It could have been removed from the basket of products employed to calculate the UK’s once-a-year inflation fee but that does not suggest the fit is dead. If it definitely were being the loss of life knell for the staple of men’s small business apparel then certainly the Place of work for National Data would have changed it with some tracksuit bottoms or even some shorts? In its place, what’s taken its area is “a official jacket or blazer”. It is an admission that these two really odd many years of pandemic dwelling have altered our daily sartorial practices but not reworked them entirely.
As places of work vacated and numerous of us tailored to doing the job from house, a apparent shift to “top-down dressing” emerged (bear in mind the “Zoom shirt”?). But when the govt dispensed with Covid limits, a return to the place of work compelled us to dust off our commuting have on and re-assess our wardrobes in a fresh gentle. The transition from elasticated waistbands and Uggs to official trousers and brogues has been a tough just one, even so, and most of us are navigating our new model somewhere in concerning.
A year back, Marks & Spencer produced a array of “semi suits” featuring the form of stretchy fabric a person could possibly affiliate with sports apparel. At the time, the head of menswear style and design told me: “Customers are wanting for hybrid parts that are sensible enough to don into the office environment but even now supply the consolation and relaxed fashion that they have been accustomed to.”
I assume, a single calendar year on, this continues to be the situation. Business office workers nonetheless lengthy for the convenience of their perform-from-property wardrobe but similarly wish possibilities that give off an air of professionalism. It’s a “casualisation” of our wardrobe which is not casual at all. Without a doubt, the existing definitions of “hybrid dressing” and “casualisation” have absolutely nothing to do with the “smart casual” of the previous (with all its associations of provincial restrictiveness and slovenliness). As an alternative, it is about just dialling down the stringent boundaries involving what is deemed official dress in and what is not.
Far more so than No Time To Die or Peaky Blinders, Sunday night’s Baftas were being a great bellwether for the accommodate. Stars turned out in a combine of the conventional (Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston in traditional cuts) and the new (Questlove in a robe and Crocs, Daniel Kaluuya putting on those turquoise furry armbands from Prada), which implies the accommodate is now far more “concept” than time-honoured. It’s a idea that forces its wearer to be inventive and express on their own.
The suit in all its kinds is not lifeless it is, in simple fact, flourishing. So let us take our “formal jacket or blazer” and get imaginative.