Sydney has spent most of this winter locked down, and most of the city has been working in trackpants. One thing stood out while it was happening. The only people we could reliably find still putting on a suit and a pressed shirt every morning were real estate agents.
So the question is worth asking properly, rather than as a headline. Is the suit finished?
We do not think so. We do think the reason it survives has changed, and that the change is worth paying attention to if you sell tailoring for a living.
What lockdown actually killed
For most of the last century a suit was a uniform. You owned one because the building you worked in required it, and the requirement did the selling. That is the suit that died this year, and nobody should mourn it: bought in a hurry, two sizes off the rack, worn twice a year, quietly resented. It was only ever held up by obligation, and obligation is exactly what an empty office removes.
What is left is the suit somebody chooses. Fewer of those are bought. They are worn far more.
Where we come into it
THEODORE is an Australian born custom tailored menswear brand. The plan has always been to give people access to affordable luxury and to rethink the way men shop, which mostly means using technology to remove the parts of the process nobody enjoys.
The clearest example is measurement. We have put a considerable amount of time and money into the THDR Pocket Tailor, a contactless measurement app that uses deep learning to work out your body measurements accurately enough to cut a garment from. We started building it before any of this, and it has turned out to matter more than we expected in a year when nobody wants to stand close to a stranger holding a tape measure.
If the suit does come back, it will come back as something people picked on purpose. That is a harder garment to make and a better one to own.
Every THEODORE garment is cut to your own measurements. Book an appointment at the studio, at a touring fitting, or over video.