grandfather of American graphic design to come up with the logo for NeXT. This is also the same man who hired I. M. Pei as an architect and powered the team that made the first computer animated motion picture. You can start to see why none of his peers even come close...
- tptacek 15y agoHe even hired Rand to do the logo for his private foundation, which he didn't even really care about. I found that kind of shocking; it is a move on par with having a typeface designed for your personal blog.
- noisebleed 15y agoInteresting.. I had never heard that, or anything about the Steven P. Jobs Foundation at all really. Now I'm curious to see the logo but I'm not having much luck finding it.
- pitdesi 15y agoI too am curious and am no better at finding this logo online than you are, apparently ;) In case anyone is interested though, here are other logos that Paul Rand has designed: http://www.paul-rand.com/site/identity/ http://www.paul-rand.com/site/identity/ Amazing how many iconic logos are on that page. Jobs paid Rand $100k for the NeXT brand identity, and Rand created a 100 page brochure detailing the brand. Jobs on working with Rand: “I asked him if he would come up with a few options, and he said, ‘No, I will solve your problem for you and you will pay me. You don’t have to use the solution. If you want options go talk to other people.’”
- dockd 15y agoThere's an entire book devoted to how he came up with the NeXT logo; you get to watch the design evolve. The book was probably published by NeXT itself; good luck finding one. I somewhat regret not "borrowing" the copy I saw lying around a computer lab at school.
- wfwef 15y ago“I have enough to last for the rest of my life.”
- jackgavigan 15y agoYeah, that struck me too.
- rastafark 15y agoI always figured he was inspired by Tom Wolfe, who always wore a white suit in public. Wolfe emerged in the sixties and wrote novels about the counter culture movement. Job's references to things like 'the whole earth catalog' and other 60s icons always seem to point to his style.
- 3oheme 15y agoAny book or interview to read more? It sounds interesting
- 9999 15y agoThis interview from Fresh Air on NPR is really excellent: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/12/139383916/tom-wolfe-chronicling-countercultures-acid-test http://www.npr.org/2011/08/12/139383916/tom-wolfe-chroniclin... Wolfe explains why he wore the suit and how it worked in practice when touring around with Kesey. Really great.
- egiva 15y ago>>So it's interesting that here we have a story about how Steve Jobs tried to introduce a company uniform at Apple that emulated Sony. Especially odd given the "think different" slogan of the era.<< I'd say that to be different in the areas most important to you (usually creative endeavors), you strip all the layers and unnecessary fluff off of your life and boil everything down to pure essence. For that reason, wearing the same thing every day actually liberates your senses and allows you to focus creative energies elsewhere. This obviously doesn't apply to you if you are a fashion designer =) Jobs was a pretty busy guy, so i'm guessing that removing that extra decision each day actually helped his productivity and creativity.
- j45 15y agoA uniform to remind him of his own discipline towards achieving his goals. Interesting.
- mathattack 15y agoI find it very strange that non-conformist Jobs who hated 1984ish IBM would be pro-uniform. It's a good story in the overload of Jobsian mythology. It shows a different side of him - that he worried about culture in addition to product, that he wasn't always consistent, and that even He could make design mistakes. Much more human a story than the usual fluff.
- tiles 15y agoIt shows are more interesting transition from Jobs and early Apple wanting to own the PC business, to Jobs wanting to own the "2%" marketshare with really beautiful, well-designed products. I think the motivation was always there for beauty, but it wasn't until Windows 3 was introduced and successful (and the Mac was overpriced to $2500 by Sculley) that Apple could really accept that they weren't going to have it all, marketshare and creative focus. Fortunately for everyone they settled on the latter.
- stretchwithme 15y agoJust when you think a maverick is following the maverick game plan, he deviates.
- jarek 15y agoBy this definition, there is no maverick game plan.
- ichc-werker 15y agoUpon hearing this, jarek was enlightened.
- eugenejen 15y agowhy not? all meaning depends on context. In "non-uniform dress code" united states, wearing uniform dress is quite non-conformist. In "uniform dress" japan, wearing dressing like american is non-conformist.
