GROOMS’ ROOM

STEPHEN BISHOP Tailor-made choices could well be for darker colours and heavier fabrics

Post pandemic menswear

The menswear industry shares the view that 2021 will be a good year, although grooms choices may be different because of seasonal conditions and style of weddings. Dominic Bliss reports

Adam McGovern and Eather Quinlan, an engaged couple from New Jersey, had been hoping for a big wedding this year, with plenty of friends and family in attendance. Then Covid-19 struck, scuppering their plans entirely. Unlike most couples, though, they weren’t willing to wait for the pandemic to pass before they got hitched. “We decided that, since we had no idea when the actual, traditional ceremony would take place, there was no time like the present,” said Quinlan.

Their solution? An online marriage. McGovern applied to the Governor of New Jersey and received special permission for him and his fiancée to be married by local officials via the video-conference platform Zoom. On 20 May 20, with the couple at their home and the town mayor a few miles away in his office, the knot was tied.

Unusual times call for unusual solutions. Just like every other type of social gathering in the UK, weddings are having to adapt enormously to the pandemic. From 4 July in England, weddings with up to 30 guests were permitted. In Northern Ireland, outdoor weddings with up to ten people are allowed. Restrictions are tighter in Wales while now in Scotland, up to 15 people from five different households cn attend an outdoor wedding.

What does all this mean for men’s wedding wear? Will post-pandemic weddings have an effect on the suits that grooms, best men and their ushers select for the big day?

A move from lightweight fabrics

Wedding logistics are sure to impact. Since venues were closed for all of spring and the start of summer, there will be extra demand for the rest of the year. With more autumn

TORRE Narrow cuts and coordinating accessories make the statement here

and winter weddings on the cards, and foreign weddings increasingly unlikely because of travel restrictions, grooms might opt for darker suit colours, or shy away from the very lightweight fabrics.

Stephen Bishop runs a successful showroom in the Surrey town of Woking, offering suit tailoring, retail and hire. “There is no doubt the rescheduling of weddings means many more winter or off-peak weddings which will definitely change the type of suits we make for people,” he says. “Suits will be more winter weight or tweedy than is logical for summer weddings, and no doubt colour schemes of entire weddings will change to reflect the season.”

Since the coronavirus is less infectious in the open air, there will be many more wedding receptions staged outside. Could this result in Sales could win over hire less formal dress all round? After Of course, smaller weddings equate all, while morning suits look perfect to cheaper weddings, which means in a village church, they are hardly grooms may have more cash to splash designed for muddy back gardens. on their wedding suits. And after

Retailers should think about inthree months of lounging about the store social house in T-shirts distancing. Suits will be more winter weight and tracksuit Fearful of bottoms, they will infection, or tweedy than is logical for be keen to look grooms and other male summer weddings, and no sartorially sharp. Bishop members of doubt colour schemes will believes that the party will certainly be change to reflect the season smaller, lowerbudget weddings reluctant to could alter the spend hours being suited up in stuffy dynamic of suit hire versus suit retail. fitting rooms. Might this have an effect During normal years he often sells a on the industry’s usual hire-buy ratio? suit to the groom, while hiring suits No groom with any self-respect would to the same groom’s best man and buy his suit online, but he might prefer ushers. But with less money spent to visit a retailer with more shop space on stag parties and receptions, he and better ventilation. suspects he might sell two suits to

WILVORST Classical blues and greys plus greens and deep reds are the shades of choice

each wedding party: one to the groom and another to the best man.

“From a suit company perspective, if we sell more suits mixed with less hire, ironically we may be more profitable due to hire being very labour intensive and costly to maintain,” he adds.

Looking good

So, now that lockdown has been lifted, what suit styles are on offer? Andy Roberts is the UK representative for Wilvorst Herrenmoden GMBH, one of Europe’s largest wedding suit wholesalers. He says that for wedding suits, his main focus will “continue to be blues and greys in pure wool lightweight flannel fabric”, although he is seeing green and deep red suits for the more adventurous grooms.

For their standard suits, Wilvorst offer two-button, peak-lapel jackets with an extra ticket pocket in a jetted style, plus drainpipe sleeves. The trousers are plain-fronted with slimline legs and side adjusters.

Another major label is Torre, from Portugal, run in the UK by Jorge Nuno Correia. He sees blue, grey and, to a lesser extent, burgundy as the most prominent colours across all his collections, with slim jackets remaining popular.

Both Correia and Roberts agree that, with much of the 2020 wedding season already lost, retailers would be wise to focus their attention on preparing for a what is increasingly looking like a bumper 2021 season.

They have a point: according to a survey by the wedding planner website Hitched, 44 per cent of British couples who have postponed their weddings this year have rescheduled them for 2021.

Prepare for the busy time

“2021 already looks to be a huge year, but our retailers have to have the cashflow to get there,” Roberts stresses. “With the government furlough scheme, grants, loans and hopefully some autumn weddings to generate cash, it will still be tough. However, being a glass-half-full person, I believe we will make it to 2021 together and all reap the rewards. Positivity, positivity, positivity.”

It’s possible that, across the fashion trade in general, there will be a postpandemic bounce; in the short-term, at least. But all the positivity in the world isn’t going to stave off the major economic recession that is just around the corner. All retailers must be prepared for a clientele with less disposable income. It’s well known that, during tough economic times, men eschew more adventurous styles and find comfort in traditional, tried and tested fashion. When it comes to wedding wear, this must be good news for the classic morning suit.

Andy Roberts at Wilvorst certainly thinks so. “I am pleased to say classic tails still have a following,” he says. “There is still no style to compare to an elegant, timeless tailcoat.”