Harry Mount

Why will so few shops sell me at three-button suit

  • From Spectator Life

Last week I walked along Jermyn Street, spiritual home of the gentleman’s suit, and noticed something shocking. The jackets in the shop windows had lots of materials — tweed, cotton, wool — in all colours, shades and checks. But every single jacket had two buttons.

When did tailors get so boringly uniform? Why has the three-button suit — the classic style that dominated the 20th century — been wiped off the map? As a diehard three-button man, am I a fogeyish dinosaur, a walking Bateman cartoon: ‘The Man Who Wore a Three-Button Suit in the 21st Century’?

I seek solace (and a new three-button suit, in storm- grey, 13-ounce birdseye wool) from Tina Loder, a tailor for more than 30 years, and one of the few women tailors on Savile Row. ‘We’re going through a two-button cycle, just as we went through a three-button cycle a decade ago,’ she says. ‘Two buttons signal a casual informality and egalitarianism.’

But what if I don’t want to look casually informal and egalitarian? Unlike women’s smart clothes, men’s suits are so alike that you achieve tremendous effects by tiny changes, i.e. varying the number of buttons. Remove that small freedom and you’re imprisoned by convention.

Forty per cent of Tina Loder’s tailored suits have three buttons, compared with 60 per cent that have two — thank God, I’m not the last three-button man standing. But still, that means the two-button invaders are dominating the world of bespoke suits, too.

‘The two-button is bland and neutral and so it’s not so easy to be judged on,’ says Loder. ‘It’s the opposite of a statement — David Cameron wears them all the time. The two-button is cooler but the three-button is definitely smarter. Still, no one wants to look smart.

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