The casual two-piece suit is one of the more useful garments you can have, but it remains a fairly small category for us in our custom tailoring. Most folks likely consider them a bit difficult to wear, and generally equate “suit” with “dressy.” When the idea is to wear tailored clothing more casually, the obvious impulse is to pick up odd trousers and a sport jacket.
I think this is simply due to limited awareness of how much more broad the suit category can be beyond navy and grey business attire, and the ease of which you can split a casual suit into separates. With a more casual suit, the outfits can range from somewhat dressy with a tie, easy and low-key with a tee or open-necked shirt, and any myriad of looks when wearing the jacket and trousers on their own.
Let’s first try to briefly define what makes a “casual” suit. The texture of the cloth is primarily what pushes a particular suit into casual attire, but color can also play a role. Most everyone would agree a pure linen suit in almost any color or pattern is casual. It wrinkles and it rumples, and that’s not appropriate in many offices, even in a dark navy solid.
When you get into textured but more closer-to-traditional suiting fabrics, let’s say a fine wool with just a bit of silk and linen in the mix, it can be a little harder to nail down. A deep navy in a sharp cut will read quite dressy, as the majority wool content will keep it from wrinkling much. An olive green in exactly the same fabric, cut in a single breasted suit with three open patch pockets on the jacket, would be quite casual and very easy to wear as separates. Often, it just comes down to the old adage of “you know it when you see it.”
In summer weight fabrics, the simplest logic is that if there is a substantial amount of linen, silk, or cotton in the fabric, it’s likely to be best worn in a more casual manner.
Here I’m showing two suits – a dark brown pure linen twill from Maison Hellard in France, and a light tan silk and linen blend from Loro Piana. These are both constructed of noticeably textured fabrics, which have a fair bit rumpling that clearly separates them from their dressier worsted wool suit counterparts. The tan silk and linen might appear a touch dressy in photos, although in person the cloth is actually quite “slubby” in the weave.
As these are still matching two-piece garments, it remains simple to dress them up to a certain extent when the situation calls for it. When paired with a tie, the look can be rather elegant for events like outdoor evening cocktail parties. Personally I prefer dressing them down a bit. Recently I’ve worn the tan silk and linen with an open-neck seersucker shirt to drinks at The Lobby Bar, and the brown linen with a tee at an oyster bar at sunset by the Hudson.
Separating the garments is as simple as any neutral color odd trousers or sport jacket. The texture of the cloth helps the jackets pair beautifully with jeans or chinos, and the trousers can be worn just on their own as a lighter and more breathable denim replacement, or as a base for casual blazers.
