‘There is a renewed desire to be elegant’: why men’s tailoring is more relevant than ever

‘A soft suit is just as practical as a tracksuit but, in daily public life, much more appropriate,’ says Giorgio Armani, the 90-year-old fashion designer, who, in one glorious swipe of a sentence (there will be more later), begins to lay bare some of where we happen to find ourselves with menswear in the autumn of 2024.

Saint Laurent’s A/W 2024 menswear collection, shown in Paris in March at the Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection – the Tadao Ando renovated modern art museum in the 1st arrondissement – offered further illumination. An opening double- breasted suit jacket that was generous in shape – everything falling impeccably from a wide and stern 1980s shoulder, worn with a loose-cuffed trouser and tie – set out a convincing case for a tailoring mood pertinent with languid elegance. Creative director Anthony Vaccarello subsequently explained that this collection’s tailoring was based around the idea of the haute couture technique ‘flou’, in which the sole purpose is to make a garment as fluid as possible.

New elegance: unpacking tailoring’s new momentum

Despite the obvious nod to the past wardrobe of Yves himself, this collection’s ease – you could imagine it being worn by the dancers of Pina Bausch’s company for example, and they have always been persuasive on the fluidity of suiting – offered a way to do elegance that, even if it was a somewhat full-on proposition, did not feel stuffy. It’s a path that we are increasingly seeing mined by exciting emerging voices in custom tailoring, such as New York’s Ralph Fitzgerald or Swedish duo Atelier Saman Amel, who are putting their own stamp on the future of tailoring and dressing up.

The idea that suiting goes in and out of frontline fashion can become a flaccid conversation, with suiting and tailoring largely seen as the muscular guts of menswear. ‘The demise of the suit has been talked about for decades, and yet it survives; the tailored jacket still has a role to play; eveningwear has actually become more popular in recent times because I believe there is a renewed desire to be elegant,’ Armani says, on point. ‘To me, a suit remains the epitome of efficiency, modernity and ease. I find it more relevant now than ever before. But for sure, everything is a lot more comfortable than it was years ago.’ I ask him why Armani suits are having a moment – which they are. ‘Armani suits are popular because they never look stiff or unnatural.’

Tailoring does not exactly stand still – it’s always evolving – but equally, there are times when it gathers momentum. This season is one of those times. It’s been brewing since Covid. But there is a definite incoming shift toward the idea that formal is the new casual, which is not to say that you’ll suddenly want to wear a stiff three-piece suit at breakfast or return to in-depth conversations regarding the merits of Don Draper’s tie-pin. Rather, it is more about how formal menswear codes or classic garments can infiltrate a daily wardrobe and make it feel fuller. This new seasonal mood is also as much to do with styling things up or down, as it is about the clothes themselves.

That said, there are also plenty of bold new tailoring proposals flying about when you look. From directional designers such as Martine Rose – a suit blazer that knots in front, below its lapels, for example – to Magliano, founded in 2017 by Luca Magliano, whose work is bringing a breath of fresh air to Italian menswear with a mission to liberate the wardrobe from binary stereotypes while celebrating queerness.

Magliano’s A/W 2024 collection, shown on the steps of the Nelson Mandela Forum in Florence, saw his fantastically eclectic cast (experiencing tailoring with fresh eyes is made easier when you witness it embodied by characters rather than regular models) lead out with a lightly tailored single-breasted jacket stripped of a formal lapel and collar with seemingly random button placements. It was styled with mismatched, loosely cut trousers and a white T-shirt. Other experiments revolved around interesting twisting and tying ideas as jacket closures.

‘Reconstructed suiting’ was this season’s theme at Junya Watanabe Man. Watanabe has a strong reputation for consistently skewing men’s dress codes and, for A/W 2024, the designer showed blazers that had sliced open trousers attached to them to form a new kind of jacket silhouette. In one particular fusion, Watanabe brought together jeans and a blazer, forcing the formal-casual conversation into something with bite. After the show, Watanabe emailed a typically short point of consideration: ‘I wish for men of different generations to wear these suits.’ And surely they will.

