Say what you want - a good suit never goes out of style

Events, and news, and conversations provoke me and stir distant memories including those I have tried to forget.

In his poem 'The Road Not Taken', published in 1915, Robert Frost penned:

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Years ago, I was criticised for wearing a suit and the feedback hurt.

I was unsure as to why because I was somewhat hardened to negative feedback, developing a layer of scar tissue, but there were moments that still stung.

Surprisingly, it was nothing to do with the cut of the suit nor the occasion, it was the colour that some opponents found so confronting.

My dad was not from money.

In fact, his family was very poor before, during, and after the Second World War, and they probably didn't need to be.

My grandad was an electrician at the famous Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast where the Titanic was built.

To have a trade at that time without an education was significant yet, like many men who had returned from war, he drank.

His wage was often spent before he finally stumbled through the front door.

A generation later, it took me years to understand why my dad gave mum his pay packet unopened and she returned him an 'allowance' of sorts.

I treasure the memory and can still smell the dox matrix perforated edges of the sealed envelope that concealed the hard-earned.

And in all this self-inflicted poverty my family understood the importance of dressing well.

When dad left the British Airforce, he bought a suit.

I suspect that suits off the rack were a rarity in the late 1950s so it was crafted by a tailor.

He detested a "sloppy suit that fitted like an orange sack!", so handmade it was.

To make a suit is to have your unique measurements recorded and fabric cut from patterns before stitching together to form a jacket and pants or skirt with a waistcoat adding formality and three pieces to the ensemble.

Mark Twain wrote a short story titled 'The Czar's Soliloquy', published in the North American Review of March 1905 where he offered:

"As Teufelsdrockh suggested, what would man be - what would any man be - without his clothes?

As soon as one stops and thinks over that proposition, one realises that without his clothes a man would be nothing at all; that the clothes do not merely make the man, the clothes are the man; that without them he is a cipher, a vacancy, a nobody, a nothing."

And hundreds of years earlier, in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet', Polonius instructs his son Laertes to consider his clothing choices because "apparel oft proclaims the man".

While for a lame example, the Swedish hitmakers Roxette wrote Dressed for Success:

"I'm gonna get dressed for success,

Shaping me up for the big time, baby..."

A well-tailored suit can feel like armour.

When sent into metaphorical battle where pressure resides a suit can enshrine a sense of confidence, a connection to courage.

And although it may be distant from the truth, it can make all the difference.

Matched with a white shirt, to hide nervousness, a good fitting suit can ensure that preparation and message sounds good and feels even better.

A suit acknowledges formality.

It shows respect.

My mates for as long as I can remember have dressed up for our local club's presentation dinner.

And while it was not always suits, it was the best clothes and style we could afford.

The dreaded but now enculturated working from home has lessened dress sense with business or polo shirts often coupled with comfortable track pants and Ugg boots now becoming common attire for important online events.

The colour of my suit was slightly ahead of its time, a royal blue with faint pinstripes.

As a nod to my dad, it was crafted by a tailor and for a short legged, long bodied, short armed person of medium stature, it was ideal.

The suit was made in Sydney and the fact that I didn't buy it locally caused a stir.

If I had worn the royal blue faint pinstripe crafted from Tasmania merino wool in Sydney or Melbourne no one would have noticed, and just a few years later the colour was considered acceptable in Launceston.

But at that time, not yet.

A grey or charcoal suit would have stirred not a comment, but that wasn't the suit for me.

Having a couple of good suits on rotation makes life easy.

It also heightens your sense of occasion and, like my dad, gives a respectful nod to those who have gone before you and paved a path.

Looking good and feeling great through creating your own sense of fashion will wax and wane, but a good fitting suit for moments that matter will never go out of style.