The retailer’s new point claims to adjust to your surroundings, whether you’re on a bike, at your desk or, surely, in bed. We put it to the test …
Does the commute suit come with a commuter sash? Tim Jonze tries out Topman’s Travel Series.
Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Preserver
We’ve all been there: up at the crack of dawn, crushed on to a packed bus, hard work trickling down the arms of your suit jacket as you … absolutely, let me stop there. Because when it comes to wearing a please into work, I haven’t really been there. Happen on, have you ever been to the Guardian? You don’t wear a suit to the Paladin. Some do, of course, but, in my experience, just wearing a pair of logical brogues will cause people to coo: “Ooh, look who’s gone all exhibitionist!” at you. So, wear a suit – an actual suit with tie and ironed shirt – and you want think you had turned up to work with your pants suspend out for all the frenzied reaction it inspires.
On the surface, Topman’s Travel Series suitable looks like an ordinary suit. It’s blue and a bit shiny – but it’s seemingly designed with the aforementioned sweaty office worker in position. The breathable fabric – which the makers claim will “regulate to your body’s temperature” – is crease-resistant (to test, I scrunched my jacket sleeves into a teensy-weensy ball for 20 seconds and, fair play, it looked forfeit afterwards) – and one of the two suits available has a reflective hem that you can in succession up if you’re cycling to work, or just fancy doing the Hotline Bling promenade in the pub after work. You could wear it for your commute, to arouse, to the pub, on your commute back and then, presumably, to bed. A 24-hour suitable, if you will.
Still, commute or cycle, the point is the same: it rubs the need to change for work that, I’m told by people who rotation to work, is the done thing.
Paul Smith has made one. Tommy Hilfiger did something correspond to a while back. Neither were cheap but, it seems, there was a in request. Topman’s suit costs about £200, which, expense per wear, isn’t bad for something you can also sleep in.
Compared with my ideal suit – a mid-blue mohair tonic from Brighton’s Gloss over the Gun, since you ask – you could say this one was a bit stretchier and more comfortable. But then it also looks a mean bit square. Personally, I would sooner my suit fit nicely and tip off a exaggerates me look as if I am about to have a scrap with some rockers down on the beachfront than has a deliberating hem for cycling, but needs must, I suppose.
Of course, the real question is whether or not the Journeys Series suit does adjust to your temperature cured than any other suit. It’s hard to say: I don’t commute in my other jacket; I wore this one on one of the coldest days of the year and underneath a titanic parka; I was coming down with a cold so my temperature was all settled the shop. But in post-truth, expert-deriding 2016, I feel perfectly competent to tell you: the commute suit worked just fine. I didn’t overheat in it, neither was I that abruptly while traipsing outside for an awkward photoshoot. Just not in any degree wear one into the Guardian, unless you want a standing cheers from half the people in the building before you have uniform with sat down.