- endlessvoid94 15y agoI'd LOVE to know any other "failures", however tiny, Jobs had after he came back to Apple. The idea of him getting booed of the stage is not something you hear every day. He's defined publicly by his old failures and recent successes. I'd love to hear more about more recent failures as well.
- marknutter 15y agoThey are well documented in the many biographies out there. One that comes to mind was his time at Pixar. When he oversaw the designing of the new Pixar headquarters, he had the bathrooms built to be communal (unisex). The employees were mortified and rebelled against the idea until regular male/female bathrooms were put in place. In fact, Jobs was seen as quite a nuisance at Pixar, and the Pixar employees did as much as they could to limit his meddling. His style of management works at some companies, but not others, it would seem.
- tomjen3 15y agoHe is booed more than once at the mac expo where he comes back to save Apple. The first time is when he presents the new board members (they really don't like Oracles CEO) the second time is when he tells them about the Microsoft investments.
- alabut 15y agoIt's the same rationale as the fashion designer Michael Kors and why he's been wearing the same black shirt, black blazer and dark jeans for years - to become "post-fashion" and have his own signature style that he doesn't have to think about and coordinate every day. And much like Jobs, he used to dress like a hippie flower child early in his career and he realized sometime later how dated that looked, so he needed a timeless look.
- jarek 15y agoThere's no such thing as a timeless look. The only look I can think of going back to as late as the 60s - only 50 years - that could reasonably be claimed to be "timeless" is the business suit - and even that is becoming to look... unsuitable in an increasing number of settings.
- SoftwareMaven 15y agoJeans and a tshirt go much further back than that.
- jarek 15y agoTo the 1940s? I'm pretty sure the tshirt as we know it didn't exist before then.
- wazoox 15y agoAn ordinary black suit, white shirt, black tie and black pants would be about ordinary from 1830 onwards. See http://lecostumeatraverslessiecles.chez-alice.fr/Costumes/XIXe/1830-1845_masculin.htm http://lecostumeatraverslessiecles.chez-alice.fr/Costumes/XI...
- ovi256 15y agoThe cut, fit (tighter or looser) and details such as pant length would date it pretty well. There's no such thing as a standard suit.
- DrewHintz 15y agoDoes anyone have a photo of the Sony employee uniform?
- iamwil 15y agoJust like Mr. Rogers has a closet full of the same clothes.
- Steko 15y agoI think the lesson to take away is not about the designers or fashion so much but to see this as one aspect of Jobs getting past the bullshit to spend more time on the important stuff. Five minutes less spent thinking about what to wear each morning translates to 30 more hours a year you have to focus on the big things (products, strategy, family, exercise, whatever). Prolly also has something to do with why he drove a Benz 55 AMG with 500 hp.
- brakakak 15y agoAlthough the story begins by describing a search for a team uniform, it seems he adopted the standard dress for convenience and, as you note, personal efficiency. But you lose me with the last sentence. Nice cars allow busy people a couple pleasurable moments to themselves - moments well appreciated by those of us taking little to no vacation.
- Steko 15y agoWas just talking about how he drove fast because time spent in traffic is like time wasted picking out clothes to wear. There are other more primal things that driving fast delivers too, I'm sure Jobs didn't just drive fast for efficiency reasons.
- cubix 15y agoThis reminds me of an interesting story I heard about Honda. Apparently the workers are made to wear white uniforms on the factory floor. If a smudge of dirt is found on a uniform, it is deemed a flaw in the system and supposedly the line is shut down until its origin has been determined.
- ary 15y agoWhen reading this keep in mind that the Mac was still a skunkworks project inside of Apple when Jobs attempted to institute a uniform policy. Some of the comments have suggested this doesn't jive with the "Think Different" ethos he pushed. The Think Different campaign was initiated in 1997 shortly after his return to Apple. Many things transpired and he matured quite a bit in the intervening ~16/17 years.
- warmfuzzykitten 15y agojibe
- ary 15y agoThanks. Wish I'd seen that typo before my ability to edit went away.
- spinchange 15y agoIt's okay to acknowledge he could be a man of contradictions- both in his youth and later years. Remember that he told the Mac group they were pirates inside Apple and the 1984 television ad. He could be both a conformist and nonconformist at the same time, or if he felt it suited it him.
