Evening dress is the most codified thing we make, and paradoxically the easiest to get wrong, because most of the visual references people carry come from hire shops.

Begin with cloth. A proper dinner suit is midnight blue or black barathea, not the same worsted as a business suit with facings added. Midnight blue reads blacker than black under artificial light.

Facings should be grosgrain or silk satin and should match the covered buttons and the trouser braid. A single button, a peak or shawl lapel, and no vents: the silhouette is meant to be quiet.

Everything else follows from restraint. A cummerbund or low-cut waistcoat to cover the waistband, a turn-down collar shirt with a marcella bib, and a hand-tied bow that is not perfectly symmetrical.