The Shiny Suit

I bought a shiny suit.  It was sort of blue grey and shimmered as it caught the light.  The knife edge creases down the drainpipe trouser legs accentuated the shimmer.  It was gross, terrible, beyond bad taste.

It was tonly the second suit I ever bought.   The first was when I had just turned 17.  I was a soldier and purchased my suit from a shop in the Strand, London.   It was on the corner of the Strand and Waterloo Bridge. It was Hornes or Hornes Brothers, something like that.   Very posh, all mahogany and sales assistants wearing three-piece suits with tape measures around their necks.  I think they probably did quite a trade with soldiers because it was so close to Waterloo station which was a major hub for the great military establishments in the Aldershot area,  Blackdown, Pirbright, Deepcut, Farnbourgh and so on.   There was even a military ticket office at Waterloo where they would stamp your rail warrants.   I suspect many bought their suits at Hornes.    Mine was a three piece in Prince of Wales check.   Lots of soldiers, in fact most soldiers wore Price of Wales check, all ranks.   And almost the entire officer corps of the British Army was, at that time, wearing Prince of Wales check.   It didn’t have a style, my suit,  that you could really categorise, except that the trousers had turnups which was very fashionable.    The sales assistants said things like “oh that’s very smart sir”  “Quite the English gentleman sir”   “perfect fit sir”  They also sold me a tie from their comprehensive collection of regimental ties and of course I bought one for my own regiment.

I do not think I ever wore that suit, for within a month of so of its purchase I was posted to Singapore.   Out there no one wore suits.   Shirt sleeves was the general mode of dress, Short sleeves in the day, long sleeves in the evening, sometimes with a tie, a regimental tie.   Oh, I wore the trousers to the suit, quite often, but never donned the jacket let alone the waistcoat.  They hung, unused in my steel locker or packed away in a kitbag.  I even took them to Borneo, in the middle of the jungle, just in case the occasion might arise for the wearing of a three piece.    By the time my Far East tour came to an end, then it was clear that the trousers had been worn and washed so often, bashed to death by the dhobi wallahs on their washing stones, that they had somewhat faded and unfortunately no longer matched the Prince of Wales check of the jacket and waistcoat.

It was a tradition for soldiers in the Far East, in Hong Kong or Singapore, who were being posted back to the UK to order a suit.   The Chinese tailors would, for the fraction of the price of suit from Hornes, make you a tailer made suit to your own specifications.   And throw in two or three tailer made shirts as well.   The Chinese tailors wore a vest and shorts and would tell you “velly smart sir, velly smart”   “Plopper ingliss gentleman sir”

That is where, just before my return to England, I bought my shiny suit.   We were rather out of touch with fashion developments back in the UK.

I only wore the shiny suit twice.   The first time was for my wedding.  It reacted badly to the flash guns on the wedding photographer and to this day I sometimes have to wear sunglasses when I look at the resulting photographs.    It is probably true to say that I looked more radiant than the bride.  It may have contributed to the subsequent divorce.

The second time was to a business meeting the recollection of which still causes me to cringe in embarrassment, for I looked like the proverbial all time office prat.  Later, on the disco dance floor, beneath the ultraviolet lights I came to understand the true meaning of radiance and the true humiliation of wearing the wrong suit.

I gave it away shortly afterwards, to Oxfam.    I spotted it a few weeks later being worn by a worker on a gang of roadmen repairing potholes on the Maid Marion Way in Nottingham.   It was before the days of health and safety when such workers are routinely be issued with hi vis clothing.

Of course, since then I have bought many suits.  Being a barrister requires you conform to the sartorial standards of the bar and the courts.  So they are all black, with one or two pinstripe suits.  All three piece, for a proper barrister must wear a waistcoat with at least for waistcoaty pockets; two for the gold chain and fob watch, one for the snuff box and one for paperclips.   What you could not possibly wear in court is a shiny suit.  You would need to distribute to the judge and each of the jury members, a pair of those carboard 3D glasses they give you in cinemas.

We could not possibly have that!