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Get down to your local supermarket and grab a suit for £19!

Plus.......Ten Top Buying Tips for men

One of the more novel items making the headlines has been a famous supermarket chain selling men’s suits for a mere £19! A week later the price went up to match that of their two competitors - £25. How on earth can they do that? We’ve been given two answers: firstly, garments are made in countries where the cost of living and rates of pay are much lower; and secondly, the quantities of garments these supermarkets sell means that they can buy their fabric ‘by the mile’ thereby receiving huge quantity discounts.

So what about the traditional men’s outfitters – how are they going to fare with this latest onslaught on retailing from the all-powerful supermarkets? What have they got to offer?

That stalwart of the British high street, Marks & Spencer, has a two-button navy pinstripe on offer from their Autograph range in pure wool starting from £120: great value for a regular-shaped young man starting out his career or looking for an option in his 6th form at school. Moving up the high street, Austin Reed is offering two-piece suits in its sale from £199 (non-sale £299) with their Bespoke “personally tailored” range starting from £499. Taking a look at the personal tailoring market, in their made-to-measure range, Tom James has suits starting at £469 with their custom-made suits starting from £659.  Zaheer Ravilla from Tom James said: “A well tailored suit improves your posture and makes you feel more confident and successful, whereas stripping away that tailoring exposes you more.”

Ethics to one side, is this a nifty bargain or actually a waste of time and money?   Perhaps understanding what a suit can or can’t do for you is the key. Bernhard Roetzel wrote in his classic Gentleman – A Timeless Fashion: “Clothes are the visiting card of a personality, and should therefore be chosen to match it.” In our opinion, clothes should:

Pearl Binder wrote, introducing her fascinating anthropological observation of dress, in Dressing up, Dressing Down:  “The most powerful force in the history of dress is the desire to be on the winning side in the struggle for survival. King or peasant, millionaire or beggar, slave-girl or liberated woman, they all want security for themselves and their families. Since what they wear is in closest personal contact to their bodies, affecting themselves directly and also seen by others as part of themselves, dress plays a vital role in their lives”.  

So is the £25 supermarket suit capable of any of the above? Might it put you on the winning side, help you secure the contract, make that deal, get you the job, promotion, pay rise or social introduction? Ray Peck at Austin Reed commented “It might look good for a day, but after that ….”