The company I work for decided to book a table at a Black tie event thing which is this Thursday, without actually asking how many of our small office actually wanted to or were able to go. As such we've been pressured into it a bit but as there's free booze, free food, and "entertainment" I thought why not give it a go, might be fun.
Then I googled what black tie actually meant, and unfortunately the only item within the dress code I own is a black dinner jacket from my prom (which was 16 years ago, still fits!) which is actually fairly nice but which also does not colour match with any of the trousers I've tried today (Slaters, Tyrwhitt, Moss). I thought I had a suitable shirt but unfortunately I can't do the collar up (see size issue annoyance below).
So essentially I need:
1. Either trousers that match (god knows where from, will just be luck of the draw) or an entirely new suit, but the cheap ones I've seen in Slater look rather like school uniform level of niceness.
2. Shirt - easy enough, seen them from as low as £14 up to £30 so no problem there
3. Shoes - patent or velvet slipper type? Again, shouldn't be too hard although extravagant for one night
4. Bow tie. easy, cheap enough
Problems:
a) Sizing. If i buy trousers that fit on the waist they are too tight on leg. And vice versa. If i buy a shirt I can do up on the neck, it's a tent on the body and hangs horribly. And vice versa. Due to my waist:legsize and collar:bodysize ratios, slim fit generally looks like a struggle.
b) colour matching what I have is tricky, but am lothe to throw away what I already have and spunk £100+ on a worse looking plastic suit, or pay what it costs for a nice one (£300 is the cheapest nice one I've seen today)
c) It's in four days time
d) I'm usually rather good at avoiding these things so the old "it'll come in every time you need one" argument is not very strong. The last time I wore one was my prom aged 16...
Any suggestions before I just feign a migraine attack and don't go? It's just that a free event that is now looking like costing me £200 does not seem like that great a deal. I looked at hiring but Moss hires still seem steep for one night unless you get the terrible fitting own brand stuff
Where's mr Gok Wan
@snap as I'm sure he'll have advice to offer?
Thanks
Matt
I'm scared and I'm waiting for life
Comments
Do not go in a mix and match hand me down outfit. You'll look like a tool.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
Probably true I suppose. The irony being that everybody in there will actually be a tool (it's a property industry do), whereas I would just look like one. Perhaps worth it for the irony but hopefully a minor illness takes hold tomorrow or Wednesday
There's only a couple here in Birmingham city centre unfortunately and they didn't have anything. eBay wouldn't have worked even if I had time due to the sizing issues unless I was incredibly lucky and found somebody nearby selling one.
They also do a cheap dinner suit, I had one for a ball once, it wasn't the best suit ever but it was alright didn't look embarassingly rubbish, was about £60 I think.
Failing that, I got a perfectly servicable DJ from M&S for about £100 (jacket/trousers to match). It's not a proper DJ set because it doesn't have the stripe on the trousers, but it was cheap and for work-related stuff where 99% of the attendees don't even know the difference between black tie and smart casual.
You'll need to get a half-decent dress shirt too, if you don't have one, and obviously a bow tie (although again, at the last formal black tie I went to, an IOD awards ceremony no less, about 40% of the guests didn't appear to realise that "any old tie you have lying around" wasn't technically within the remit of black tie. So frankly, it may not be worth bothering ...).
Is there any real purpose to the occasion? If not, all invitees should feel free to politely decline.
As a lifelong skeptic, I would be wondering why my employer is suddenly being nice to its staff? Proverbially, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
A proper suit costs over a grand.
Conspire with your wife and/or children to have a small "emergency" at home.
Which is bollocks, because it's already looking like I either have to spend £200 on one night or I have to straight up lie to 15 colleagues to get out of it
A former colleague at a company for whom we both no longer work advanced into middle management because he sincerely believed his own lies. (In many industries, this is a genuinely useful skill to possess.)
Again, might try it (Birmingham has the world's biggest Primark) but I'm usually quite unwilling to give them money due to a (probably quite hypocritical) concern about their supply chain etc. Probably based on rubbish prejudice but who knows
I think it honestly cost me under £30... (was a few years ago now)
I did already have a white shirt and i had black shoes..
So listen to all the get to primark/charity/large supermarket posts..
My regular suit (very rarely worn these days) is a proper one, from an old-fashioned gents outfitters now long since gone bust, that was bought when I got married <cough> years ago. My old DJ was previously my dad's (!) and is in fine fettle, but no longer fits my adult frame, and that too was super posh. The M&S one ... got praised for looking really nice, and passed muster in front of 200 people at a client do, where maybe one person actually knew what dress codes meant, and he turned up in a polo neck anyway because he hates suits (and he owned the company).
Sometimes you have to pick which hill is worth dying on.
There's only Slater here who hire them out and they are not very nice, I did ask about that but may as well buy a cheap one as hire it. I have plenty of suits just never needed a dinner jacket before apart from high school prom, the only weddings I'll need to go to are family (no friends lol) and my sister already got married a few years ago so thankfully I've no worries there either.
The Mrs has chimed in to remind me I apparently have a nice blue jacket with a fancy lapel that "looks the same as the black one", I'm not convinced it does btu I'll try it later. It is actually a suit but the trousers are slim fit so don't look great, but a quick Google search suggests a blue jacket with black trousers is a potential thing... fingers crossed as that'll make it easier and I can just chuck out the black one I've got as it's useless.