I was walking through Liverpool Street the other morning, the exact patch of London that used to be a wall of grey and navy suits every single weekday. Maybe one in ten men still had one on. Everyone else was in some version of the same uniform — trainers, a quarter-zip, a slightly-too-big overshirt. Ten years ago that would've looked like someone dressed for the wrong day. Now it's just Tuesday.
This isn't a complaint about standards slipping, exactly. It's genuinely useful to understand why this happened — and why, even with all that, the suit hasn't actually become pointless. It's become rarer, and rarer is doing something interesting to what it signals.
Why Suits Became the Exception, Not the Rule
Hybrid working did more damage to the suit than any fashion trend ever could. When half the week is spent at a kitchen table, dressing formally for a commute that isn't happening most days simply stopped making sense. Dress codes relaxed everywhere in the wake of it, and once one person in an office stopped wearing a tie, it gave everyone else permission to follow.
None of that is really about the suit itself. It's about occasions disappearing — fewer daily commutes, fewer face-to-face client meetings, more of work happening through a laptop camera from the chest up. The suit didn't lose an argument. It just lost most of the moments it used to be worn for.
What Actually Gets Lost When Nobody Wears One
Here's the part worth sitting with: when everyone's dressed the same casual way, nothing you wear signals anything anymore. A suit used to say something the moment you walked into a room — that this mattered enough to make an effort for. Take that away entirely and every meeting, every date, every big moment starts to feel exactly as ordinary as every other day.
That's the real cost. Not the suit itself, but the ability to mark something out as different by how you show up for it.
The Suit Is Still Part of the British Look
This is specifically true in a way it isn't everywhere else. Savile Row didn't happen by accident — British tailoring built a genuine identity around the suit that most other countries never developed to the same degree. It's part of how Britain dresses when it wants to be taken seriously, from a courtroom to a wedding to a boardroom.
Letting that slide entirely isn't modernising. It's just losing something distinctly British in exchange for looking like everywhere else.
How to Wear One Without Looking Like You Time-Travelled
The old three-piece, heavily padded, one-size-fits-all suit is genuinely dated now, and wearing that version does look like you missed a memo. The modern version is different — slimmer through the body, softer shoulder, worn with fewer of the old formalities:
- Fit over everything. A cheap suit that's properly tailored to your body beats an expensive one straight off the rack.
- Lose the tie when the room allows it. An open collar with a sharp suit reads modern. A tie done up tight to the neck, on the wrong occasion, reads like you're trying too hard.
- Pair it down elsewhere. Suede loafers or clean trainers instead of stiff formal shoes keep the whole thing from feeling costume-like.
- Own fewer, better ones. One well-fitted navy or charcoal suit gets more genuine use than three mediocre ones sitting unworn in the wardrobe.
When to Actually Wear It Now
The suit doesn't need to come back for daily wear to still matter. It needs to show up at the moments that are actually meant to feel different: the client pitch you need to win, the first date you want to take seriously, the wedding, the interview, the day you want to walk into a room and have it register that this one mattered. Save it for those, and it does more work in one appearance than it ever did worn every day out of habit.
Frequently Asked
Is wearing a suit to work outdated now?
In most offices, yes, as a daily default — but that's exactly what makes it stand out when you do wear one for something that matters. Rarity is doing more of the signalling work now than habit used to.
What's the one suit every man should actually own?
A well-fitted navy or charcoal suit in a mid-weight wool, tailored properly to your body rather than bought off the rack and left as-is. One good suit that fits will outperform three mediocre ones every time.
Do I need a tie with a suit now?
Not always — an open collar with a well-fitted suit reads modern rather than sloppy in most settings. Save the tie for genuinely formal occasions where the room calls for it.
More on building this out properly is on the Fashion & Current Looks page — or if you want it worked through for your actual wardrobe and the situations you're dressing for, that's exactly what 1:1 coaching covers too.