‘In terms of the overarching mood within men’s clothes, I feel there is definitely a ‘return to elegance’ movement happening,’ says Dag Granath, one half of Atelier Saman Amel, who founded their custom tailoring house in 2015. ‘Silhouettes are becoming more sophisticated. I feel that the interest in sensationalism is over and people are focusing more on beauty now.’ A Saman Amel suit is made completely by hand and will take around 35 hours to make.

Having just opened their second atelier in London’s Mayfair – the first being in their hometown of Stockholm – Granath says they try not to think too much about a formal-casual dichotomy. Rather, their approach is to collaborate with their clients to create clothing that just effortlessly works. ‘Tailoring is moving away from being about occasions or having to wear it only for specific reasons,’ says Granath. For A/W 2024, their ‘Curated Looks’ – a series of proposals and ideas for clients to take inspiration from – are largely made from fabrics of their own development with a rich, dark palette of navy and charcoal, midnight brown and taupe.

Earlier this year, Davies & Son, the oldest operating tailor on Savile Row, worked with another incoming tailoring visionary, Satoshi Kuwata, who, with his label Setchu, won the prestigious LVMH Prize in 2023. Together, they have created three bespoke non-gender-specific outfits that take the rigours of Savile Row tailoring and marry them with Kuwata’s signature starting point of origami and the way in which a kimono can be folded and stored in a box.

‘I am not interested in designing for trends,’ says Kuwata, who recalls that his initial love of suiting came from seeing his father wearing them when he was young. When he finally made it from Japan to Savile Row, he says it was love at first sight. He eventually trained at Huntsman, as well as at fashion houses such as Givenchy. His genderless double-breasted ‘Origami’ jacket, inspired by vintage workwear and Savile Row cutting, features multiple folds to sublime effect. ‘A timeless approach is very important to me,’ he says.

‘A suit can be worn by all,’ Ralph Fitzgerald offers in answer to what makes a suit a great piece of design. Fitzgerald, based out of New York’s Chrysler Building, is making quite a name for himself (Marc Jacobs is a client), ‘cutting suits high up in the clouds in the most beautiful and iconic skyscraper’. Growing up in London, Fitzgerald says his early interest in clothes came from his mother taking him to London markets. His first suit, mod in style, was from Adam of London, in the Portobello Green Arcade. He trained under Douglas Hayward, of Mount Street Tailors, who dressed the likes of Roger Moore, Michael Caine and Steve McQueen, before working on Savile Row for Kilgour and Huntsman. He set up his own practice in 2023.

‘It’s a London cut, with a nipped waist, low button position and lower gorge,’ Fitzgerald says of his aesthetic, which also favours a strong shoulder and lightweight construction. ‘I love to work with cloth with texture over decoration – it’s importanthow the fabric plays with and absorbs light,’ he says. ‘I’m constantly collecting rare and unique fabrics; vintage cashmere, alpaca, flannels and twills.’ Fitzgerald says he’s been cutting a lot of double-breasted suits and tuxedos this year. ‘I believe men will always enjoy getting dressed up to the nines.’

As someone more likely to wish to dress like a figure in an Egon Schiele painting than up to the nines (the latest Schiele sartorial obsession being a 1910 portrait of publisher Eduard Kosmack wearing a murky green-brown, slope-shouldered jacket with no obvious fastenings that is housed at the Belvedere museum in Vienna), I find Fitzgerald’s energy inspiring. ‘I want my clients to be able to walk into any room and have no second thoughts or doubts,’ Fitzgerald says. One of fashion’s greatest attractions has always been its power to transform, and not just the way we look but also the way we feel, the way we move. The best tailoring has always been particularly momentous in that regard.

Models: Adam Khan and James Copestake at Xdirectn, Robert Knighton at Next London, KC McNaughton at Perspective, Zayd Ansa at First, Yom Peter at Genesis, Titas at Head Office, Thomas Garrick at Present, Tony Gilpin at Cococasts, and Oliver Rhys Henderson Casting: Cococasts. Grooming: Mayuko Nakae using Oribe. Photography assistants: Colm Moore, Joseph Barrett. Fashion assistant: Hayley Downes. Hair assistant: Motoharu Imaizumi. Skin assistant: Kosei Kitada. Production assistants: Minna Vauhkonen, Archie Thomson, Ady Huq. Special thanks to Rapid Eye.

This article appears in the September 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.