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You’re crushed into a packed train. The heat pulsates like a Turkish bath. But instead of a towel and a smile, you’re encased in work clobber: a wool suit, a stiff-collared shirt and a tie that feels like a noose. You’re in hell.
Fortunately, there is a way out of this anguish. Joe Allen, an Islington tailor (020-7704 1040), will run you up a made-to-measure suit in 50 per cent linen, 50 per cent mohair. “It lets the air flow through, and it’s half lined, just at the front,” he says.
For something off the peg, Ermenegildo Zegna’s Traveller suit is “lighter than mohair and wool gabardine and cooler than silk — made from the finest yarns with a high-twist weave”, so the Italian design team claims.
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For those working in more informal offices, linen is the best summer staple — but don’t don it from head to toe or wear it unpressed for days. A crumple in your trousers is deliberately raffish, but not if your accompanying jacket is equally wrinkled. A white shirt is good for hiding perspiration and if, like this one, it costs under a tenner then it doesn’t matter if it gets a little grubby.
If you’re going to wear shorts to work, keep it simple: tailored, on the knee, with loafers or leather sandals. And never with socks: pull on your favourite argyle numbers and your office reputation is forever tarnished. In fact, shorts are so fraught with pitfalls that we must return to the subject — and soon.