Is This The Year Of The Tie?

Forget men are from Mars and women fromVenus, in 2025 men are all-pastel and women are tie-toting. Here for it, btw, which one are you?

There are few things I follow slavishly and none of them are related to anything resembling hard news or life-changing self help… They’re more in the realm of, ahem, celebrity pop culture and, erm, fashion, with a particular leaning towards A) award season red carpets and B) street style.

Thus, you’ll have to forgive me for getting a little excited when these two worlds collide this week… When the street style I am drooling over in Copenhagen and the outfits on the runway in New York get trotted out in a similar style by a set of celebrities across the globe, it is a whizz banger!

We are having such a whizz banger this week.

What the banger would have done if I was still editing Grazia is cement masculine tailoring, mens’ suits and most especially ties, people, ties as the accessory du jour for the season ahead.

I don’t know about you but I am dead bored of slouching around my home office in luxe sweats, a cute knit and a cashmere sock come winter. (She says now.) I am fully, robustly and whole-heartedly here for comfort though, so the mens’ suits, all layered up with great panache suits me and my sensibilities these days.

And like the Pantone Colour of the Year is mocha mousse - thanks to its soothing, comfy, wellness-imbibing abilities - so I think the oversized mens’ suit with pushed-up sleeves and slightly rumpled air and a tie, is the fash equivalent. It is somehow both stylish but not wild, but super cool and fresh. But not wild. All at the same time. It is mocha mousse.

It is hilarious to me that while I - along with Nic Kidman, Elle Fanning, Doechii and various Assorted Women - embark on this new love affair with suits that our compadres over in the Dude Department are doing the opposite. While us lasses have gone in for pared-back, masculine slouchiness in shades of 9 to 5, the male midlife crisis is doing quite the opposite.

I’m not here to lament, but alas – there are only so many Tiktoks of Magnum PI’s hairy chest or Harvey Spectre’s debonair style I can flick through before I start to cry over Daniel Craig’s wispy new-look fronds.

The pop culture trend spotters have dubbed it the Male Midlife Makeover. The MMM – of which Daniel Craig and yes, even Brad, are firm proponents - is taking no prisoners. This MMM includes everything from a fashion makeover to a freshly acquired obsesh with sporting activities to a flaunt-it-if-you-still-got-it approach to hair. But only on your head. Body hair is for manscaping. It must be bad for aerodynamics. Or wearing pastels.

Not sure if you M is suffering from the MMM? It’s the move from ‘yeah, I enjoy a spin class’ to ‘I will be up at 5am, clad in head-to-toe jet black ninja Rapha, in order to competitively cycle the hills for a few hours before breakfast.’

Do you recognize this guy? You might have a brewing MMM in your midst. He might also do the same but with a penchant for running, trails, triathlons, Crossfit or – sigh – aggressive padel playing. He could be married to any one of us.

Not being the French woman who corresponded with Faux Brad for 18 months, I know nought of Brad Pitt’s endurance sport proclivities but I have eyes so I know he’s defs found his fashion mojo. Like many an MMM, he has forgone his jeans (and a blazer for posh nights out) for a somewhat unravelled, loosey goosey pastel suits-and-wacky-trainers combo that is, at once, insanely hot from a distance, but not something that shouldn’t clang warning bells as to him finding his Fashion Mojo. Just add a bucket hat, a heavily sloganned tee, a colourful designer sweater, an unlaced shoe, a skinny scarf and /or a pair of posh sunnies and you are rocking the kasbah.

Should we make fun of a midlife crisis? Oh fork yes! I’m sure Rachel Weisz does when Daniel Craig steps out of his boudoir. There’s a reason why Turkey became the hair capital of the world. It’s because MMM want luscious hair, even though they love a hat. They also want to be able to cook. Like cook well. Like come-up-and-see-my-etchings-Japanese-knives well. They take on monumental culinary challenges, forgoing spag bol for the fam for a seven-hour barbecued pulled pork over ancient wood shavings. It’s intense and expensive and it is nothing like what you have been doing in the kitchen for the last 25 years. Shame. You absolute slacker, you.

Still unsure as to whether your suit-and-tie wearing will compare to a MMM? How about the ramp up in ‘my body is a temple’ lore… Sober curious slash sober permanent. What about alt cures like apple cider vinegar? Shots of turmeric? Wheatgrass? No gluten? No dairy? No red meat? Collagen? Kombucha? Should I continue or are you weeping into your new tie yet?

PS No actual husbands were harmed in the making of this newsletter.