Over time, I am certainly dressing better - more tastefully, more expressively and more personally - but there are ups and downs. The trend might be upwards, but it’s still a scatter diagram. 

My history with tobacco-linen suits is a good example. I’ve loved that colour in linen ever since it appeared in street-style images shot by The Sartorialist and others, back in the early 2010s. In the same way as something like Solaro, it seemed the epitome of Italian chic - subtle colour, usually with a simple ‘Italian background’ of blue shirt and navy tie. 

In 2014 I had one made by the Spanish tailor Langa, when I visited the country covering people for Permanent Style. It wasn’t great unfortunately, with the shoulders in particular being oddly unbalanced. The linen I chose - an eight-ounce from Scabal - was also rather light and it wrinkled more than I had expected (below). 

Still, I wore it a fair bit (I didn’t have much else) often with the jacket being worn on its own with high-twist or gabardine trousers. The wrinkling was less of an issue with sharp trousers below. 

Two years later, I tried to correct the mistake by having a new one made at Dege & Skinner on Savile Row (above). This was certainly better made, and I deliberately chose an Irish linen this time, W Bill 11oz, which also performed better. 

However, the linen was a little more orange than the previous suit, and over time it proved to lack that subtle sophistication - it was too bright, closer in style to a bright blue than being an interesting variation on brown. 

I had also chosen a Savile Row make because I thought sharpness would help with the wrinkliness, doubling down on that solution. But while it was a lovely, sharp suit, a softer Neapolitan make would probably have been better. 

I found I wore the Dege less than I thought, and that soured me on the idea of tobacco linen for a while. I turned to other things when I wanted something unusual, like Solaro or seersucker. 

I finally returned to tobacco this year, and it looks like I’ve finally nailed it. The suit here was made by Sartoria Ciardi in Naples, in W Bill linen but a shade darker than my Dege (61355 rather than 61358). It has the softness of a Neapolitan make but the body of an Irish linen, and that feels like the perfect combination. 

This could all seem very off-putting to someone considering bespoke tailoring for the first time. Eleven years to finally get the right thing, and thousands of pounds wasted along the way?

Well, not wasted. I enjoyed wearing both suits for a while, and only slowly came to understand what I would improve about them. I’d also say that my success rate with commissioning bespoke is still fairly high, and that I made just as many mistakes with RTW when I was young. (Etro suit with a paisley lining anyone?)

The difference with bespoke is that lack of ability to see something made up before you order it. It’s one reason I sometimes recommend to consultancy clients (I was talking to one last week about this) that they consider MTM when they’re starting out, even if they can afford bespoke. Because with MTM you can often see something already in RTW, and then have it made to your specifications. 

Regardless of the bumpy round I took to get here, I’ve been hugely enjoying this linen suit since I got it a couple of months ago.

The particularly pleasant surprise was how good it looks with black, as in the outfit above (see if you can spot my earring!).

For regular readers this will be obvious, but I’ve been wearing an increasing amount of black over the past five years (the first article on it was here) largely because it’s dark and everyday, but not the navy or charcoal of business attire. 

The fact black works with this colour of tobacco is the best illustration of its tone, as well. Black would have been far too stark a contrast - cheap looking - against that more orangey linen of the Dege suit. This shows how it’s basically just a variation of brown - lighter, redder - and that’s how it really looks in the W Bill bunch. 

The other combination is the classic Italian Background, with an old denim/linen shirt and a navy grenadine tie. 

In London, however, the thing I wear it with most is a denim shirt like this worn open-necked, or other shirts with some pattern and colour going on. A blue-and-white butcher’s stripe is great, for example, as is a green stripe. 

They’re all summer combinations, certainly, and in the UK you’d want it to be a sunny day really. But it’s a more subtle option for the sun than a cream linen or some brighter colour. And it’s great for a wedding somewhere in the Mediterranean. 

The other thing tobacco is lovely for is mid-brown leathers, like the Edward Green Belgravia loafers shown below. They’ve had a lot of love and polish over the years, but even so, with linen like this those brown tones really sing. Goes for belts too.

The starting price for a Sartoria Ciardi suit is £4000. The W Bill linen is 12/13oz and is WB61355.

The other clothes shown are:

• Bespoke linen/denim shirt from Luca Avitabile
• Drakes’ big-knot grenadine tie
• ‘Hardy’ sunglasses from EB Meyrowitz
• Olive socks from Anderson & Sheppard
• 'Belgravia' tassel loafers from Edward Green in dark oak
• Black knit from Rubato
• 'Piccadilly' loafers from Edward Green in London Grain leather
• Must de Cartier watch on green alligator strap

Photography: Lorenzo Sodi