A cream linen suit, and the discipline of not over-dressing

An English garden wedding is the hardest brief a Nigerian man gets. Aso ebi would have been wrong — there was no aso ebi, and arriving in ceremonial cloth would have made the day about me. A dark suit would have been worse: heavy, sweating, and photographed against a hedge in full July light.

I wore undyed cream linen. Not white, which goes grey the moment the sun moves, and not beige, which drains most of us. Cream sits warm against darker skin and it looks intentional in daylight in a way almost nothing else does.

The cut is the whole argument. Linen has no structure of its own, so if you buy it loose it hangs like a dust sheet. I had it cut a size closer than the shop wanted, with a soft shoulder, no padding, and the back left unlined so air moves through it. Two buttons, patch pockets, a jacket long enough to cover the seat. Trousers with a single pleat and a very slight taper, finished with no break, because a linen hem that stacks looks like laundry.

Shoes: brown suede loafers, no visible socks, no shine anywhere. A woven belt rather than a dress belt. No tie — a garden wedding at two in the afternoon does not want one — and the shirt collar was soft enough to sit properly open.

Linen creases. That is the point of it, and it is why it works outdoors. By the speeches the elbows and the back of the knees had gone, and the suit looked better for it. If you cannot live with that, wear a wool-linen blend and accept that it will be hotter.

— What I would change: I would have brought a second shirt. And I would ask for a slightly higher armhole next time; the extra room felt generous in the fitting room and looked slack by the third photograph.

The lesson: the discipline is not in how much you put on. It is in knowing which room you are walking into, and dressing for that room rather than for the one you would prefer.