Picking apart the new ‘soft tailoring’ trend, with the help of the experts
Brioni’s Chief Master Tailor, Tod’s Creative Director and Loro Piana’s design team weigh in on the shift to softer, unstructured suiting…
Words: Jonathan Wells
We’ve always had a soft spot for a strong suit. You know the ones; boxier than a G-Wagen and with lapels so sharp that they shouldn’t be allowed through airport security. They’re big, they’re brash, they’re bold — and they’re mostly made with a good dose of double-breasted, broad-shouldered bombast. They are, unequivocally, the pinstriped princes of power dressing.
And yet, for the last few years, these well-cut, stiffly shaped suits have fallen from favour. Since we spent the best part of two years locked-down at home, our more trimly tailored outfits have been left hanging — and brands big and small have offered up softer, less structured suits in their place.
It began with blazers; linings removed, fabrics overhauled and pockets patched. Next, the trend came for our trousers, doing away with any sharp centre creases and adding a bit of bag to those once slim-trimmed silhouettes. Ties were cast aside, shoes unlaced for sneakers and waistcoats went the distance. And this brave new wardrobe, for now at least, looks to be holding its comfortable course.
Tod’s
Take Tod’s, for example, the Italian label that has been producing shoes and chic menswear for over a century. The closest the brand’s new collection comes to suiting — or tailoring of any kind — is a range of matching shirt-jacket and trouser combos cut from linen-blend cotton, fastened with buttons and, according to the brand, offering men a “must-have of the contemporary wardrobe”.
“In this collection,” Tod’s Creative Director, Walter Chiapponi, exclusively tells Gentleman’s Journal, “I played around with different proportions, transposing a sense of chic into a younger, relaxed attitude, making casualwear look more elegant. I was inspired by the Tuscan countryside, the natural colours of the summer and relaxed attitude which you can see in the lighter weight, textured fabrications and boxy shapes used”.
It’s an interesting idea. Rather than taking formalwear and dressing it down, Chiapponi has played his hand in the soft-suiting game by dressing existing casualwear up. It’s an effective move. The unstructured strides that pair with the linen-blend jackets are even listed as ‘Baggy Trousers’ by the brand, and feature a slim elasticated waistband in lieu of belt loops or side-adjusters.
Other Tod’s pieces, such as a blue jacket with a contrasting velvety collar (and matching trousers), use multiple fabrics to add a casual edge and differentiate the pieces from conventional tailoring. Where suits were once completely cut from sharkskin, seersucker or Donegal tweed, it’s not uncommon for this softer tailoring style to embrace two — or more — materials at once.
Brioni
But fabrics, and the development of these suiting textiles, explains Angelo Petrucci, Chief Master Tailor and Head of Product Design at Brioni, have always been the driving force behind any tailoring innovation. And chief amongst these change-ups are spins on the softest suiting options: wool and cashmere.
“These have always been the main fibres,” says Petrucci. “Wool for suits and basic jackets and cashmere on the high-end. Since the beginning of the 2000s, wool has undergone a strong qualitative evolution. Research and improvements in the sector have led to much softer and more qualitative wools than cashmere, so things have changed a little, and today wool is used for suits in the higher ranges, while cashmere is still preferred for jackets, especially for especially for fulling-treated fabrics”.
"The future of tailoring is 'soft', with more relaxed and comfortable lines..."
So, while many brands have softened suits by relaxing the cuts and designs, Brioni has softened its suits on a more literal level. The label’s latest collection features the silky ‘Ravello’ jacket, the ‘Performa’ design — which ups its cashmere content, and the ‘Plume’ suit, cut from virgin wool.
“The most important developments concerned wools,” says Petrucci of the collection, “which are now softer, higher quality and more precious than cashmere. Just think that at the end of the 1990s, a summer dress weighed around 240-250 grams and now winter fabrics weigh around 230-240 grams.
“It is easy to understand how much this refers to the lightening of the fibres,” he adds, “which have become thinner. But, when worn, the result is lighter and warmer clothes with a softness superior to cashmere”.
Loro Piana
Next come the brands which have taken these two different approaches — of relaxed cuts and snug fabrics — and rolled them up into one relaxed, soft-suiting bundle. Loro Piana is one such label; offering up less-formal designs for its new collection, and creating them from soft fabrics to boot. The ‘Spagna’ is a suit blazer cut from cashmere. The ‘Gift of Kings Jacket’ has sloping shoulders and no internal padding. And the ‘New Order Jacket’ even has a detachable zip ‘dickey’ sewn into it.
“We’ve seen an increase in demand for this item,” the brand tells Gentleman’s Journal of the hybrid blazer. “And we think this multi-purpose garment could be the future of soft tailoring. This jacket can be used 24 hours a day, outside and inside. The occasions of use are sporty, but also elegant at the same time. The name, in fact, comes from this very reason, because it is a garment that can be worn all the time”.
And yet, despite championing pioneering designs including the ‘New Order Jacket’, the Italian brand maintains — like Brioni above — that it is the fabrics that hold the key to the soft suiting revolution. Innovation must begin with the textiles, the brand explains, as even the most relaxed design in the world will fail if the fabric isn’t equally comfortable.
“Materials are always very important and can be the most diverse,” the Italian brand adds. “The important thing is that they are soft and enhance the lines of the jacket, even when it comes to formal wear. Certainly the future of tailoring is ‘soft’, with more relaxed and comfortable lines, especially when it comes to timeless garments such as a tailored suit”.
It’s a compelling argument, and one that seems to be supported by the most recent menswear collections. And yet, while Loro Piana may claim that “the future of tailoring is ‘soft’”, Brioni’s Chief Master Tailor respectfully disagrees.
Armani
“Since late 2022, the signals are going in a different direction,” says the fashion house’s Angelo Petrucci. “After Covid, which led people to spend more time at home, there is now a desire to return to socialising, to be among people, to feel cooler. And, from many ‘indicators’, we see a move back towards more structured lines.
“There are, of course, the classic cyclical periods,” he adds. “And, in the last decade, there has been a strong tendency to have unstructured and super-light garments. But it seems that the trend is starting to change a little and go back towards more structured ’80s style garments”.
So could the days of softer suits be numbered? We must only look to other Italian titans, including Giorgio Armani, to see the trend’s all-encompassing, tailor-trouncing effect at present. Armani’s ‘Cupro’ two-piece is similar to Tod’s above; a casual jacket (in this case, collarless) paired with looser trousers. And it is one of many softer matching sets.
But, with lockdown fading into the past, suits may indeed firm up once more. Yet we’d recommend hanging on to any softer, unstructured suits you’ve acquired in recent years. Because, as Petrucci points out, style is cyclical, and your less-dressy suits will be back one day — in all their unpretentious, formless glory.
Want more Italian style? We spoke to Rocco Basilico about creating Ray-Ban Stories and the future of wearables…
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