Wearing a suit to work now seems odd – which is why it’s so radical | Jess Cartner-Morley

Relaxation of office dress codes feels like real liberation, and I’m the rebel in a matching jacket and trousers

I’ve been trying to work out why, having never been a suit wearer, they are suddenly all I want to wear. Over the years, I have dressed for the office in trousers and shirts, or dresses and blazers, or skirts and sweaters – pretty much any combination of clothes. Except that I’ve never worn a matching jacket and trousers, or matching jacket and skirt.

I would no more have worn a suit to the office than I would have put on a hard hat, or chef’s whites, or scrubs. A suit felt like a school uniform: if you have to wear it, you wear it, but if it’s not mandated, it’s not a getup you adopt for fun. That would be odd. My mum bought me a skirt suit – plum colour, nubbly wool, from Hobbs – for my university interviews. I still remember how I felt wearing it, waiting nervously in stuffy corridors, conscientiously play-acting calm and competent adulthood.