Between Elizabeth Warren’s promise to break up tech businesses, the complete and utter failure of Howard Schultz’s presidential rollout, and younger voters’ turn toward democratic socialism, I expected the country’s class of bankers and technology elites to cry persecution at some point.

I just didn’t expect Patagonia would be the ones to force their hand.

Earlier this month, Patagonia accidentally set off a firestorm when the news slipped out that it would be vetting the partners for its corporate sales program more carefully.

Binna Kim, an executive with a financial public relations firm, alerted the world through Twitter that Patagonia was rejecting branded vest requests from financial service companies. Instead, the outdoor clothing company wanted to focus on “mission-driven companies that prioritize the planet.”

There are several reasons why this news was greeted with elite panic, a million jokes about the HBO show “Silicon Valley,” and many gleeful internet think pieces.

The first is that the Patagonia vest is a cliche. Just try to walk down, say, Brannan Street between Fourth and Fifth in San Francisco or Broad Street in New York without passing a group of young gentlemen all wearing this exact fleece garment.

To the tribes of Y Combinator applicants and Wall Street interns, these vests are their business suits, their khakis-and-polo combination — today’s uniform for men who control the world’s resources and those who are striving to be like them.

How did this happen?

It began when the men whose natural habitat is Davos, Sun Valley and Sand Hill Road decided the most important man in the world was no longer the man who wore a suit.

Suits do not project power in 2019. The suit is the uniform of doormen and public defenders and congressmen. The suit is for the man who works for clients.

But a man who can wear outdoor gear regardless of time, location or event? A man who always looks like he’s ready to climb a mountain?

That’s a man who works for himself.

Once the men of true power in America adopted the new uniform, it’s been a steady style trickle-down ever since.

And if brands matter in this particular arms race — they always do — then Patagonia is at the top of the heap.

Its expense is an important part of the equation. Some people call the company “Patagucci,” and they’re not wrong. There’s nothing the company makes that you couldn’t find at a lower price, and of equal quality, from other retailers.

But the company can charge those prices because of its aura.

Patagonia was California’s first certified B corporation, a designation that comes with legal requirements for its duties to the environment, its workers and its community. It donates a percentage of its profits to environmental preservation and donated all $10 million it got from the Trump tax cut to environmental groups. The company’s grown more, not less, profitable as it’s deepened its social mission.

In other words, Patagonia is a paragon of efficiency, compassion and correctness. Those are the very values that our Masters of the Universe claim to prize above all others in 2019.

Small wonder that they loved wearing vests with Patagonia’s logo next to that of their own companies.

But now Patagonia’s saying that it no longer wants their business.

That’s quite an insult.

I contacted the company for comment. It sent over a statement. It’s not leaving any “bros in the cold,” Patagonia said:

“We continue to sell to, and welcome the business of, the B-to-B companies and nonprofits who have been short- or long-term loyal customers — including those who order co-branded vests or other items that feature the group’s logo as well as ours.”

In other words, the change will only be for new applicants to the Patagonia brand. New companies, not old friends, need to be B corporations, or members of an eco-minded business association called 1% for the Planet.

This is an elegant way to take the sting out of the change. Limiting the supply of companies Patagonia is willing to do business with will make those who got in under the wire feel even more special. It’ll probably increase the amount Patagonia can charge them for new vests, too.

But what does it say that it took a luxury clothing retailer to make these guys pause and consider their choices?

What does it say that the rest of us, the 99% of the Planet, are relying on Patagonia to force their hand?

It says that they weren’t wrong about the men who wear suits, that’s for sure.

But it also says that if those who wear vests think they work for themselves, then those who make the vests have their own ways of exercising power.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@caillemillner