What is “the British look” for men? I suspect the images that come to mind for many revolve around pinstriped bankers or Brideshead Revisited types in boating blazers — or, at a push, brooding secret agents in dinner suits. These are characters that we have collectively romanticised for decades, but they’re not to be found in Britain now.
In reality, the international image of the sharply suited Great British gentleman has taken a back seat thanks to Brexit, a certain rumple-suited former prime minister and the long-running casualisation of men’s style. Today, a banker is more likely to arrive at work in a Patagonia gilet than pinstripes, and the vast majority of Brits prefer to wrap up against the elements in Gore-Tex, not tweed.
We’ve given ground to other, better-dressed Europeans who are generally more engaged with their style and manufacturing heritage. You’re far more likely to see a stylish Milanese or Neapolitan man in an Italian-made jacket, shirt and chinos than you are a Brit sporting something produced in the UK. The watering down of British style is reinforced by the nature of the fashion industry, now dominated by multinational behemoths such as LVMH and Kering, who popularise trends on a global level. Independent brands and traditional tailors simply cannot compete.
Why does this matter? At a time when Britain’s international reputation is stagnating, the fashion industry has a role to play in presenting a dynamic and progressive view of “Britishness” to the world — something self-aware and forward-looking. In October last year, a report commissioned by the UK Fashion & Textile Association asserted that fashion contributed £62bn to the UK economy in 2021 and supports 1.3mn jobs across the country.
So, what is the image that the sector should be presenting to the world? And does the beleaguered figure of the snappily dressed gent still hold currency on the global stage?
“The origins of classic British tailoring are still very much relevant,” says Simon Holloway, Dunhill’s recently appointed creative director. “The history of English dressing, our codes and an anglicised colour and texture palette are constantly referenced in fashion today. Italian and American style is built on the back of everything classic and British.”
Before moving to Dunhill, Holloway transformed Purdey from a 210-year-old gunmaker that offered stuffy country clothes on the side into an elegant British style brand. There, he rendered sweeping overcoats and suede bombers in luxurious cashmere checks, and butter-soft leathers in refined shades of cream, taupe, chocolate and russet. Tailoring was lightly constructed, with informal touches such as patch pockets and natural shoulders. Statement pieces were toned down with easy, pleated trousers and cosy knits. They were pitch-perfect “quiet luxury” and, while classic in their component parts, felt current and stylish. “British style is at its most successful when formal codes are worn in a way that’s effortless,” Holloway concludes.
Professor Christopher Breward, fashion historian and director of National Museums Scotland, agrees that Britain’s heritage of fine tailoring still has a place in the fashion landscape, as long as it’s interpreted in an egalitarian way. He cites the suit-clad gentleman stereotype as a “staple of literature and film”, but warns against the danger of oversimplifying menswear with nostalgia alone. “If nostalgia is used creatively, it’s a rich source of inspiration, but it can at times result in a caricature that cleaves to outdated social hierarchies,” he says.
One designer who’s proven himself a past master in subverting the hallmarks of British menswear is Steven Stokey-Daley, founder of SS Daley, who made his name as a designer by exploring “the theatricality of British elitism”. A 26-year-old from Liverpool, he designs garments that playfully reinvent conservative styles associated with the English upper classes. Boating blazers, schoolboy suits and high-waisted, Oxford-bag-like trousers are reborn in flamboyant, feminine shapes with floral patterns and light-hearted collegiate stripes. “I’m interested in questioning what masculinity is,” Stokey-Daley says.
Other designers are challenging what a traditionally “masculine” British wardrobe looks like too. British-American designer Harris Reed is one of the fashion industry’s foremost champions of gender-fluid styles. To Reed, fashion “has a huge role to play in pushing the world to a more expressive and accepting place”. His designs combine a healthy dose of glam-rock attitude with an experimental approach to the suit’s traditional form and proportions.
Take, for example, the outfits he created for Harry Styles’ 2018 world tour, which nod to David Bowie and Mick Jagger with their flowing blouses, bell sleeves and dramatic tailored flares. Clothes like these are diametrically opposed to strait-laced classic menswear — designed to celebrate a youthful, creative and progressive conception of what it means to be British.
Fashion’s role in representing the complexity of British identity is crucial, says Jason Jules, one of the curators of The Missing Thread, a recent exhibition at Somerset House in London, which explored “untold stories of black British fashion”.
“British fashion always expresses tensions,” Jules says, “between high and low, smart and casual, upper and working class or black and white. That’s what makes it interesting.”
While The Missing Thread explored these tensions from the Windrush generation onwards, it also served as a reminder of the work of current black British designers such as Bianca Saunders, Grace Wales Bonner and Charlie Casely-Hayford. “To celebrate black British designers, we had to construct a narrative around black British style,” Jules explains. “But it’s a defective construct, because it should be part and parcel of the same thing — British style and black British style are one and the same.”
To Ida Petersson, former buying director at the Browns boutique in London, modern British menswear is less about presenting a sartorial image to the world and more about the mix of different influences and aesthetics. “There’s that version of British style that’s very suited and booted, but that sits alongside the more creative look that you see in east London and elsewhere. I’m most interested in brands that blend the two.” She references designers Foday Dumbuya and Nicholas Daley as examples: “They’ve been influenced by their heritage and their upbringings to make a new version of what British style is.”
Dumbuya’s brand, Labrum London, updates classic garments such as chore coats and blazers with a west African influence in the form of unexpected, vibrant prints and patterns, while Daley celebrates his Jamaican-Scottish roots in designs that combine tailoring with streetwear. This season, striped zip-through track tops sit with tartan blazers and slouchy trousers or sweatpants.
“Sportswear is its own kind of British uniform,” says Jules. “It’s always been a part of youth culture.”
Burberry, the country’s most high-profile fashion brand, has been exploring what it means to be a modern British brand for decades. The challenge for Yorkshire native Daniel Lee, who joined as creative director in late 2022, is epitomised by his choice of a new logo — an old insignia lifted from the brand’s archives, depicting an armour-clad knight on horseback, rendered in vibrant cobalt blue. The knight’s banner carries the word “Prorsum” — Latin for “forwards”. The implication is that Lee’s Burberry is at once future-facing yet deeply traditional.
This duality made itself known in Lee’s first two collections. Autumn/winter 2023 was unveiled at London Fashion Week in February last year, and it took the fashion industry by surprise. “We were all expecting a sea of beige and quiet luxury,” says Petersson, “and it was an explosion of a collection — Burberry goes to a rave in the English countryside.” Lee’s second collection, unveiled last September, was more mature. Burberry’s iconic trench coats were back in the spotlight with sensible proportions in sober colours, as was a focus on double-breasted tailoring. “There’s every kind of British personality represented in that collection, from the club kid to the tailored gentleman,” Petersson observes. “To me, it’s the perfect line-up of modern Britishness.”
Treading the line between modernity and tradition is key to a brand’s longevity and British designers need to “get the balance right”, says designer Paul Smith. His is one of few globally recognised British labels to weather decades of change — it was founded in 1970 — whilst remaining privately owned.
“When I started, there absolutely was quintessential British style, but British style these days is very hard to pinpoint,” he says. “Now, it’s British creativity, rather than style, that’s revered.” Does Smith consciously try to design clothes that feel British? “No,” he says. Instead, he sets out only to design “nice bits of kit” — neither too old-fashioned nor too high fashion.
So, what of the stereotypes we started with? Do our nostalgic ideas of the perfectly tailored gentleman stand up to scrutiny? Just. But now, he’s got company. In 2024, British style is as much about variety, contrasts and creative tensions as about classic dress codes. And it’s all the richer for it.
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