Refresh jeans-and-a-tee with pleated trousers and a brushed, organic cotton t-shirt in a seasonal shade.

It’s not as simple as a complete wardrobe overhaul. For the sake of our wallets and the planet, it’s more about taking a fresh look at how we put it all together. What we’ve got, what we can add in, how we can rework it to feel right for now. So we enlisted stylist Grace Gilfeather to pull her picks from our collection and show how to make them work for whatever comes next.

Hi Grace. First of all, can you tell us a little about you and your work?

I started out at British GQ magazine as an intern, learning how fashion shoots are put together and how a busy editorial office is run. I stayed for 12 years, eventually becoming Fashion Editor. I was so lucky to travel the world, equipped with about 10 suitcases on every flight and visited some extraordinary places and met some truly wonderful people. I am now Fashion Director at bi-monthly menswear title, The Rake, where I continue to style and produce their cover shoots and main fashion stories. Working here has allowed me to venture into more commercial work between issues. I have an 18-month-old baby too, so I have to be flexible!

Let’s start with which items you selected from our collection and why?

I feel this collection is very clean, contemporary, comfortable and very versatile. Traditionally, guys opt for a ‘safe’ navy suit for work and perhaps a grey suit for something more formal but I think we’ve curated a slightly more modern approach to tailored dressing. The Moss London forest green suit, for example, is deceptively versatile with what you can wear it with. Use the waistcoat and a white or chambray shirt and tie for dressing up and a roll neck or t-shirt without the waistcoat for less formal days. The same applies to footwear. A dark green wool suit will look sharp with brown boots in colder weather and still look effortless and smart with clean white leather trainers for more summery times.

And how about some of your standout looks from the shoot – how did you put them together?

I am a big fan of a rollneck. It works well with some of the looks we shot. A hangover from the 70s, this simple piece of knitwear is such a smart alternative to your traditional shirt and tie combination and teamed with the right colours, looks really modern and cool. Having a couple in shades like black or brown in your wardrobe is really useful.

Alternatively, throw a white or brown t-shirt underneath for sunnier days. The oatmeal suit is equally as versatile. I styled the look up with a peach shirt and brown tie, which would be ideal for a smart, summer day out, but the colour and texture of the suit will lend itself to more wintery occasions, too, if you simply add knitwear and boots. A dark brown knit underneath would look super slick.

This collection’s versatility in colour and texture gives lots of opportunities to get more out of tailoring. The oatmeal, forest green and taupe shades of suits can look completely different when you add in or take out certain accessories.  They’re not scary colours once you try them!

Part of our New for Now campaign is about relooking at things you might already own or have been wearing forever and making them feel fresh. Can you tell us more about the looks you styled around that idea?

I think we all have to be more sensible with our approach to buying. For our own financial reasons, of course, plus our duty to be more sustainable in our lifestyle choices now.

Often we orbit around the same colours and same outfits we feel safe in. Guys want a change and admire certain celebrity male looks but don’t know how to go about achieving it. Most of us will be surprised by what we can re-work with what we already have. Perhaps you can invest in a good pair of Chelsea boots to wear with your favourite wool trousers or buy key pieces of knitwear to replace your old shirts. These are quite traditional items of clothing but put together properly, as per the looks you see in our shoot, can look really new and contemporary.

Or maybe you’ve already got your favourite suits but want to get more out of them. Can you wear your suit jacket with some smart chinos and a loafer? A lot of this collection can be mixed and matched. You don’t have to have a lot of anything – just make sure what you have really fits you properly.

All these lockdowns have meant we’ve all got very used to dressing a certain way at home, but life is going to open back up again – how do you see that playing out in how we dress?

I imagine people are missing dressing up. For those who are still able to work, it will feel good to get out and meet people again. Seeing more people in professional and social circumstances offers more opportunities to change outfits. Which is why it will be fun to invest in some new pieces.

I think we will all suddenly be re-visiting our wardrobes again with new eyes when lockdown ends. Have our bodies changed? Have our jobs changed? For some, this could be a real effort and seem daunting. This is where looking at the easy, sensibly priced ideas from this shoot could help. We can’t wear our sweatpants forever!

Hi guys, let’s start at the beginning – where and how did you meet?

Joe: Well, Michi had just moved over to the UK from Italy to work in the hospital and we found each other through a dating app, as most people do these days.

Joe, what’s your favourite thing about Michi? And Michi, yours about Joe?

J: I love Michi’s honesty and directness. This is something I learnt from him and it really goes hand-in-hand in a healthy relationship.

Michi: The thing I love the most about Joe is his kindness towards any living creature, his love for nature and animals.

Do you have an engagement story to share?

M: We got engaged while visiting friends in Brighton, it was quite spontaneous and was more of a conversation than a proposal I guess. Our friends Cathy and Robyn were married over 15 years ago by their close friend Dendy, the same person who will marry us, and this idea felt extremely right for both of us. And because we got engaged in Brighton, we decided to get married there too. We chose Brighton Town Hall and booked it for New Year’s Eve. We were all planning on being together for NYE anyway, so it made sense.

So, can you tell us about your original wedding plans? Did Covid have any influence on the plan when you first made it?

J: Covid definitely influenced our plans, it gave us an excuse to not do something big. I come from a large family where weddings were happening every other weekend, and I’ve always felt that big weddings were more about putting on a very expensive show for the guests.

We decided that we’d rather do something small and put the money we would save towards buying our first home (which we actually just did!). It also made so much sense that Cathy and Robyn will be our witnesses, and the plan was, and still is, to have just the four of us on the day.

At some point we will go back to Michi’s hometown in Forlimpopoli and have a small Italian celebration with our families there as well.

 

 

What were you both going to wear? And how did you decide on that?

J: We browsed for inspiration on Pinterest of course but still we had no idea which style of suits we would go for in the end. We didn’t necessarily want to match, we only knew that we wanted to feel very happy with our own choices. I found a Barberis woollen flannel suit – which would definitely keep me warm next to the Brighton coast! – while Michi went for a Barberis pure wool suit in blue.

And what happened to your original plan?

M: We nervously watched the coronavirus updates every single day to see which way the pandemic was heading. London, where we live, went into tier 4 pretty much overnight but thankfully the wedding could still happen with Brighton remaining in tier 3. But then, four days before the big day, Brighton joined London in tier 4, so it was all off.

How did that feel?

J: We always knew that things could go this way, so when it happened we were frustrated but not sad. We know it will happen when the timing is right, which could be at any moment now, so it’s actually pretty exciting that we don’t have a fixed date.

 

 

What did you do on the day your wedding was supposed to be? Did you mark it somehow?

J: We didn’t do anything special on the day. It wasn’t like we had to cancel a big celebration that we’d been planning for months like other couples have, so it just felt like another day in the end. It was New Year’s Eve, though, so we had a reason to drink some champagne anyway!

And what’s the plan now?

M: Since the new government roadmap has been announced it now means that we can go ahead and rebook our wedding. We’re looking at doing it in the summertime, but we don’t have a confirmed date just yet…

And lastly, have you got any advice for other people in the same situation?

J: I would honestly just know that your wedding is going to happen at some point and to be excited about that prospect.