“To distinguish ourselves from the millions of T-shirt and jeans lemmings out there“, is the motto Barney lives by. His break-up with Shannon, alongside a suit store flyer, motivated him to suit up his life. He’s not alone in his motto. His perfect wingman and brother James Stinson also live by the same rules.
Is it possible for such an esteemed character to NOT suit up? Yup, and quite hilariously so. Here are 5 times where Barney wore something outrageous instead of his beloved uniform.
1. First encounters
In the very first season, Barney wears a slippery silvery shirt instead of a suit. It was in Okay, Awesome (Season 1 Episode 5). The proposition that he held was that women, along with fish, are naturally attracted to shiny objects. Doesn’t work in the end, as the only girl he ends up grinding with happened to be his cousin.
2. No suit ups while you’re sick
In How Lily Stole Christmas (Season 2 Episode 11) Barney catches a horrible cold, sneezing all over the place. Robin forces him to tuck himself into bed, wearing a regular T-shirt and elastic waist fleece pants. Barney gets so embarrassed that he calls himself a Ted. He does admit that the clothes are comfy though.
3. Death does not require a suit
Barney wears a hoodie to Mark’s funeral in Monday Night Football (Season 2 Episode 14). That’s right. A hoodie. He believes suits are for only happy and joyous occasions. Everyone in the room was wearing a suit except Barney! Oh, and now we know how Barney will be dressed (or won’t be) when he goes too.
4. Ain’t no suit got no time for drama!
Barney gets revenge on Lily for making him see her bad play by putting on a play of his own, a one-man show titled Suck it, Lily in the “Stuff” episode, which is Season 2, Episode 16. He wears a theatrical black turtleneck and a robot costume! Marshall slaps Barney for his performance, using up one of his coveted slaps from the slap bet.
5. You can’t suit up and get candy!
Season 1, Episode 6 in the first Halloween episode of the entire show (also known as the “Slutty Pumpkin”), Barney had to mix it up. He wears a fighter pilot uniform straight out of Top Gun.
In the same episode, Barney returns to the party wearing a penguin “suit”. His tactic is to bring more than one costume to the party in case he strikes out with a girl. That way, he gets a second chance at a first impression. Though the girl finds out that Barney was tricking him, it was definitely worth the de-suiting.
We may think Barney Stinson always suits up, but guess what? There are quite a lot of times where he didn’t! As the saying goes, to err is human. For Barney, it’d be –
“To de-suit is lame, but I’ll only do it if I need to hook up, or get sick, or need a girl’s number.“
Did you know?
Despite saying he doesn’t wear suits to funerals, he wears a suit to Marshall’s father’s funeral, out of Brospect.
