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On Occasion - The Yarn Summer '25 Edition…
On Occassion
& Why Dressing the Part Matters
by Ed Smith
"It looked manageable enough in theory: land in Bangalore in the morning, get organised during the day, then give a speech at the Literary Festival later the same afternoon. But it's never quite as easy when the travel day actually rolls round, the jet lag kicks in, and you're staring bleakly into a hotel mirror knowing it will soon be replaced by an audience full of people."
Ed Smith teams a made-to-measure suit we created for him in Smith Woollens high twist Finmeresco with a Chambray Linen Shirt.
None of the usual tricks worked (walk/gym/company) and I was beginning to think I wouldn't emerge in time from drowsy half-sleep. Until, at the last minute, I put on an (unnecessary) jacket and tie – and found myself in performance mode almost immediately. It sounds trite, but it was a little like the transformation a batsman experiences while 'padding up' into cricket gear before opening the batting – moving from one state to another, almost from one person to another.
Dress – just like food – is one part necessity, one part ritual. And like all rituals, clothes send signals to our brains about how we are going to interact with the world around us. I'm not especially religious, but when my whole family attends a church service together, I've noticed that we tend to have a happy day. (We make an effort with each other, too.)
“One of the unfortunate side-effects of perpetual informality – never dressing up for anything – is that it flattens variance, like a life without weather. If you're always in gym clothes, there are no seasons in your life.“
When we idly tot up hours spent on this and that, what matters and what doesn't, where time is 'invested' where 'wasted', I'm less utilitarian in assessing the profit and loss than I used to be. Sport and clothes (two interests of mine) – lacking seriousness? Not really. I now see that sport (from the vantage point of a retired professional) is more incidentally about the transient question of winning and losing than I trained myself to believe. It's intrinsically civilised to agree rules, codes and customs – and then try to uphold them in the furnace of competition.
And clothes? They are just a visible tip of the style with which you step through life. And in order to step through life first you have to step into life. And we do that by choosing how to present ourselves in the (real) world. Does anyone want to look back on their life and remember principally a never-ending zoom call populated by tracksuits? I dislike over-formality and dress codes (especially black tie) because they standardise expectations and flatten self-expression. Far better when people decide for themselves.
We cut this Made-to-Measure suit for Ed from Smith Woollens high twist Finmeresco. It's travel friendly in a summer weight with patch pockets and a natural shoulder.
Many years ago, at a concert at Symphony Hall in Boston, my wife and I were stopped in our tracks by an elegant and exquisitely dressed couple (we guessed in their late 80s). People who make an effort subtly enhance everyone else's experience of the occasion. I've forgotten the musical programme that night, but I still remember those two members of the audience. And I'm sure the composer wouldn't begrudge losing out to a different kind of beauty.
There is one unavoidable consequence of our age of informality: people aren't going to put up with being uncomfortable. Which is good news, actually, if you think clothes are there to be lived in and enjoyed, rather than as a status symbol or to hurdle a dress code barrier.
Ed Smith is the director of the Institute of Sports Humanities & author of Making Decisions.
Photography by Josh Shinner
Our full printed Summer Edition of The Yarn is out now in our London and Cotswolds stores. Our second edition celebrates the season and the topics we love to yarn about - a sense of occasion, good honest food, travel, a fine ale in the countryside, and so on. It also celebrates some big news we feel is very worthy of a yarn - the opening of our Cotswolds store this summer. We hope you enjoy your copy which will be shipped with every order and of course, available in store.
