An Essay on the Purchasing of an Expensive Suit as a Deterrent to Putting on Weight

I think it was Yves Saint Laurent (or someone) who once said (something like) ‘fashion is temporary; style is eternal’ (or something). And do you know what? I believe he was right. I’ve never been more aware of this than when, a few years back, I went to an exhibition of fashion through the ages. I forget what period it covered but all I can remember was that almost every exhibit from the 20^th century was uniquely awful, a catalogue of stylistic horrors, with the predictable roll call of fashion monstrosities too numerous to list but which included the predictable shell suits, flares and satin jumpsuits. In fact, all that stood out as still looking good was an elegant 1920s cocktail dress and a suit from the 1960s.

Whilst most people, if not everyone, accept having embarrassing photos of themselves in their teens in atrocious clothing to all be part of life’s rich tapestry, there are certain sartorial mistakes that can never be forgiven. For even if you have a wardrobe of shame filled with all the fashion mistakes you’ve made over the years, one thing that should never go in there is a suit. This is because a good suit is eternal, and if you spend money on buying one that attempts to mess with the winning formula then you deserve to have your money wasted and you deserve to look stupid. The whole point of a suit being timeless is that you’re meant to keep it for years. If you buy one in orange and yellow neon you may find that a few years down the line you find you like it a bit less than you did when you bought it.

I was looking at suits once and the shop assistant unwisely told me that the reason all the suits they had in stock had unusually long jackets was because Preston from Big Brother and the Ordinary Boys had worn them. Now, call me naïve, but I would think that when buying a suit (something you want to keep for many years, remember) it might be wise not to make your purchase based on the look of someone whose career, it could reasonably be assumed, wouldn’t be a particularly long one.

Tom Ford recently complained about a trend for suit jackets so short that you can see a man’s backside, and he was right to do so. It’s not unusual to see the style pages of men’s magazines feature letters from people asking whether they should invest in a suit that shows clear signs of bandwagon jumping (like the vogue a year or so back for suits with surprisingly short trousers). The advice is usually to avoid them, and it always should be.

So, for avoidance of doubt, this is what you should go for when buying a suit:

Single breasted (double breasted comes in and out of fashion; if you wear one when they’re out of fashion people will assume you’re going to a gangster and molls party, which is fine unless you’re going to a funeral. Unless it’s the funeral of a gangster, I suppose).

Normal length trousers that break at the shoe (sounds obvious but let’s not forget the trend for wearing shorter ones; doing that will make you look like your trousers shrank in the wash or that you’re wearing your brother's hand-me downs).

Normal length sleeves where you can see a bit of the shirt cuff (sounds obvious, but if suits can be made with shorter trousers, don’t rule out a similar trend emerging for sleeves).

It sounds obvious, I know. But, going back to the point about people writing letters to men’s magazines asking about the latest suit developments, the reason people write these letters is because they genuinely have no idea. You’d think anyone could tell that a suit with trousers that stop at the ankles will look stupid, but it’s stranger when people ask if they will look stupid in the future. Well, of course, the answer is yes, because they look stupid now. As for the emerging trend for men wearing suits with shorts, well, I'm not even going to lower myself to comment on that.

And one more thing: always spend more on a suit than you can afford. This is only partly because it’s something that will give you many years of usage; it’s more because if you buy an expensive suit you’ll then have very strong motivation not to put any weight on as then it will be rendered useless. And, on top of that, if you buy a really expensive one you’ll be so poor that you won’t be able to afford much food anyway, and are guaranteed to always fit into it. It’s a win-win situation.