Looking for a linen suit of your own? Check out our guide to the best of the category—and the accoutrement to wear with it.
In 2024, there’s really no occasion that requires a suit. I know this because recently, I found myself in a situation where I was one of the only people not wearing one. It was a wedding without a dress code—”wear whatever you feel most comfortable in” were the bride’s exact words—and I donned a flowy Marimekko button-up and emerald green Issey Miyake pants. Hopefully out of jealousy, but more likely out of respectful pity, I received more compliments on the fit than on any wedding suit I had ever worn. (The sole exception: the time I brought a fish-shaped tie bar to a brewery-side nuptials in Maine.)
So why did I find myself handing my credit card information over to an Alex Mill sales associate a few months ago, Mercer linen suit separates in hand? In the moment, I justified the purchase as the perfect peg to the navy-linen shaped hole in my closet.
But I think my true reasoning was more primal. I had just been laid off. Nothing about my future seemed clear, minus the fact I was probably going to have to work harder than I ever had to access a slice of ever-shrinking freelance budgets. [Editor’s note: mission accomplished.] Something about the suit, even just worn over a gray tank top with white tube socks, made me feel like it would be okay.
I think it’s the fit that won me over. The Mercer blazer is cut quite roomy: “casual and relaxed” in the parlance of Mr. Mill. I initially bought it in an XL, but ended up exchanging it for the L in the name of finding something that sat more comfortably on my shoulders. (For some reason, it has white buttons instead of the dark ones you see on-site right now, depending where you look.) Similarly, the pleated pants in a 36, usually kind of a squeeze for me, fit perfectly on my waist. I think I’ll eventually take the sewn-in break out of the hem, but I’ve been able to make the semi-cropped look work.
Some highlight combinations: I inaugurated the suit with my dressing-room fit at a party to celebrate my friend Asha’s debut novel. I went in the opposite direction for my friend Matt’s book launch, sporting the set over a Drake’s shirt and knit tie. (I brought out the fish clip to dress it down a smidge.) And last weekend, I wore it over a khaki-colored Buck Mason knit polo to see a broadway show—the “Once Upon a Mattress” revival; Sutton Foster is a riot—with my family. It was pouring when we exited the train, so I passed the blazer off as a makeshift umbrella.
My Issey pants are great, but they definitely can’t do that. Scoreboard!
