I remember taking my eldest son to buy his first suit for sixth form. The array was bewildering. I hadn't realised that style and fabric was quite so variable and fashion led. A lot of the suits we looked at back then were quite shiny. At the moment I see the youngsters wearing very loud suits, generally teamed with brown shoes.
Nowadays my son prefers a classic look- something well cut and well made. He's always fancied a made to measure suit. His non-binary sibling loves a three piece - they rock a waistcoat!
The recent popularity of Peaky Blinders has brought tweed into the fashion foreground with everything from flat caps to tweed suits being worn everywhere from the high street to high class weddings. Team a tweed suit with a T-shirt or ditch the trousers for a kilt. Mix and match- anything goes.
Yes, Men's Tweed Suits have managed to have feet in both camps - fashion wear and timeless classic. A good tweed suit can take you from teens to retirement age if you can manage to stay the same size!
You might have an image of tweed taken from All Creatures Great and Small- a farmer type smelling of damp sheepdog. If this is the case you might think all tweed is brown and scratchy but actually modern tweed comes in a range of colours including burgundy, navy and olive green. More good news -over the decades tweed has been refined to cut down on the itchiness. Generally if you choose a reputable tailor and good quality tweed you should not have to worry about scratchiness.
Another piece of good news is that tweed is no longer finished with stale human urine. During the peaky Blinders era, a room full of tweed-wearing blokes might have smelled like the gents at closing time in a particularly grim pub especially if they'd been out in the rain. It was said that so many people wore tweed in the House of Lords that the whole place always smelled slightly of ammonia. Not so nowadays.
The process of "waulking" tweed to thicken up the fibres, set the dye and make the fabric more water resistant was efficient but the ingredients used to do this now have been updated so now you might only smell a faint odour of urine on vintage pieces. If modern clean tweed gets wet you should only smell the natural smell of damp wool.
Tweed is actually very durable- that's why country gents adopted it as it can tolerate light rain and can last generations if cared for correctly. Households used to have (and may still have) individual patterns like the Scots have family tartans.
Tweed is classless, timeless and gender fluid - everyone can wear it from a touch of tweed on a handbag to a full three piece suit and cap. This means for an event like a wedding, from tiny ring bearers to Great Grandad, everyone can look smart and stylish.
As a natural fibre, tweed would be suitable for events throughout the seasons - pick a lightweight tweed if you are planning a summer wedding. It complements a natural themed or outdoor wedding perfectly even if you aren't in the great outdoors. As the Blinder's demonstrated, tweed works just as well in an industrial environment.