Dressing for the British Office When the Air Con is Broken and It’s 26 Degrees

Heat. It’s something the British aren’t equipped to deal with. There I was, one sweltering day many moons ago sat watching an entire finance department wilt before my eyes at their desks, as the office thermostat decided to venture past 25 degrees.

Cue repeated cries of “we’ve put in a request with facilities” from our office manager whilst everyone else started surreptitiously folding pages of our droning corporate policy guidelines into makeshift fans. Absolute mayhem. It’s not just the heat that’s unbearable to British workers though, every hot spell in Britain conveniently seems to coincide with the week your office building’s ancient airflow system from the 19ties decides to develop existential dread.

That gentle, centrally heated whisper of air that usually emanates from every corner of your office block to keep you just at the right temperature? Forget about it.

All you’ll be left with is thirty members of your staff exaggeratingly sighing, staring longingly out of the window and wondering if death by defenestration beats another hour of stiflingly sweating over spreadsheets.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spent enough summers working in British offices to have fine-tuned my dressing strategy for these sauna-like conditions. Back when I first started working at ManStyle magazine (remember jobs!? ), our office was this horrible converted warehouse in East London that the lovely letting agent had so charmingly described to me over the phone as “characterful industrial chic”. Cute.

Turns out this slogan was really office code for “make you feel like you’re dying in a greenhouse with some window spaces that only open about an inch”. Boy was that summer tough. I would arrive at the office bright-eyed and bushy-tailed wearing my usual young journo garb of smart chinos and Oxford-cloth button down shirt only to resemble a drowned rat by 10am on the dot.

You’d think the solution would be obvious – wear shorts and a t-shirt, but alas we still live in a country where it somehow remains a mystery to many offices that men actually have knees. I kid you not, I have actually listened to a partner at a city law firm wail with inconsolable fury at the thought of their staff wearing shorts saying literally this, verbatim: “But where would it stop!? Tennis shorts!?

Swim shorts!?”. Sigh. So lets talk through your heatwave office attire by office type, because clearly there’s no such thing as one outfit-fits-all when it comes to the uniquely British way of dealing with summer….

Straight away, I’m assuming yours is the kind of office that still has a fitting costume of some description so you’ll need to think cunningly about how you construct your heatwave survival outfits. Firstly, ditch the dull high street suit made from a blend of polyester and unmentionable horrible fabrics. You might be ok on cooler days around the 21-22 degree range but the moment it hits about 23 degrees and climbs your standard suit will make you feel like you’re melting out of it.

First stop, get yourself a suit made from the lightest-weight wool you can find. The lighter the better. Get something with a high twist which should give the fabric a little more give/stretch to it.

Ideally get something tropical weight wool around the 7-9oz mark if you can. Try and find something with a hopsack weave too – this is just a type of weave that creates a loose textured look which helps allow more airflow through the fabric. So I personally get my suits made by my tailor down in the Northern Quarter but there’s plenty of other bespoke and made-to-measure places around the UK.

My go-to summer suit is this lightweight unlined mid-blue wool suit. The benefit of it being unlined is honestly life-changing on those days you feel like the surface of the sun but do bare in mind it will also mean your suit won’t hold it’s shape as well. During daylight bombing I will sacrifice theperfect suit shape for a more relaxed fit in order to avoid resembling a wet dog.

Shirts. Shirts are KEY. If your office allows it, opt for short sleeves.

No, not tight slim fit polyester junglies a la 19hole vision of NASA. A good cotton / linen blend with a relaxed fit will not only allow airflow but won’t make you feel confined like your shirt is trying to shrinkage wrestle you. If short sleeves aren’t an option then go for the lightest cotton / linen button up you can find and roll up those sleeves.

You will crease. Deal with it. By lunchtime you’ll be so hot you won’t mind one bit.

I will forever be haunted by my old editor at Gentleman’s Quarter. This guy was a dreamboat. Shirt always crisp, navy blazer never hung up properly to wear sweat marks and every summer he would stroll into work unfazed by the heat in these AMAZINGLY lightweight cotton shirts from Drake’s that looked office-appropriate but never seemed to give him that dreaded sweat stain around the armpits.

I’d been curious about where he got them for years and finally asked him after watching him breezily chat clients down about some merger during the hottest day of the summer in 2018…. “Where do you get your shirts from? They’re amazing”. He looked at me deadpan and replied with: “I grew up in Hong Kong.

You either learn these kinds of fabric or you die”. Ok maybe he didn’t say that bit but honestly the guy wasn’t wrong. Nowadays if I’m working in business casual dress office, my go-to looks are a simple leather jacket / lightweight chinos / plain white tee or linen shirt kinda outfit.

