Suitable behaviour: the smart and glamorous trouser suit

The baffling thing about the fashion industry’s current obsession with plundering the dressing-up boxes of decades gone by is that most of the items being resuscitated are things we were secretly glad to get rid of first time around – bone-crushing hipster pants, itchy angora jumpers and unflattering A-line skirts, to name just a few.

So it is cause for celebration when designers embrace a look that is retro in the sense that it is something we all know and love, but has been sufficiently updated for us to feel that we’re getting a new look. This is what has happened to the humble trouser suit, for decades an understated and overlooked wardrobe staple, which has suddenly come into its own. At the forefront of the new wave of suits are Paul Smith, who now applies his genie-like tailoring talents to women’s suits as well as men’s; French designer Agnes b, who has built her core business around impeccably-fitted women’s suits in lightweight wool with trouser shapes ranging from drainpipe to flares; and Calvin Klein, who has been lured away momentarily from all things casual to embrace formal tailoring.

The reasons for the suit revival are simple: suits are comfortable, smart, glamorous and, most importantly, hide a multitude of sins. Can’t be bothered to iron your shirt? Easy, just press the front and stick a jacket over it (remembering not to take it off, of course). So you over-indulged on the designer beer? No problem, a long jacket hides the fact that your trousers don’t fasten at the waist any more. Thankfully, suit trousers are usually cut roomily enough to allow for easy readjustments of the waistband.

Unlike the shoulder-padded nightmares of the eighties, nineties suits are all about casual power. The new suits are saying “Get out of my way, I’m important” but they’re doing it in a subtle, unthreatening way.

The suit has come a long way since Coco Chanel was first photographed lounging around in a man’s tweed ensemble, way back in 1929. In fact, she caused something of a storm. Although the silent movie era had featured starlets swathed in silky pyjama suits, the sight of a woman wearing a sharply tailored jacket and trousers, with the attendant undertones of androgyny and male power, was not only new but decidedly shocking.

It wasn’t until the second world war, with the sudden influx of women into traditionally male jobs, that women’s trouser suits really came into their own. Women started wearing them to work and after the war, when designers developed their first ready-to-wear collections, trouser suits gradually became an alternative to the formal skirt suits introduced by Dior with his New Look.

Trouser suits have always turned women into instant action heroes – from Katharine Hepburn, who zipped around the world’s war zones and broke hearts as a besuited war reporter in The Philadelphia Story, to Agent Dana Scully, trouser suit goddess in TV’s X Files, who pits her wits against space aliens and psychic phenomena. But in fact, all any female viewer wants to know is where we can buy an identical teal blue suit.

Recently, suits have made a comeback, both in London’s Savile Row – where bespoke tailors are starting to cater for female customers (the cost of a bespoke suit can be pounds 1,500) – and in Hollywood. Powerful actresses such as Jodie Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Demi Moore have been photographed wearing sharply -tailored dark creations by the likes of Cerruti, Jil Sander and Armani. But a word of caution: even these movie queens don’t always look brilliant in their new outfits, because though comfortable and practical, suits can be hard to carry off.

For instance, Catherine Deneuve looks awesome in her square-shouldered Yves Saint Laurent black evening suit – but most other people wouldn’t be able to get away with it. If you opt for a very masculine-tailored suit, a word of caution: you don’t want to end up looking like an extra (a male extra) from Married To The Mob.

The fun of wearing trouser suits is that, even after all these years, they still put a spin on female sexuality. You can either tart them up by wearing full make-up, stilettos and a Wonderbra under the jacket (not recommended), or scrape your hair back, go bare-faced and test how many people will address you as “son”. If in doubt, remember that even Marlene Dietrich could look like a man.

My own trouser suit obsession can be traced back to the days of Charlie’s Angels. Imagine, they had big hair, they had fast guns AND they had turquoise trouser suits. But no matter how diligently I scoured the high streets of Glasgow, I failed to find a Charlie’s Angels trouser suit.

Now my prayers have been answered, in the shape of Jigsaw’s casual, slightly flared, unstructured suit. It’s not in turquoise but, hell, I’m not complaining.

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