- itaborai83 15y agoI'm sorry he didn't get to order another batch from Issey Miyake
- ForrestN 15y agoI've read a number of times references to the sweaters coming from St. Croix, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_(clothing) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_(clothing) http://www.stcroixshop.com/stcroix/default.asp?s_id=0& http://www.stcroixshop.com/stcroix/default.asp?s_id=0& An interesting mystery! A lifetime's supply of Issey Miyake would surely obviate the need to by them from this random shop, right? Am I missing something? For what it's worth, I hope they come from Miyake, who's a genius in his own right. Bonus: another person who is staggeringly good at her job, wearing a black turtleneck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XY3AvVgDns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XY3AvVgDns
- philwelch 15y agoPerhaps Issey Miyake designed the turtleneck and had St. Croix actually make them.
- ForrestN 15y agoThat's next to impossible for a ton of reasons.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y agoUnless I've missed it, nowhere on their shop page does it say that Jobs wore their turtlenecks, merely that he was a "fan" of theirs, and the Wikipedia fact is uncited (now marked as such).
- ForrestN 15y agoAnother link, from the WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/steve-jobs-fashion-icon/2011/10/11/gIQA0o6LdL_blog.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/steve-job... "Jobs preferred $175 St. Croix cotton and microfiber mock black turtlenecks. According to Bernhard Brenner, the founder of Knitcraft, St. Croix’s parent company, Jobs bought about two dozen black turtlenecks each year."
- thenewgreen 15y agoWhat is a brand? It's a symbol that identifies a good or service. The best brands are instantly recognizable, and apple with a bite missing... or a guy in black turtleneck. Both were brilliant moves. He branded himself as "the" innovator of our times. Was the turtleneck intentional marketing?
- stream_fusion 15y agoI suspect it was a marketing decision. The consistency of his clothing choice, helps to reinforce the brand (in this case Steve and Apple) in the public mind via his portrayal in media. For those who are aware he always chose the same clothes it's merely an idiosyncratic trait, however for the wider public who are only dimly aware of leading computer figures, it aids recognition ("ahh that's that guy, who runs Apple") above the background noise. There's a bit of an analogy with brand connection/consistency in choosing similar product names eg - iMac, iPod, iPhone. Consistency, helps cross-recognition and positive association. It's all a carefully crafted narrative for the public mind.
- frsandstone 15y agoAs if I needed more incentive to buy the book.
- minikomi 15y agoVery odd. I can find no reference to Sony's uniform having been designed by Issey Miyake, even in Japanese, other than this one anecdote. Edit: There is some allusion to it, yet no direct reference .. However, it seems he was generally interested in using Japanese fabrics to make clothes for workers in the 1970s, so it is definitely possible.
- ramchip 15y agoActually, googling "三宅一生 ソニー" returns a Sony time capsule: ソニーのユニフォームは何回かデザイン変わってますけど、1981年に採用が決まった最後のユニフォームはなんと三宅一生氏のデザインですよ。 Translation: The design for the Sony uniform has changed several times, but the last uniform for the hiring of 1981 was a design of Issey Miyake. Ref: http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/capsule/04/index.html http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/capsule... Edit: there's an English version here http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/capsule/04/index.html http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/capsule/0...
- minikomi 15y agoWeird. ソニー 三宅一生 制服, ソニー 三宅一生 作業服, both miss that site.. Needed ユニフォーム instead, or not at all!
- MrKurtHaeusler 15y agoWhat about any actual pictures of the designs?
- ramchip 15y agoI googled for a while in both languages and couldn't find one, unfortunately. I did find a book on Amazon Japan with Sony uniform pictures (amongst other companies), but I doubt the specific uniform here is included.
- kalleboo 15y agoFirst bing result for "三宅一生 ソニー ユニフォーム": http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/capsule/04/index.html http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/capsule... 1981年に採用が決まった最後のユニフォームはなんと三宅一生氏のデザインですよ。オシャレでしょ。 edit: looks like I was beaten quite handily, I need to remember to refresh old tabs before replying...
