I've just bought a butter-soft woolen suit jacket. It has generous notched lapels, two vents, nicely inserted shoulders and is a seriously discreet shade of charcoal. Is it boxy? No. Does is catch the light and shine like a blob too much of hair gel? No. It's sartorially absolute.

I haven't just completed an eight-week fling with a tailor on Savile Row, nor have I just done a lap of Selfridges' menswear floor. I've been to M&S. So why, I ask you, is that questionable?

It's because there's this stigma that a designer item has qualities that make it better than an item without such a covetable label. This, of course, is foolish. Although I won't disregard any designer or any brand, it seems people will choose the name over the usability; even the wearability. Take a classic quilted bag from Chanel. Naturally timeless, but with a status symbol the size and weight of a football pitch, some will scrape together everything they can even just to afford the teeniest, weeniest size. What's left is a ridiculously small pouch, no bigger than a guinea pig, and truly unfit to carry anything expect a phone and a few millimeters of air, with carriers who falsely believe they've been hand picked by Karl himself to wear it. What a bunch of tits.

Anyway, Marks'. Given the recent revamp from the M&S design team, and with various references to classic menswear roots, I was pleased to find jackets that knew what they were talking about, and after leaving it a little too late to scour the high street, it was reassuring when I punched those few initials in Google and was presented with a well executed spread of options.

What really got me by the gills though, is how wise Marks & Spencer has been with length. I'm glad they've stayed so true to good proportions when it comes to jackets, where others have slipped down a fashion-laced slide of doom. It isn't only me that frowns inside when I see a horribly short suit jacket. Whose mind creases at the glimpse of a hem above the wrist of a relaxed arm. Surely these gents should see how such a short length makes a man oddly pear-shaped? More the reason why women's jackets are of a similar make. And it's so common on the high street and even throughout some of the bigger players that I wonder if we've lost track of what should and shouldn't be.

Really; Anyway; Blood softl boiling. I bought the jacket, had it taken in around the waist and the sleeves tapered a little and BAM - untraceably constructed and honestly charming. I wore it with pride, rather than discomfort, and grace, rather than gloat, which made my evening all the merrier.