THE SUIT IS NOT DEAD. IT'S JUST EVOLVING

What shape will formalwear take, once it emerges, blinking, from the year of “working-from-homeware”? Stefano Canali, CEO and scion of the Italian menswear dynasty, has seen the future... And it’s looking sharp

- TEO VAN DEN BROEKE

Exactly 43 days before the UK went into its first nationwide lockdown, a handful of the world’s most famous actors were walking the red carpet at the 92nd Academy Awards, blithely unaware of the real drama that was yet to unfurl across the globe.

Brad Pitt strolled solo, wearing an immaculately cut velvet dinner suit with shawl lapels from Brioni; Leonardo DiCaprio looked resplendent in his go-to black barathea wool dinner jacket from Giorgio Armani; and even “kid among kings” (or should that be “king of the kids”?) Timothée Chalamet opted for a suit, of sorts, in the shape of a recycled nylon two-piece from Prada, which made headlines for a good week after the event.

Fast forward a year and looking back at that spiffy sartorial hit parade feels a little bit like observing the evolution of man, only in reverse. Over the long socially distanced days and weeks that followed the Oscars, the world’s men collectively reverted from smartly tailored reveller to comfort-seeking pyjama wearers (who put on a shirt for Zoom meetings, if you’re lucky), and suits, as a consequence, have never looked or felt more arcane.

It’s a change in consumer mindset that the head honchos of tailoring companies, such as Canali – which, incidentally, dressed Paul Rudd in an elegant navy dinner suit for the aforementioned ceremony in 2019 – have been forced to grapple with since the pandemic began.