Return of the Dandy

Put it down to Mad Men, the Obama effect or the spectre of unemployment - the suit is enjoying a revival as men get smart on how to dress to impress.

Jon Hamm in the tv-series Mad Men.

You can kiss that scruffy surfer dude goodbye. These days, boys will be men, or at least dress like them, with everyone from the post-room boy to the company MD trading casual khakis and golf shirts for sharp suits. In recent ready-to-wear menswear collections there was a strong trend toward "protest prep" - a redux on the preppie look (aka dressing like your dad used to do) and the return of the power suit with its strong shape and traditional fabrics. Calvin Klein is now doing square-shouldered suits and flawless trousers, and even Armani, known for flow, is tightening things up. Prada went so far as to show double-breasted jackets. In fact, there were sober suits and sartorial rigour from even the edgiest of the designers: Moschino offered Savile Row-style tailoring complete with bowler hats; the usually highly conceptual Junya Watanabe showed influences from the classics, including Brooks Brothers and Levis.

Whether it is the effect of

Mad Men

, the multi-award-winning US TV series set in an advertising agency in the early 1960s, or the Obama effect, even young men are happily donning suits, ties, button-down shirts and cardigans both in and out of the office. The economy may well be a big part of the urge to look more serious and professional at work. Apparel sales figures from a report by MasterCard Advisors, released immediately after a disastrous post-Christmas selling season, showed that men's clothing has fared better than women's - a trend seen in past economic downturns. This is not a time to look like you're not a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of guy - nothing says "I'm your man" quite like a suit. Loeb Associates, a retail consultancy based in New York, indicates that while new clothes for Daddy are usually optional in a family budget, that seems to be changing and more men are suiting up. "Men want to give an image of neatness and being in command of the situation," says Walter Loeb, the company's president. He adds that this recession's bad news is so widespread, people are so threatened by the fear of unemployment that they are taking more care of how they look.

From left to right: Hermes, Gucci, Moschino, Calvin Klein. Larry Rosen, CEO and chair of Harry Rosen Inc, one of the few menswear-only department store chains in the world, says we are entering the year of the suit, and crisp shirts, dress shoes, silk ties and pocket handkerchiefs are sure to follow. "Men want to look smart because there is more at risk," he says. "They want to inspire confidence, to look like leaders." Despite the bloodletting on Wall Street, the department store Saks Fifth Avenue has recently opened a major boutique for Kiton, the Italian luxury suiting company, and will now see how many men are still willing to shell out $7,000 (Dh25,700) for a suit, or more than $21,000 (Dh77,150) for made-to-measure. To be fair, the wooing of Kiton began years ago, when the market was strong and a Kiton suit was a status symbol for wealthy bankers and others who admired its soft, light fit and superior handmade quality. Kiton employs 330 tailors and produces only a few thousand pieces a year, distributing them carefully to select retailers. But apart from Kiton, men are undoubtedly snapping up snappy dressing. Even high-street chains such as Club Monaco, owned by the Ralph Lauren company, has shirts with bow ties, grey cardigans and tailored trousers in its spring/summer collection - looks not so much suggesting fun at the beach but Father Knows Best. Maybe this is all for the good. The so-called "Dress Down Friday" - the day when it was OK for everyone in the office to dress casually a bit to break the barrier between levels of employment - first became popular in the US in the late 1950s and peaked in popularity during the Dot Com era. Sadly, though, few men were able to figure out how to look both relaxed and professional, instead opting for sloppy T-shirts and khakis that really shouldn't be worn for anything but washing the car. Two years ago,

The Wall Street Journal

's Christina Binkley looked at the phenomenon of Dress Down Friday and noted there were legions of young executives who "felt entitled" to wear Ugg boots, T-shirts and jeans to work because they needed to "feel comfortable". But as Gretchen Neels, a Boston communications consultant, told Binkley: "If they want you to dress up like Big Bird every day, for $160,000 a year (Dh588,000), just do it." If you are sure you can still bring in that sort of salary, go for it. But just know that there are a lot of focused men in suits clamouring to take your place. Maybe this is all for the good. The so-called "Dress Down Friday" - the day when it was OK for everyone in the office to dress casually a bit to break the barrier between levels of employment - first became popular in the US in the late 1950s and peaked in popularity during the Dot Com era. Sadly, though, few men were able to figure out how to look both relaxed and professional, instead opting for sloppy T-shirts and khakis that really shouldn't be worn for anything but washing the car. Two years ago,

The Wall Street Journal

's Christina Binkley looked at the phenomenon of Dress Down Friday and noted there were legions of young executives who "felt entitled" to wear Ugg boots, T-shirts and jeans to work because they needed to "feel comfortable". But as Gretchen Neels, a Boston communications consultant, told Binkley: "If they want you to dress up like Big Bird every day, for $160,000 a year (Dh588,000), just do it." If you are sure you can still bring in that sort of salary, go for it. But just know that there are a lot of focused men in suits clamouring to take your place.

Late 18th century:

The origin of "dandyism", is credited to Beau Brummell (George Bryan Brummell), a man who placed particular importance on beautifully cut suits, good manners and upper-class pursuits. The term came to mean a man of middle-class standing who tried to emulate and imitate the look and lifestyle of a member of the aristocracy.

1930-1945:

Let's call a global depression and a world war a bit of a rough patch. Menswear responds by bracing its shoulders - the period was marked by exaggerated shoulder pads, all the better to show your strength. It was also a time of Big Hollywood and slick dressers like Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby, who never did "casual" or appeared to break into a sweat on or off the dance floor.

1967:

You may think of the 1960s as all-out peace, love and rock'n'roll and you're not entirely wrong. The decade was also a time of student protests, inflation and, in Britain, the peak in popularity of the Mods and their obsession with tailor-made suits. In this particular year, the big film was Bonnie & Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. The film's 1930s fashions - slick suits and highly stylised glamour - resonated and set off a major trend still referenced today.

1980s:

A decade marked by preppy fashion - dressing like you had a trust fund was strangely comforting to millions of Lacoste-wearing, loafer-shod men.

1997:

This was a year of financial crisis, following the collapse of Asian markets. It was also the year Hedi Slimane was hired at Dior Homme and the birth of the super-slim, super-slick tough but fey suit. So gorgeous and narrow was it that women also queued up to buy one.

2009:

Today we have the smartly dressed man, but he's different from the 1980s guy in the wildly coloured suit, or the mean-looking suits (think Helmut Lang, Prada) of the 1990s. As with the original dandy, we are looking back to the values of more stable, predictable times. The relatively wealthy 1950s looked a bit like this in the US, perhaps because of gratitude that wars were over and men had proper jobs.