Are Suits Coming Back In 2026? I Don’t Think They Ever Left!

A few years ago it really did feel like the suit was dying.

Covid happened, offices emptied, everyone got used to working in joggers and hoodies at home and then once people started drifting back into offices there was this huge push towards “dressing for your day”. Sounded great in theory - relaxed, modern, trusting grown adults to make sensible decisions about what’s appropriate depending on what they’re doing and who they’re seeing that day.

Fast forward to the present and the problem is that a lot of people don’t actually know what’s appropriate anymore… and it’s not about what I think. It’s what I’m hearing from so many senior clients I see every week : “Things have gone too far the other way.”

I’ve definitely seen a noticeable shift back towards smarter dressing across a lot of the different industries and clients we work with and not just in the obvious sectors either. Finance, insurance and law yes, but property too, consulting, leadership teams, younger graduates trying to get ahead, even firms that spent years relaxing dress codes are starting to review them again because they see that it’s time for a little structure and discipline to be put back into place (actually let’s call it guidance, sounds far less draconian to those of a sensitive disposition).

One of my clients at Deloitte told me recently they had to pull a team member off a new banking client’s floor and send him home because instead of wearing what was appropriate for that environment, which in this case realistically meant at least suit and shirt, the guy turned up in a sports team top ( I think it was a rugby shirt), jeans and trainers. Not smart leather trainers either. Proper running trainers. The kind you’d wear to go and do 10k round Richmond Park.

Now I know there’ll definitely be some people reading this with twitchy keyboard fingers and thinking “who cares what someone wears?” but seriously come on, if you’re trusting somebody with huge sums of money, major decisions or important projects, what makes you instinctively feel safer and more reassured? The person who looks prepared, polished and intentional or the guy dressed like he’s doing some casual gardening either side of popping out to Tesco for a meal deal and a Lucozade?

Whether you like it or not, your clothes/outfit still communicate competence. Always has and always will.

What’s interesting though is I don’t think this shift is actually about the suit itself. I think what’s really happening is people are searching for some structure in their lives again. A few years of ultra casual dressing sounded liberating at first, but for a lot of men it just created decision fatigue and stress because smart casual is so much harder to work out and pull off than just wearing a good suit and shirt.

I don’t think enough people talk about this (because their scared of the backlash from the anti-suit community... it’s like the return to office versus work from home wars that still rage on socials). We should talk about it and stop and think about things rather than just talk past each other all the time. So hear me out.

When you wear a suit, most of the decisions you have to make disappear. You know you look appropriate, everything works together and you know with absolute certainty that you can walk into any meeting, lunch, event or unexpected situation without feeling underdressed or awkward. It removes friction from your life. You’ve got enough other things to be worrying about.

Smart casual on the other hand? Total minefield (and mindfxxx).

Every morning becomes “right… which jacket goes with these trousers?”, “are these shoes too casual?”, “is this too formal?”, “what if I suddenly get dragged into a client meeting?”, “does this make me look stylish or like a geography teacher on a school trip?” “what’s going on with the weather today?”

The irony is a lot of men aren’t actually very good at dressing smart casual because the trick to it is having a grasp of some basic fundamentals and rules, it’s about education and guidance and above all, it’s about great instinct. It’s very easy to get wrong. You either end up looking too stiff and corporate or you go too far the other way and suddenly look like you’ve completely given up on life.

And if this is sounding to you like I’m being anti-smart casual trust me I’m not. Personally I prefer to dress in jacket/trouser combinations rather than a suit (especially in summer) but I do it in a way that if I were standing among a sea of suit wearers I still look like the most competent person in the room. That’s talent and the reason why people seek me out to help them!

But getting back to the subject in hand I think a lot of men have quietly reached the point where they’re thinking “I’m just going back to wearing a suit because it’s faster and easier”.

I totally get it.

I first started to notice this shift “in the wild” after Christmas. I was travelling into town on one of my own rare “smart casual” days (which for me basically means no tie, but I’m still wearing a waistcoat with tailored jhinos and a casual jacket because apparently I’m incapable of dressing like a “normal” person even on my days off.

Anyway, I sat down on the tube and opposite me were three completely unrelated men all wearing suits and ties. Not together. Just three random guys in the same carriage. And the funny thing is I suddenly felt underdressed. ME! I’m the tailor and I felt totally self-conscious and underdressed.

