Final note: If you love “How I Met Your Mother,” then you will know Ted’s story. He is telling his children about his life in his 20s, 30s and 40s. To keep the stories age-appropriate, Ted would often leave out parts. In addition, he liked to make metaphorical references to the things that he did not want his children to know, such as calling eating a sandwich “smoking marijuana.” Ted, Marshall and Lily can be seen in many flashbacks from their college years and in one flash forward, eating sandwiches while surrounded by smoke in the hallway of a high-school.
Barney might have also been described using the same method. Ted might have been someone who cared about appearance, but he wore suits a lot because of his job. His obsession with a tailored wardrobe could very well have been an attempt to conceal a more sinister aspect of uncle Barney’s history that Ted wished to keep his kids away from. This all hinges on a very important factor.
This all boils down to the kind of storyteller you consider Ted. You may think that he’s a trustworthy narrator, and he shields his children from unsuitable content like drug abuse. In this case, sandwiches and suits could be metaphors for hiding the inappropriate part of Ted’s life. Barney’s obsession with suits after a terrible break-up supports this theory. Ted’s unreliability as a narrator could explain Barney’s over the top obsession with suits. The whole point of telling the story (as revealed in the finale) was to get the kids’ blessings to pursue Robin (Cobie Smulders) all over again.