Striking gold with suiting at M&S

I will start out completely honest here, I have never really got on with Marks & Spencer suits. It is nothing against them in particular, they just don't really fit me.

As previously discussed, I have found buying suits for a guy my shape and size pretty difficult if I don't want to look like I am stealing from my dad's wardrobe. Marks & Spencer has often fallen into the category of shops which delivered exactly that aesthetic and so I have given them a wide berth for a few years.

But all that changed recently.

My little sister is getting married this summer in Greece and has asked me to be the MC for her ceremony. All of this means I need a new suit - and a new suit which fits two key requirements:

> It needs to work in the heat

> It needs to look good

Having exhausted many of the high street options (more on them another time), I wandered into M&S ostensibly to look for a hat to go with the outfit and stumbled across their sale - and a few absolute gems.

I have been playing around with the idea of a suit of separates for the occasion - let me know what you think of that in the comment below - and a pair of skinny and summery light blue suit trousers was on my list. Well gents...

These are a 28" waist with a 31" leg. Now I am properly short, so I will still need to turn these up a couple of inches, but the beauty of them is that they actually don't lose all their shape when you do that, unlike some slimmer or skinny cut suit trousers.

The waist is a neat and perfect fit and even allows for tucking in a shirt. So a massive shout out to M&S for this sizing. I have literally never seen it before in their shops and I've reached out to ask what lines it is available on, so I will keep you posted.

Next up, trying something a bit different. You may have heard of the brilliantly monikered Style and Error on Instagram, or stylist and writer Tom Stubbs to give him his proper name. If not, check him out. He has had me lusting after the idea of straighter, slightly looser fit tailoring for a while. But I have never, every been able to make that work.

Surely linen and cotton summer suits offer the chance?

It turns out they sort of do. [Excuse the stupid grin, I'm not a master of the mirror selfie yet]. These are a cotton and flax (linen) blend with a 30" waist and a 36" leg. Needless to say they will need quite some shortening, but they gave me hope.

I think the key here is that they are actually a slim fit trouser - even though they may not look like it. But maybe, just maybe, with a small waist and a slim cut, us smaller guys can try out the less structured tailoring look too.

One more thing which I stumbled across on the trip is this t-shirt.

Now, if i had assumed M&S suits didn't work for me, I had completely given up the ghost on t-shirts there. So this one from the David Gandy for Autograph collection really was a welcome surprise. It is genuinely the first M&S t-shirt I have been able to wear. Ever.

You can find it here. It is, of course, the smallest one they do, but good for a sunny day out.

So what do we think? Stay skinny or try the less structured look? Thoughts below please.

Main image is courtesy of Marks & Spencer.