How should a man dress in his 40s? If you’ve searched for the answer online, you’ve probably already encountered endless lists of the ten things every man over 40 apparently needs to own, along with a few things you’ve presumably become too old to wear.
After more than 20 years as a bespoke tailor, I don’t think that’s particularly useful advice.
Two men can both be 45 and need completely different wardrobes because their careers, lifestyles, bodies, personalities and the way they spend their time have almost nothing in common. So rather than starting with your age, I think there’s a much better place to begin: your diary.
In this episode I talk about how my own style and the fit of my clothes have changed as I’ve got older, why jeans and trainers don’t suddenly become inappropriate when you turn 40, how our wardrobes need to evolve as our careers and lives change, and why today’s less formal working world has actually made dressing well more complicated rather than less.
I also explain why I’m not convinced by the idea that every man should aspire to own a tiny “capsule wardrobe”, why I regularly find thousands of pounds worth of perfectly good clothes in clients’ wardrobes that somehow don’t work together, and the question I’d ask before you buy anything else.
If you’re in your 40s and wondering whether you need to start dressing differently, perhaps the better question isn’t, “Am I too old for this?”
It’s simply: “Does this still work for me?”
Roberto Revilla is a London bespoke tailor who has spent more than two decades helping men build wardrobes around their bodies, careers, personalities and the lives they actually lead.
If your wardrobe still reflects the life you were living five or ten years ago rather than the one you’re living now, that’s something I can help you with. My work at Roberto Revilla London goes beyond making individual suits or jackets: I work with clients to understand what their weeks actually look like and gradually build a wardrobe around their body, personality, career and lifestyle, so the clothes they own work together rather than becoming another collection of expensive solutions to old problems.
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