I’m a 49 year-old man-about-town and I’ve never owned a suit
I wish that a photographer had captured the look on the face of one of this magazine’s editors when I told her that I didn’t own a suit. She was visibly astonished that a 49-year-old man-about-town didn’t have one anywhere in his famously extensive wardrobe. The revelation’s impact was doubtless amplified by the fact that we were surrounded by suits, both on the backs of the guests at Country Life’s annual Gentleman’s Life party, and on the racks of the venue — Hackett’s magnificent flagship Savile Row townhouse.
The context of the conversation that so surprised my interlocutor was that I was having, finally and imminently, to buy a suit, something I had resisted throughout the two decades since I last had a job that required me to wear one. The occasion? An invitation from my elegant, urbane friend Stephen to lunch at Brooks’s — the club whose Portland stone façade I had wanted to broach for as long as I have lived in London. A wish which, through his membership, Stephen could grant, provided I could commit to honouring their strict dress code.
The writer in his go-to pleats on the left, and his new Marks & Spencer suit on the right.
(Image credit: Hugh Smithson-Wright)
Let the record show that I am emphatically not against suits qua suits; I’m not one of those people who rejects them on some tiresome non-conformist, anti-establishment principle. I’ve just historically been against them for me. Even with a more relaxed cut, I find the full suit, shirt and tie ensemble constricting; I wore a (biscuit, linen) suit for my wedding, but with a t-shirt and bespoke Nike trainers.
My version of a suit, when required, is a combination of the colourful, pleated Issey Miyake separates which make up most of my wardrobe. It’s my signature look and friends send me photographs of Issey Miyake boutiques they spot on holiday, or people they see wearing it — and I’m confident no-one ever thinks I’m underdressed. (However, my client, Gavin Rankin, patron of Bellamy’s in Mayfair and always the smartest-dressed man in any room, likes to tease me about my sense of style. He once said: ‘Did you run here?’ when I turned up to lunch in a pair of trousers with gathered hems.)
I love suits on other people, and I admire men who make wearing one look as effortless as wearing a tracksuit (something else you’ll never catch me doing). My friend, Matthew, dresses almost exclusively in immaculate tailoring; he memorably told me that he wears a suit and tie when travelling to and from the theatre during the three months of the year when he appears as one of the country’s finest pantomime dames ‘because after four hours in make-up and women’s clothing, putting it on makes me feel like me again.’
‘I dress primarily for my own pleasure, but also to express my personality’
A few days before my date at Brooks’s I purchased a navy blue two-piece suit in Marks & Spencer for the unbelievable price of £120. ‘Unbelievable’ because I have previously spent more than this on a t-shirt and had no idea one could obtain an actually-decent suit for so little money. On the day, I teamed it with my one-and-only smart shirt, a Ralph Lauren blue-and-white stripe button-down, a navy and red stripe tie and a pair of black lace-ups borrowed from a friend, Simon — who thankfully has the same giant shoe-size as me (as well as not owning a suit, I didn’t own a pair of smart shoes, either — I wear trainers with everything).
I enjoyed the overall effect, and could see that I looked, objectively, ‘smart’. At Brooks’s — fabulous, by the way: excellent food, awe-inspiring library, immensely, but not oppressively, grand — I blended right in, notwithstanding that I was the only man there with an earring, and probably wearing the most colourful socks (which, the dress-code specifies helpfully if gnomically, are ‘mandatory’).
When I posted the full outfit on Instagram, my DMs blew up with an edifying mix of compliments, jokes about what I was in court for, and depravity from multiple men-in-suits fetishists. But the comment which stuck with me most was from my friend Natalie, a wedding celebrant who, like me, dresses colourfully, flamboyantly and unconventionally. Emphasising first that I looked ‘amazing’, she then said: ‘It’s really made me realise how much we associate people with their wardrobe’.
Which is exactly why I didn’t own a suit before and realistically, won’t rush to wear this one again. I associate myself with my wardrobe. I dress primarily for my own pleasure, but also to express my personality. A suit, in its uniformity, is mute; it expresses nothing (at least to me). But I’m glad I now own one; it fills a gap in my wardrobe I hadn’t previously realised existed. And at least I won’t be shocking any more Country Life editors with such an egregious sartorial omission.
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