When was the last time you bought or wore formal wear?

There was a time when we did not always dress like the Dude from The Big Lebowski. We would wear proper clothes. People went to work or important occasions wearing something other than shorts and food-stained stubble.

But for over a year, dressy clothes have been in the closet, reduced to irrelevance and, perhaps, a severe lack of vitamin D. Some people bring them out for video calls or virtual celebrations. But that’s no more for that garment than yard exercise is for a prisoner, a temporary respite from the cell.

As for buying shiny new threads, it seems pointless.

“If I remember right, I last bought formal outfits in early 2020,” says Rajdip Gupta, managing director and group CEO, Route Mobile. “There was a formal suit and a formal Jodhpuri suit. The formal suit was bought and worn for the IPO roadshow meetings in Hong Kong, and the Jodhpuri for the Listing Ceremony at the BSE.”

Nirav Choksi, co-founder and CEO at Fintech firm CredAble, dropped 10kg to get the swag for a cousin’s wedding this February, and bought a bespoke Jodhpuri for his new shape and size. Moreover, the suit was such it can double up as office wear. Then came the second lockdown and the suit lies in the wardrobe, with both man and his robes waiting for a chance to flaunt themselves before it is late.

“I now have a pristine black Jodhpuri tailored for my slimmer self and I now worry I will be back to my original weight,” says Choksi. “Maybe I could gift it to my newlywed cousin. I had worked hard over several months to lose 10 kg. The outfit is versatile in nature and is a perfect fit for an Indian wedding and as well as for a business event.”

The MD of investment bank Bexley Advisors, Utkarsh Sinha, likes suits from the UK. In 2019, he got one for a reunion of the University of Oxford, where he did his MBA. Since then, however, his new acquisition – made from wool – has been largely killing time in the closet, counting sheep.

“It’s a grey woollen suit,” Sinha says. “Honestly, I can’t wait to put it on again, soon. I revel in the ceremony attached to suiting up, knotting my tie and slipping in the cuff links. I still find excuses to slip into some Zoom meetings with a jacket on. There’s something special about a suit.”

Once every three or four months, Aditya Darolia would get a chance to wear something other than the everyday. That has changed now.

“The last time I bought any formal outfit, semi-formal I would say, was a month before the pandemic,” says Darolia, co-founder, PedalStart, an incubation platform. “Those days seem so distant. When I went to the store, I never knew that it would be in my wardrobe for so long. Otherwise such outfits get their turn at least in three-four months.”

Varun Tripuraneni, co-owner of football franchise Hyderabad FC, is also keen to dust off his jacket.

“The last time I bought a formal outfit was back in February 2020,” he says. “It was a suit, which I got for my sister’s wedding. I usually wear suits during my work trips abroad. Now, while my suit sits in the wardrobe, I am wondering when my next travels would be, when my next in-person business meeting would be or when I would be able to attend a normal event. While these are some things I am looking forward to, the need of the hour is to remain positive, calm and help each other till the world is a safer place.”