What you wear should never hold you back.

Designed for motion with flexible elastane woven right into the fabric, our stretch suits are taking tailoring out of the office and into new territories.

To prove it, we took to the streets with three men that are making moves on wheels, boards and, well, any surface available and asked them to put our stretch suits through their paces.

Meet Daniel, Galih and Liam – and keep your eyes on our social channels next week to see the guys in action.

When did you discover parkour and what made you get into it?

I’ve always been an active person and can’t remember a moment in my life where it actually all started for me… though I would say it was 17 years ago I discovered the name ‘parkour’ for something I feel I’ve done all my life.

Who do you admire in the world of parkour and why?

I admire the connectivity that takes place in the community… being surrounded by people who are constantly looking for ways to paint the streets!

Tell us about a time you’ve stretched yourself and what you thought you were capable of – in your sport or in life?

There’s never been a moment where I feel like I’ve stretched myself because I’m a firm believer that if you have a good enough reason to overcome the obstacle in front of you, nothing can stop you! So until such a reason comes by, I just play in the space I’m in!

The suit we’ve dressed you in might not be your usual parkour gear, so what’s essential in your normal kit to make sure you’re free to move?

Having the right pair of shoes!! Haha, but no, having clothing that has stretch is essential. Hence why I was so eager to get involved with Moss. I was really curious how much it would enable me to move and I came away impressed and surprised by how much give the suit actually has!

Tell us what got you into skateboarding?

Started as a kid, skipping school to go to the skatepark in Kemang in Jakarta, Indonesia when I was 15/16. I got into it ’cause I wanted to impress this one girl Dalia that hung out at the skatepark. And I thought Rodney Mullen was amazing!

What is it you love about it?

Freedom. I was never a good skater, but I liked stairs and vert a lot. I liked to find equilibrium with the board, where the movement was fluid and there was a symbiosis between me and the board.

We think feeling comfortable is a big part of feeling confident – that’s why we’ve reworked our tailoring to have comfort at its core. What helps you feel confident and able to get on with the task at hand?

I feel like when I work for myself, I’m in control of all the variables and the success and failure of the task is down to me. I am most comfortable and confident at these times. However, the workplace is wrought with people riding on your ideas and creativity and that can often be challenging. In a world where everyone has the capability to seem ‘creative’ at their fingertips, you need to stand out. Part of that is going outside of your comfort zone and doing things you’re not used to. Breaking boundaries to gain confidence, never being too comfortable to stop challenging yourself.

When and how did you get into BMX?

When I was about 12 or 13 and a new skatepark got built in my village. Hooked ever since.

What is it you love about it?

Travel, meeting people and the experiences, that’s just without being on the bike. Riding-wise, it’s the freedom and creativity.

Tell us about a time you’ve stretched yourself and what you thought you were capable of – on your bike or in life?

Most times when filming a video part you need to push yourself. Seeing things that you know are possible but will only do in that sort of situation when the camera is out and the videographer says GO. This has happened numerous times, and the reward generally is worth it!

What helps you feel confident when you’re faced with a challenge?

I always liked the saying ‘looking good, feeling good, riding good’. That can come from anything – a new bike, a fresh haircut, anything which makes you stoked and feeling good.

We rounded up the most sports-obsessed cities in the UK and their most-stylish athletes.

Stretch fabric comes in many forms – here’s what to look for.

When you think of materials with stretch, it’s hard not to picture a pair of Lycra cycling shorts. But it’s actually useful in tailoring, too.

Whether you want to show off your hard work in the gym with a shirt that hugs your muscles or you’re looking for something comfortable that moves with you, what you need is a material with some stretch.

There are three main ways fabrics get their flexibility: it can be natural, added to the material or created by how it’s woven. It may seem picky, but understanding how each one works will help you choose suits and shirts with the look and feel you’re after.

Some fibres naturally have more give than others, which comes down to scientific things like molecules and structures. Don’t worry, we won’t go all Brian Cox on you. All you need to know is that pure wool often has a slight stretch. Anyone who has put a 100% merino wool jumper in a 40’C wash will have seen this when it came out nearly half the size – it shrinks because the wool can both stretch and decrease in size.

A pure wool suit won’t stretch as such, but it will naturally move with you more than more synthetic fabrics like polyester will. Plus, wool is breathable and can hold a bit of water without becoming damp, so it will look smart and feel comfortable when the pressure is on.

Pure wool can also be woven in a technical way to create stretch cloth – this involves highly spinning yarns to enhance their flexibility. Suits made this way are often still labelled as having ‘natural’ stretch because no synthetic material has been added. Essentially, it’s a clever way of getting a slight stretch without adding in more fibres, so the cloth’s handle (how it feels) stays the same.

Mechanical weaves are designed to spring back into shape, which means they shouldn’t crease. Polo shirts, jumpers and t-shirts that are 100% cotton will usually have mechanical stretch – that’s how you can easily get them over your head but still get a good fit once they’re on – and you’ll now find lots of tailoring does too.

Elastane is a ridiculously stretchy synthetic material made by chemicals. It’s also often called Spandex or Lycra. Full-on Lycra might cling to every contour on your body (think cycling gear), but combining it with other materials, like cotton, wool and polyester, will add just the right amount of give. You only need a small amount to get a close-fitting finish – even as little as 2% – which is why we add it to lots of our skinny fit suits and shirts.

WHICH ONE TO GO FOR?

That depends on the look you want and the occasion. If you’re aiming for something smart but comfortable, the natural give of a 100% wool suit won’t let you down. Need a little more room to move and extra resistance to creasing? Look out for fabrics that are knitted to offer flexible structure. And if you’re after a sharp look that offers maximum mobility, go for suits and shirts with elastane woven in.

