Somewhere along the way, the suit stopped being a uniform and became a choice. That shift has been good news for anyone who likes tailoring but has no interest in looking like they've come straight from a boardroom in 1987 - and it happens to be the territory Oliver Spencer has occupied for over two decades.
Corby Shirt Marcie Pink
Corby Shirt Marcie Pink
No, it's not a great suit worn with sneakers. The difference is mostly internal. A traditional jacket relies on some degree of scaffolding: padded shoulders, stiff canvas, fused interlinings, all built to impose a shape on the body. Unstructured tailoring takes that architecture out. What remains is cloth, a soft shoulder and a natural drape that follows you rather than holding you in place. Our own tailoring has always been unstructured by design
- softer, more natural over the body, and several degrees more versatile as a result.
That versatility is the real point. Remove the formality from the construction and a suit stops being a single outfit. The jacket becomes a separate. The trousers work with a knit and a boot. As we've said before, unstructured tailoring is as much an attitude as a sartorial process.
Crosby Coat Fink Beige
Crosby Coat Fink Beige
Because the occasions have changed. Dress codes have loosened without disappearing -the office is hybrid, the wedding is in a field, the dinner is somewhere that doesn't take a tie seriously. A rigid suit answers only one of those. A soft one answers all of them. Add the fact that most of us would rather buy one jacket that works fifty ways than five that work once, and casual tailoring starts to look less like a trend and more like common sense.
Our new autumn tailoring makes the case in cloth. The two-button Westbury jacket holds a bold notch lapel but comes unstructured in a variety of wool and wool-cotton blends with real texture to them. The Camberwell sits deliberately between a blazer and a chore coat, soft-shouldered and relaxed, while the Witley jacket goes further still, a shorter workwear-derived shape. In contrast, the Finsbury jacket offers a sharp, well-proportioned peak lapel that slides into smarter environments without losing comfort.
Underneath, the Morton pleated trouser does the quiet work for those who like a modern silhouette: high-rise, single-pleated, straight through the leg, cut in matching cloths so you can build a full suit or break it apart entirely. Which is, in the end, the whole idea. For a more traditional shape, the fishtail trouser, with its tapered finish, offers a slimmer overall silhouette. Either way, our tailoring isn't just meant to be occasionwear, even if that's why many people buy it - it is designed to be an extension of your everyday wardrobe, clothing you can slip into with ease and that looks as natural as anything else in your wardrobe.
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