Worked with a guy who wore a suit to the office as a 2-year experience dev and he was always taken into client meetings last minute when they needed someone. Helped his career a fair bit I think!
Opposite here. My office had people wearing dress pants and dress or polo shirts. I decided to add a tie. I was taken aside and told not to do that since it made me seem out of touch with the culture. Seemed like a pretty small step up from the based line to me. So much for dress for the job you want, or next job up BS...
I think how the experts play this game is by buying a very expensive well-fitting designer polo shirt. The trick is to impress people in a way that seems that you are not trying hard. Trying hard is low-status, just being "naturally" impressive is high-status.
The rules of the game are not mentioned publicly, so that people who know them can feel superior to those who don't. The mere knowledge of the rules signals good upbringing or great social skills.
I definitely ribbed him a bit in the pub for it, as we all did, but it was a consultancy and we had academic & old-school style clients who came in suits themselves so it was probably more accepting than brogrammer startups or whatever
