Over the last two centuries, the average two-piece suit has (more or less) been a shelf-stable product. But that may all change depending on how the new ‘STRO’ suit is received.
Straight from classic menswear brand The Observer Collection — and stylised with an acronym that stands for “Sartorial/Tactical/Reconnaissance/Observation” — the STRO suit is the brainchild of Neapolitan tailoring firm Sartoria Caracciolo and, more intriguingly, award-winning street style photographer Robert Spangle.
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Spangle is something of a multi-hyphenate in men’s fashion circles: a former USMC marine, who trained as a tailor on Savile Row, before locating his passion in street-style photography (most of which he documents today via the Instagram account Thousand Yard Style).
According to The Observer Collection web store, the STRO has been four years and 11 prototypes in the making. The result? A suit that is intended to redefine the way men think about carrying around their daily essentials. And while undoubtedly expensive, it also feels significant that the STRO’s pricing is in line with what you’ll pay at many custom suit shops in Australia — a singular garment with universal appeal.
As you can see from the images above and below, the STRO’s major appeal is the fact that the front of the double-breasted jacket is constructed with a double vent. This means that, even when fully buttoned up, wearers can access a variety of small accessories in that vented area.
Better yet, the placement of these internal pockets helps the garment drape straight — a quirk that Spangle learned in his many years shoving lighters, pens, and other small incidentals into the hip pockets on more traditionally tailored clothing.
Speaking of hip pockets, the STRO eschews those altogether. Habitually, one of the two best places on-body to store your smartphone, Spangle and his tailoring buddies at Caracciolo decided to carve space out of the waistband instead; so that the wearer’s chosen device sits neatly on the front left/right side of the abdomen.
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Again, Robert Spangle tapped into his previous experience (as a member of the Marines Corps) to come up with this handy bit of functionality: imagining the phone in place of a holstered sidearm or ammunition.
“The waistband is a great place to hold weight,” he says.
“It won’t throw off the line of the jacket, the front vents allow access to it, and [reaching inside is] a natural motion. Much more natural than reaching across your chest and fishing something out of your in-breast pocket.”
