Wear a suit to the office. It’s a special occasion…
by Priya Elan
He’s the designer famed for reviving Savile Row tailoring in the Cool Britannia era of the 90s with his sleek, jewel-coloured suits. Since then, office attire has become less formal and working from home has taken off, yet Ozwald Boateng believes rumours of the death of the suit are greatly exaggerated.
When Boateng opened his shop on Savile Row in the 90s, he was part of the “New Bespoke Movement”: hip young gunslingers who were seen as modernising the area, cutting through the elitism.
“In the late 1990s, Cool Britannia was reaching a global audience and Savile Row was ripe for being reinvented,” says Professor Andrew Groves, director of the Westminster Menswear Archive.
“Like Tommy Nutter in the 1970s, Ozwald Boateng, along with Richard James, Timothy Everest and Richard Anderson, made it cool to hang out on Savile Row.”