- JunkDNA 15y agoA bit of a meta-comment, but I'm starting to think that I'm going to end up reading all the surprising and interesting segments of this biography as blog posts. By the time the book arrives, I fear all that will be left to read is the boring stuff.
- tjmc 15y agoThe thing I'd really like to see in the book (but don't expect to) is why Jobs said no to the Amiga team back in 1983-84 when they were desperately looking for investors. This was prior to the Mac being launched and Commodore eventually buying Amiga. Apparently Jobs said the Amiga had "too much hardware" which confused chief engineer Jay Miner because all the Amiga's wizardry was handled by 3 custom chips. Wikipedia alleges that Jobs was just nervous about the Amiga upstaging the Mac, but it'd be great to know what his thoughts actually were. I suspect we'll never know...
- mvkel 15y agoThis is something I've thought about for a while. If you find something you're comfortable wearing and eliminate the "what am I wearing today?" process from your daily routine, your mind is that much more engaged in thoughts that matter.
- maxwell 15y agoI used to feel the way you do, before I met my girlfriend and saw myself through her eyes. She felt about my graphic tees and ill-fitting pants the way I did about her MySpace page's design. I realized that what you wear affects people offline about as much as your webpage's stylesheet does online. It shows your creativity, attention to detail, and sense of design, or lack thereof. What you're wearing is already influencing what people think of you, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. As with all those local businesses that don't think about their website. It only matters if you care what other people think. If you can afford not to, or only interact with people virtually, great. But, whether you care or not, if you wear clothes that don't fit or the same outfit every day, people will probably think you have no taste/money/fun. There's a reason Steve Jobs used to dress like this: http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BC890_Jobsda_DV_20111009180540.jpg http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BC890_Jobsda_DV... You can bet he dressed differently at the Homebrew Computer Club meetings. And nothing wrong with programming in only a towel. Fashion is dynamic. Yes, it's just personal styling, but it's no more "superficial" than your CSS. Wearing a black or white t-shirt/polo/button-down and jeans/khakis is like using the default Wordpress/Posterous theme on your blog. Does it really take that long to decide what to put on? Vint Cerf found time to dress with style and still invent the internet. There's a reason software hasn't eaten politics, law, finance, apparel, and hospitality yet. Indochino and Airbnb are certainly a start with the latter two, and no surprise, they dress with style when appropriate[1][2]. [1] http://www.indochino.com/product/The-Ultimate-Navy-Blue-Blazer http://www.indochino.com/product/The-Ultimate-Navy-Blue-Blaz... [2] http://www.airbnb.com/founding-team http://www.airbnb.com/founding-team
- zargath 15y agoI see it as: remove focus away from anything but the product. The stage is boring, the screen is boring, the slides maybe not boring but simple, the person is not interessting. Steve was already rock star. Just like the ring in LOTR movies. How you make impact with such a small product. Steve wanted everybody to hunger for creations and his work.
- ooooooooooooo 15y ago
- ankeshk 15y agoInteresting. I always thought how Jobs made the decision to wear the same clothes was similar to how Feynman made a decision to eat the same icecream (chocolate) all the time. They both thought it was pointless to decide about mundane things and would rather spend time on other more worthy problems. Interesting to read about how he wore a uniform for better bonding purposes.
- cycojesus 15y agoThat's just sad. At least in the ice-cream case just point a random flavor, none or little more effort spent and a whole new world of potential surprises.
- epo 15y agoAn affectation really (like wearing a bow-tie). "I'm so important I can't even be bothered to think about what ice cream I want", if true probably done just to be the subject of an anecdote.
- ludwigvan 15y agoI don't understand how the turtleneck was the outcome of a design by Issey Miyake, i.e. isn't it just a standard black turtleneck, or are there some design aspects I'm not seeing? I would love some design-centric person to explain this "uniform" in detail.
- warmfuzzykitten 15y agoActually, if all I'm going to get from the book is Steve's turtlenecks, I wouldn't buy it. Who planted this link and why does anyone care?
- orionlogic 15y agoI wonder how apple related sites spoil most of the book content before it arrive at my door.
- infocaptor 15y agoanyone remember the episode from Seinfeld where his girlfriend is wearing the same dress everytime they go out and Jerry suspects if she has closet full of same dress..