Since then I’ve noticed it more and more. Walking around the City, travelling on trains, seeing clients arrive for appointments. I always have this mental snapshot in my head of what a client looked like the last time I saw them and recently I’ve had several moments where somebody walks in wearing a tie and the impact is so big. It’s like they’ve suddenly rediscovered their mojo! They instantly look sharper, more confident, more authoritative and weirdly enough more relaxed in themselves too.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is happening during a period of economic uncertainty because over a 23+ year career I’ve seen this cycle happen so many times now. When economies are booming people get more relaxed, more complacent, standards slip and everybody starts experimenting with just how casual they can get away with being. Then uncertainty creeps in and suddenly everyone wants to look busy, competent and important again.

Harsh? To some of you, maybe. True? Absolutely.

The property industry is a great example because they have been a lot slower than a lot of sectors to move back towards smartening up. Literally last week I arrived at CBRE expecting to discuss summer smart casual with a very senior client and instead he sat down (in a tie which knocked me for six because I’ve not seen him wear a tie for nearly 10 years now) and said “we need to rebuild my suit wardrobe”. Not only that, he told me he was moving back towards double cuff shirts and ties as well.

That says so much.

What’s also interesting is there’s a younger generation of guys who’ve realised that dressing properly is one of the easiest ways to distinguish themselves positively from the pack. I’m seeing this especially with younger lawyers, graduates and ambitious guys in competitive industries because when everybody around you is dressing like they’ve wandered into work accidentally, simply wearing a well tailored suit immediately makes you stand out as the one who knows what their doing, no matter how young you might be. It’s the secret of my own early success after all (long story for another time but in a nutshell - 19 year old in computer sales, youngest team member, always wears three piece suit in casual environment, becomes no 1 sales person because all the clients who walk in to our offices want to speak to that guy.

Now obviously not every industry is going to move fully back towards smarter dress. Tech, creative roles and certain back-office positions are probably never going to need suits and honestly they shouldn’t have to. But even there I’m hearing more conversations around minimum professional standards because somewhere along the line “casual” became confused with “whatever” and those are not the same thing at all.

The phrase I use most in the workroom with new clients these days is probably “tailored but comfortable” and that perfectly sums up where menswear is headed. The skinny suit era is dead thankfully because most men don’t actually want to feel shrink-wrapped anymore, but at the same time they don’t want oversized 90s baggy suits either. They want clothes that look elegant, effortless and flattering while feeling as comfortable as the casual clothes they’re used to wearing.

This is something I obsess over because tailoring should never feel restrictive. One of my favourite moments with new clients is when somebody who never normally wears suits has their first try on and looks genuinely shocked by how comfortable it feels. I’ve had wedding clients tell me my suits feel more comfortable than their stretch chinos and jumpers and that’s exactly how it should be.

Even I’ve changed! There was definitely a phase where my own jeans, chinos and jhinos became too fitted and looking back through old reels I can see I was fighting against my own proportions visually. Now my trousers are cut straighter - not baggy, not oversized, just softer and more natural flowing through the leg and not only does it look better on me, it’s far more comfortable too.

I make mistakes as well. Yes you read that right, I do. And I hate it when I do, but I’m so busy helping everyone else that I don’t get a moment to stop and properly reassess my own wardrobe until I suddenly realise “hang on… this isn’t working anymore.” Recently I had to make an appointment with myself to properly rethink my personal wardrobe and honestly the difference it made mentally was absolutely huge. It reminded me why it’s so important for people to actually invest time into this stuff rather than leaving everything till the last minute or forever winging it and expecting magic to happen overnight.

And that’s probably the bigger point below all of this.

I don’t think what’s really happening is “the return of the suit”. I think what’s happening is people are searching for confidence, structure, clarity, competence and identity again and the suit just happens to be one of the clearest visual expressions of all those things.

Because once someone starts dressing with more intention again, lots of other things happen too. They carry themselves differently, feel more prepared, more confident, more visible. They stop second guessing themselves - their outfits become a visual explainer of how they operate in the world.

That’s why when someone comes to me I’m not really interested in simply selling them a suit. I need to understand the person properly because I’m taking a 360 degree view on how I can help them in all the different environments they move and operate in. Business, weddings, presenting, networking, leadership, events. Different versions of themselves require different tools and clothing is one of the tools in their arsenal (sorry my team just won the Premier League so had to slip that in somewhere!).

One of my longest standing clients, Mino Themistocli, recently celebrated his 70th birthday and during conversation with guests he was introducing me to, he said something that genuinely stayed with me. He said the greatest thing I’d given him over the years was the outward appearance of confidence. Not just clothes - confidence. Presence and impact. The ability to walk into a room and immediately command attention AND be remembered for a long time afterwards.

I think that’s why the suit never truly disappeared because deep down most people still want to feel exactly that.