You’ve got more freedom with these kinds of offices so I’ll usually opt for as much natural fibre as possible. Think cotton, linen and tropical weight wool. Get yourself a pair of linen jacket/blazer that doesn’t have any padding in it and you’ve essentially got a really smart oversized shirt / overshirt.

Throw that on top of a pair of cotton chinos and you’ve instantly got yourself a smart-casual office look that actually feels cool. Trousers. Ah trouser season.

Don’t reach for those skinny jeans guys, trust me. Now is the time for some lightweight cotton chinos. Make sure you get something with a fairly relaxed fit through the leg too – nothing manspite inducingly tight in the heat.

If your office is lenient enough on the whole ‘dress-code-policy’ front then grab yourself a pair of linen or cotton drawstring waist trousers. They look seriously smart but also allow you to loosen out as the day (and your sweat levels) progress. Another favourite of mine are these linen drawstring trousers from Universal Works.

Looks smart enough to dress up or down but feels like lounge trousers. Throw on a short sleeve button up in a subtle print or even a plain pique cotton polo and you’re hitting that sweet spot of “looking like you actually tried” without slowly baking alive. If your office is on the chill side then you’ve pretty much got carte blanche on how you construct your outfits.

Linen shirt, chinos, clean white trainers and BOOM. Office appropriate. My tip with plain white t-shirts is to not go for the supergarment thin ones that show every sweat patch.

Go for something in a slightly heavier cotton and ideally with a crew neck that fits snuggly against your collarbone without pulling. Last but not least – your feet. God forbid you break out your brogues on a hot day.

Those things are basically foot boilers. If you need to keep it formal then get yourself a pair of unlined loafers in something soft and light. Nothing says amateur like soggy feet aka wearing leather brogues in the British summer.

If you work in business-casual then go for desert boots or unlined chukkas. If your office is casual then you’ve got options. In my experience, clean white trainers have gone from hipster affectation to totally acceptable office footwear as of late.

Just make sure they’re actually clean. There’s nothing worse than seeing guys with an otherwise put-together outfit but dirty trainers. Serious brownie points lost there.

Same rules apply for socks. Looser is better. Go for no-show socks with your loafers or trainers but spend the extra pound on something that actually doesn’t slide down your leg about half-way through the day.

For formal shoes go for cotton socks. You know them, those horrific 1p polyester jobbies you bought in a massive bulk-buy bundle from Merlin?? Yeah, DON’T WEAR THOSE.

You’ll be destroying your shoes. Ok boys. Time for the hard truth.

You’re going to sweat. A lot. There is no escaping it.

You might be able to dodge it for the first half of the day but inevitably somewhere come 2 or 3 o’ clock you WILL start to sweat. Even if you follow my every sartorial tip above. It’s the British office in summer, it’s basically purgatory.

Buy yourself some extra shirts to keep at work, invest in some serious antiperspirant and if you’re really struggling get yourself some of those underarm sweat pads. Urgh ok I hate giving that advice as much as you hate hearing it but trust me, you’ll thank me. Or not.

I don’t judge. During that record-breaking heatwave in 2018 ( temperatures reached 35 degrees at one point!!) I was interviewing this fashion designer in his studio.

Now this guy was suitcase chic throughout the entire interview –white linen shirt, cotton trousers, leather huarache sandals.

I applauded him on his outfit choix as he looked so fresh compared to the creased-mess I was turning into whilst sweating profusely in my deemed-appropriate-for-the-office-navy blazer. “Ha!” he laughed as we finished up. “I keep spares of everything in my filing cabinet and change at lunch. No one’s truly sweat-proof.”. Harsh…but fair.

Moral of the story is that everyone in the office is miserable in the heat. Even that guy bobbing around blissfully in the full suits, he’s quietly sweating bullets whilst secretly having a mini desk fan pointed at his groin. We are ALL just slowly dying a little inside until 5-odd rolls around and we can finally head home, open the freezer and stare into it longingly like we’d never seen ice before.

All whilst plotting how to spend our commute home down the pub in air-con instead of standing on a packed tube like sardines. Ok back to reality. As much as the weather keeps fluctuating between mild-misses and absolute heatwaves here in Blighty, let’s just face the facts that summer is most likely going to get hotter each year and we Brits are going to have to gear ourselves up for hotter, sweatier summers.

Wear natural fabrics, go looser with your fits, stick to lighter colours and remember….Its England. It’ll probably rain again next Tuesday.