Bodyguard chic: the new fashion for office-based heroes
The hit show – and its action-man heroics – is surprisingly in step with back-to-work attire, says Stephen Doig
Unless you’ve been in a secure bunker, perhaps in hiding after faking your own death (that’s just one of the theories going around), you will have heard of the BBC hit show Bodyguard, the story of a troubled security detail (Richard Madden) protecting the home secretary (Keeley Hawes), which has become one of the Beeb’s most successful shows in more than a decade. Amid the explosions, bullet showers, fiendish plot twists and swirling conspiracy theories in the series, the finale of which is tonight, ht, one small element has been overlooked – Madden’s wardrobe.
At first glance, bodyguard David d Budd’s get-up is fairly standard – sharp jackets, shirts, ties. Plus, Madden could look athletic in a muumuu. But look closely and there are some minor adjustments to the standard corporate attire that, as we head through September and men assess their return-to-work attire, offer a subtle adjustment on the standard suit and tie. Budd – an Army veteran – adopts a more utilitarian, workwear wardrobe into his smart suiting to denote te that he’s from a more action-ready n-ready background than the stuffy Westminster environs ons he’s found himself in. He e dons button-down shirts s in heavy chambray, in colours urs such as khaki green that buck the office dress code, and wears substantial wool blazers instead of more banker-appropriate er-appropriate finer iterations. ions. It’s subtle, but it progresses gresses the work suit beyond nd its traditional tional set-up p to something more dynamic. And it’s something that designers have also grappled with in a market where the traditional suit is being picked apart for something more contemporary and suited to men’s dynamic lives today (a colleague’s fiancé has recently been searching for a pair of shoes that aren’t the clumpy, Victorian clerk-y brogues of old, nor anything as informal as trainers, but something in-between). While recently there has been a great deal of chatter about “athleisurewear” infusing tailoring, workwear – of the like showcased so sportily (and occasionally bloodsoaked) in Bodyguard – can also help to make suiting less formal. Workwear has its roots in the rustic, heavy-duty worker’s garments of 20th-century America (which is also where denim in its current incarnation springs from), and button-down shirting and heavy twill fabrics speak to that sense of the substantial and solid. Don opennecked shirts with a smart blazer for a less uptight stance (if your workplace allows it, obviously) or perhaps look to shoes that hit a happy medium between smart and solid, such as desert boots in a handsome leather, or derby shoes but with a chunky heel or in love-worn suede. A bulletproof vest is entirely optional (and dependent on how aggressive your office gets).