Because your inner game influences your outer look.

Performance psychologist Charlie Unwin delivers mental training to some of the world’s top performers in sport, business and the military. As a former front-line commander and international athlete, he’s knows all about getting your head in the game so you can do your best when it matters most. So who better to mine for tips to help you stretch what you’re capable of? Seeing as he’s helped clients like England Football, double Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold and elite military forces perform at their best under intense pressure, you’re going to want to take notes. Over to Charlie.

Scientific research consistently demonstrates that confidence is one of the best predictors of performance in elite athletes. Why? Because when we have belief in our self, our ability and our plan, this manifests itself in thousands of other ways, affecting our energy, our focus, our commitment, our resilience, our creativity – in fact, everything that makes us good at what we do. Confidence is also the top trait in people who are considered most attractive. Therefore, it’s all very well having great clothes to wear, but actually feeling confident in what you wear and what you do is the key.

As tempted as we are to try and generate confidence from the external recognition of other people (e.g. likes on social media), true confidence originates from deep inside us, something I call inside-out confidence. Fundamentally it’s about being comfortable with who we really are rather than projecting an image of Superman. Research shows that being more authentic actually makes us more likeable, trustworthy and influential.

In my experience, those people best at developing inner confidence are the ones who regularly ask themselves three questions: ‘What am I best at?’, ‘What do I love doing?’ and ‘What’s most important to me?’.

Once we are confident in our self we must then have a plan we can be confident in. People generally don’t like to plan. It’s much easier to just turn up and do something as opposed to piling on the pressure of expectation that comes with setting goals. This was the exact challenge surrounding England and their history of failed penalty shoot-outs. That was until they decided to plan and practice penalty shoot-outs as if it was a sport in its own right.  In the same way, Olympic gold medals don’t happen by accident, they are a result of meticulous planning and execution. Ok, so we wouldn’t want to go into this forensic level of detail for everything we do in life, however, once you have made the decision to be good at something it seems a shame to let your ability down by not doing the thinking up front.

Goal-setting should always be done on a piece of paper. Start by asking, ‘What are the 3-4 most important components of achieving a successful outcome?’. For each component break it down further asking ‘How can I achieve this?’. Keep asking the same question until you get to a point where you feel 100% in control of achieving the outcome – even if it’s going to take a bit of hard work.

Now you have a plan, you can accelerate your way to success using visualisation – an essential skill for high performers. For the brain, thinking is the same as doing. When you’re rehearsing something in your mind, say a presentation or a speech, you’re using the same neural pathways in the brain as if you were doing it for real. This is a priming process and reinforces the ease and accuracy with which the behaviour or skill can be repeated. It therefore evokes a sense of familiarity around the activity which leads to greater confidence. The more accurately you imagine it, the more precise the pathways being developed in the brain. Therefore for visualising your speech, it’s not enough to go through the words alone, you must imagine the whole reality of that situation including what you can see, hear, smell and feel.

I think this is an under-rated skill in everyday life. I work with elite athletes and special forces soldiers for whom visualising is an essential part of being able to respond to what the mission or the game throws at them. In the same way, it can help us all learn new skills quicker and respond more effectively to some of life’s challenges.

It’s easy to avoid situations that make us feel uncomfortable, but it’s our tolerance for discomfort that often defines how well we maintain our confidence under pressure. To do this well we must practice emotions in the same way we would practice anything else. Therefore challenge yourself little and often to do something a little uncomfortable. These small inoculations will allow you to develop a healthier relationship with fear and excitement, emotions that are an inevitable part of a well-lived life.

One of the overwhelming messages from elite sport is that an athlete’s ongoing physical performance is only as good as their recovery. If we don’t recover physically and mentally, then our performance starts to degrade and will inevitably affect confidence. This is one of those areas we give little thought to, and yet it is easy to address by getting into the right habits.

In today’s technology-driven world we find ourselves permanently wired, but with our attention diluted aimlessly across multiple streams of data. This is the antithesis of focus and therefore performance. In order to develop a better ‘on’ switch, we must create a better ‘off’ switch. Sleep is the most important component of this and is the single greatest contributor to poor performance in the workplace. On the flipside, there is very little that can’t be addressed after a good night’s sleep!

Welcome to a new era in menswear.

Perhaps it’s a response to everything that’s going on in the world. Perhaps we just all need a bit of reassurance that everything is, in fact, going to be alright. Or maybe we’ve all realised that life is just that bit easier when you’re comfortable.

The fact is menswear is changing, and tailoring in particular is heading in a new direction with comfort at its core.

As with most trends, it’s to do with where we are and what’s happening around us. Every man and his dog is probably aware of athleisure and its rapid rise to influence just about every other trend in menswear and beyond.

It’s been so influential that, where once there was a distinct difference, now the lines have blurred between formality and comfort. But does that mean we’re going to reach a stage where it’s acceptable to wear your gym kit to an interview? Probably not, so menswear designers have tapped into this need for clothes that offer comfort – both physically and psychologically – but are still smart or professional or suitable for life outside your HIIT session.

There’s also the fact that less of us have to wear a suit as much now. Sure, there’ll always be a wedding, a black tie do or a funeral to dress formally for, but very few offices will still insist we wear a suit to work. Now, we can now choose to wear a suit. We can choose to look smart, to feel pulled-together, to make an effort.

But that also means we can be more choosy about how what we wear fits with our needs and our tastes. We, quite rightly, demand clothes that fit our busy and complex lifestyles.

As with everything else going on in our lives, what we want is flexibility. The freedom to wear what we want, when we want.

And for what we wear to feel as good as it looks.