A suit still cuts it, but it's all about comfort now | Jess CartnerMorley

There's something deeply satisfying about wearing an outfit that's made up of two matching pieces. Stepping into a bottom half and then a top half that share color and fabric, or slipping a matching coat over a dress, has a soothing, ritualistic simplicity. Like finishing a Rubik's Cube, but much easier. Repetition is always comforting, after all. A bowl of pasta, each bite the same as the last, is soothing and comforting after a long day; an episode of Friends you've seen 20 times before delivers a very peculiar dopamine hit.

That's why pajamas fit together. That's why, in the uncharted and psychologically turbulent waters of the first lockdown, people who didn't think they were tracksuits at all started happily clicking on colorful joggers with matching hoodies. Those days are over, thank goodness, but the tracksuit left a fashion legacy far beyond reliance on the elasticated waist. It gave us a taste for matchy-matchy as a nice way to dress.

For decades, the tailored suit has symbolized the tyranny of office hours, the faceless crush of the commute. A tailored suit was a look to note, to respect, but it wasn't really a look to love. In the age of hybrid working, the balance of power has shifted: the regime of office life in the office has loosened its iron grip on many people and changed our perception of suit-wearing.

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This summer, casual suits in party colors were a must-have for wedding guests. Extra-cold versions of the costume have become de rigueur in the most informal settings. At festivals, a vibrant printed short-sleeved shirt and matching shorts were the male look of choice for young peacocks; even at the beach, beach pajamas (drawstring shorts and open shirt) were summer's chicest swimwear. Matchy-matchy no longer means tense. It's not about lining up your pinstripes or neurotically coordinating your pumps with your clutch; that means pajamas and tracksuits and not having to think too much.

The linen suit is about as cool as a suit can get. Brad Pitt spent the summer riding through the European heatwave on the Bullet Train press tour wearing a series of juicy linen suits. Pitt is always easy on the eyes, but there was something particularly cheerful about him in slightly wrinkled pastel linen, making it look like he might be about to step off the red carpet and sit down at a bar with a beer. Maybe for a game of cards or a cheeky cigarette.

Pitt's only real rival for the icon of summer style - the coastal grandmother, the current imaginary main character of fashion, best epitomized by Diane Keaton in Nancy Meyers' Something's Gotta Give - could also be found in a linen suit. This version would be the color of a very good chardonnay. The pants would be rolled up – for walking on the beach, which a coastal grandmother often does – and the jacket as soft as a button-up shirt. There could be a straw hat.

The genius of a loose suit is that you don't need stripes, shoulder pads, a tie or of a starched shirt to make it look like... well, peek. A matching two-piece looks dapper, whether it's Savile Row or a new Nike tracksuit. (That, after all, is why the tracksuit has such status in streetwear: a suit is still power dressing, with stripes or a swoosh.) Comfort dressing is the new power dressing. Double the impact, half the effort. Suits me.